Buying a place in Wales was a very easy decision to make. We saw the place and fell in love straight away. It had all of the things that we were looking for in a property – walls, roof, doors, etc. However, I am not writing about houses and moving in that sense. What I am writing about is that in order to move to Wales, I changed my job, which for me was a major life-change.
I was working for a computer consultancy at the time and had been there for about five years. It is a small company – that is, it is small in numbers but most definitely not small in its influence as it counted some major household names amongst its customers. Over the time that I was with them I had gone from a simple systems administrator with potential to a consultant who may of occasionally known what they were talking about.
When we started looking at smallholdings, and realised that we were going to have to move away from the London area in order to afford the sort of thing that we wanted, it seemed that these things progressed very slowly – and especially with the long list of features that we were looking for, I thought that I would have plenty of time to get used to the idea. This was not to be the case however. Being a consultant in the IT industry means that, in theory, a lot of the work that I do can be done anywhere. Writing reports, talking to people on the telephone, creating presentations, dialling up to remote computers and sorting them out can be done from anywhere. Only attending meetings and installing new equipment really need a physical presence – and so there was always the concept of working out of home.
Had we found a place along the M3 corridor or had there been some customers to look after down near Wales, then I would not have had to leave the safe, familiar, comforting surroundings that I knew so well. But we were moving to Wales and there were no customers in that area to look after.
It was suggested that I look around to see how other people did things and what sort of things other companies offered. So I had a trawl on the Internet and one particular job description caught my eye. There was a company out there looking for someone with my sort of skills and they were explicitly saying, “Work from Home”. This sounded almost too good to be true, but I sent an E-mail anyway.
I had read about the skills shortage within the industry, and knew that we had had difficulty in finding people, but had never thought to apply the logic to myself – why would I? I wasn’t looking for a job. As a result, I was completely knocked for six by the reaction that came back. How quickly could I get my CV over to them? Well, before I could send them a copy of my CV, I had to write it!
Having thrown together some form of document and E-mailed it over, I said that I would telephone them in the morning.
I did not get a chance to make that call, as the agency called me as soon as they had read it. They set up a telephone interview initially so that both sides could get a feel for each other before committing to interviews.
As the dreaded interview time approached, I asked Cheryl to come upstairs as well so that she could at least listen to one side of the interview and give me feedback afterwards.
At the allotted time, the phone was ominously silent. 5 Minutes passed, and I was wearing grooves in the floorboards as I checked the time on the clock. 10 minutes passed, and I was beginning to think that I had got the day wrong when at last, the ‘phone went.
Cheryl found that the majority of the interview that she heard was based around variants of, “Aye”, “Uh-huh” and “OK”. This was not an interview – it was trying to sell the job to me.
The agency came back to me later on and arranged a time for the more formal interview.
For this interview itself, I managed to get myself to the wrong site. Fortunately, this was not as much of a disaster as it could have been, as there are two sites in London and they are both within walking distance of each other.
The interview again turned out not so much to be interviewing me, but trying to sell the job to me. Working from home was not a problem, as they had had someone manage it very successfully in the past. Moving to Wales was in fact a bonus, as they are looking to expand their business in the south west, and having a techie in the area would be an advantage.
It was an unpleasant job to go back and tell my directors that I had found a job that would accommodate me being in Wales, as after all the time I had spent with them, it seemed a little like I was letting them down.
I had to wait a while before I had my written confirmation of the job offer – and there was no way I was going to hand in my notice without it! This delay in leaving was a good thing, as I had some projects on the go, and I did not want to leave until I had completed them and handed over all of my responsibilities.
Handing in my notice was less painful than I thought it would be – mainly because I had had several weeks to get used to the idea while I was waiting for the official conformation.
The actual day of leaving was strange. I handed back all of my office keys and took my car to get it cleaned before handing it back. The thing that I found the hardest was turning off my computer. Shutting it down seemed such a final thing to do.
Just about the whole company came down to the pub for my farewell. The only person I did not see was one of the directors who was in London on company business – and even though I was leaving, the company still went on.
There had been a lot of thought put into my leaving presents – the umbrella and the fire tongs for the wood burner to cope with the Welsh weather. One nice touch was a tie with a duck on it. Ducks had become an unofficial symbol of the company, and so I have been able to wear the tie to think of them without anyone else knowing the meaning of it.
On the Monday, I left the house nice and early so as to get to the new office in plenty of time. What I had not considered was just how bad London traffic is and that there were roadworks all over the place. I finally managed to get in for 10:30 – not a good start for one’s first day!
As I was taken round and introduced, I had to keep reminding myself that this was not just another customer site, this was now where I worked. One thing that I did find out was that they had made enquires about me before I started. As it happens, the main person they talked to just happened to be someone who I had helped solve a problem some time before. As such, I now found that I had a reputation to live up to as this had already gone around the company. One quote that I heard later was, “I don’t care if he has twelve people behind him insisting that he can walk on water, I still want to see him do it”. I now had to reassure the other techies that I was not about to oust them, but to integrate into a new team.
The second day, I left even earlier to try and cope with the London traffic. This time I got there at 08:10, but at least I was not late! It was coming back home that evening that I had real problems. The traffic was abysmal. It took me over an hour to drive about 5 miles! Not being a very good commuter, I was getting more and more depressed as I sat there going nowhere. What had I done? Was this what Life was going to be like? Hours of traffic every day? The only thing that kept me going was the knowledge that this was only a temporary matter until I moved. After that my main daily commute would be over my own yard to one of the barns.
Due to the various trials and tribulations of the house sale, what was going to be a couple of weeks in the office to get to know people before I started working from home, turned into over a month. Fortunately, the commute was never as bad as that second day. This did however mean that I was able to get to know the people in the office quite well before moving.
I took a week off for the actual move and then started working from home. This was very strange to start with, as my office was now a small alcove at the top of the stairs as this was one of the few spaces that was not full of packing boxes. Since then, as other spaces became clear, I moved around the house to find the most comfortable location – though Cheryl claims it is so that I can find the most awkward place for all the computer cables.
One of the main things that I have had to sort out has been boundaries (and anyone who has done The LifeRites foundation course will know – boundaries are very important). I have had to try and impose limitations on when I work – else I would end up working 24 hours a day. Cheryl is very good at not disturbing me when I am at work – other than topping up the caffeine drip.
I still regularly go out and visit customer sites. Interestingly enough, it doesn’t take me that much longer to get to Birmingham or Manchester from Wales as it did from Aldershot – though I now get the magnificence of watching the sun rise through the Black Mountains rather than the Newbury Bypass!