Whos given up everything to follow a dream ?
Discussion
Wow, taken back a bit with the comments, this being PH I expected at least some typical "witty retorts" shall we say.
To answer a couple of the questions. Not ex forces, there was one point though where I had a very interesting brush with the military in Africa. This came about following a summons one particularly fine morning from PDG. Now PDG may sound like a fairly innocuous acronym. In the world of Shell though the mere mention of these three little letters were enough to send even the toughest roustabout into a cold sweat. PDG was in fact, when translated into proper English, the President Director General. This lofty title being alloted to Shells 3rd in command, with the owner of the titles primary responsibility being all African operations.
My appointment was scheduled for 2pm that very afternoon.
Now it should be mentioned at this point that I had now achieved the lofty status of project manager. This elevation from humble IT support geek may seem like quite a meteoric rise and in the real world you would expect at the very least for it to have came about from much studying of Prince manuals, endless interviews and a determined career based outlook.
This though was not the real world, this was the bizarre world that is known as Shell International.
My promotion therfore came about one quiet Tuesday morning as we enjoyed our third well deserved coffee break of the day. It has to said that it had been a rather tough start to the day, the phone having rang off the hook twice already and it was only 10am. Admittedly one call was from the Rig Manager, Joe Diamond, who was a bit bored and enquired if someone could pop over to install Tetris on his machine. Now normally we would have dismissed such a request out of hand, such things being totally against company policy. We where though won over by the promise of Joe buying the first round in the bar that night so decided to overlook the rules on this occasion. The other call being Pete french, our Head of Transport. This though turned out to be a wrong number as he was still feeling a tad hung over from the previous evening and could not see straight yet. His mood was lifted though when we informed him that Joe had offered to buy the beers in the club tonight. So two happy customers and a free round of drinks already and it was still only 10am.
So anyway, as the five dedicated professionals that made up the Shell Gabon IT department recovered from this influx of work the boss wanders in. This was always a bad sign, Peter seldom ventured over to the deepest darkest porta cabin that was IT. Mainly due to the fact it was a long walk from the management offices, at least 500 yards, and it was way to fecking hot outside to be covering these type of distances.
This had to be serious.
"Ok guys, we have a request from central IT" at this point we all start looking at our shoes and shuffling towards our desks. Requests from central IT always meant that they had came up with another stupid innovation to make everyones life in the OpCo easier. We tended to deal with these requests in one of two ways, the first and preferred option was to completely ignore it, failing that the second method would involve getting a contractor in to do the work.
This particular one turned out to right dooser though. It seemed that central IT had decided to implement windows NT and upgrade all opco networks to the newly released Novel 3.1. This was HUGE, there was no way of wriggling out of the mountain of work involved in this. Having passed on this information Peter waited for a response from his eager IT professionals. Unfortunately, since he had never actually employed any eager IT professionals, he was met with nothing more than audible groans.
"Come on guys, this will involve lots of great training. This is cutting edge stuff" This was greeted with still deeper groans.
Now a life lesson I have picked up along the way is this. Never be the first to ask a question. In fact just keep out of the whole question loop altogether.
At this point though I had not learned this lesson.
"This is a big piece of work Peter, who is going to manage all this, there is lot to do you know and we just don't have the people".
I realised my mistake as soon as the words left my mouth.
"Really glad you asked that question Chim, I was just saying to Wilhem" this was Peter's boss "that we could really use a project manager for this job" I was now doomed "and now I think about you would be perfect for it" peter continued "After all, you have lots of experience of the site and you are a natural communicator" peter states with a huge, I am making a real management decision, grin on his face. "So thats it sorted then, we can get the contractors in and you can manage the whole thing. Perfect"
And so it came to pass that I became Shell Gabon's first IT project manager.
So there I was, sat outside PDG's office. Now the last time I was here was when the Gendarmery complained that someone from the expat camp had run over a local in town the night before. For some reason I had been implicated in this crime and since the guy had actually died they where treating it as a relatively serious matter. As it happens though I played a lot of Golf with PDG, so after a nice chat we managed to come up with a cunning plan to resolve this little problem. That though is another story.
So I am summoned into the office. "Chim, hows it going" Paul says with a smile. "Good I think Paul, although given I have been summoned here in working hours I suspect that this could change" I say. "Not at all" laughs Paul " I just have an interesting little job that needs doing and I think you will fit the bill perfectly"
As it transpires this little job involved shutting down Shell Headquarters in Port Gentil, headquarter that employed a great many of the local population and kept them in a very nice manner. This would not go down well.
So it came to pass that Shell Gabons best PM was called on to manage the whole affair.
Well to honest, at this point I was Shell Gabons only Project Manager as the one that actually new how to do the job had been bitten by a rather nasty Snake the previous week while looking for his ball on the golf course.
So it fell to me to undertake the work and that is where my first brush with the armed forces came in.
Due the rather sensitive nature of the site closure, combined with the locals propensity for burning things down and rioting when faced with a life of complete poverty on the departure of the local meal ticket, go figure, some people are just never happy. I found myself sat in the office of Gabon's Minister of Defence perusing a list of military equipment and units that I could hire to ensure the safety of the operation.
This I must admit was rather good fun. It was a bit like playing soldiers when you where a kid. I got to pick how many rifle guys and machine gunners I wanted along with a price list for a small range of tanks and armored vehicles that I could hire. All this while discussing perimeter boundaries, troop deployment, security techniques and combat command and control. Excellent.
This whole project manager thing was turning out to be a lot more fun than I had originally envisaged, this, combined with the very healthy pay increase meant that I was undoubtedly starting to settle in to this job quite nicely.
Well that was a rather long winded answer to a question. May avoid answering further queries until I am feeling a little less lyrically inspired
To answer a couple of the questions. Not ex forces, there was one point though where I had a very interesting brush with the military in Africa. This came about following a summons one particularly fine morning from PDG. Now PDG may sound like a fairly innocuous acronym. In the world of Shell though the mere mention of these three little letters were enough to send even the toughest roustabout into a cold sweat. PDG was in fact, when translated into proper English, the President Director General. This lofty title being alloted to Shells 3rd in command, with the owner of the titles primary responsibility being all African operations.
My appointment was scheduled for 2pm that very afternoon.
Now it should be mentioned at this point that I had now achieved the lofty status of project manager. This elevation from humble IT support geek may seem like quite a meteoric rise and in the real world you would expect at the very least for it to have came about from much studying of Prince manuals, endless interviews and a determined career based outlook.
This though was not the real world, this was the bizarre world that is known as Shell International.
My promotion therfore came about one quiet Tuesday morning as we enjoyed our third well deserved coffee break of the day. It has to said that it had been a rather tough start to the day, the phone having rang off the hook twice already and it was only 10am. Admittedly one call was from the Rig Manager, Joe Diamond, who was a bit bored and enquired if someone could pop over to install Tetris on his machine. Now normally we would have dismissed such a request out of hand, such things being totally against company policy. We where though won over by the promise of Joe buying the first round in the bar that night so decided to overlook the rules on this occasion. The other call being Pete french, our Head of Transport. This though turned out to be a wrong number as he was still feeling a tad hung over from the previous evening and could not see straight yet. His mood was lifted though when we informed him that Joe had offered to buy the beers in the club tonight. So two happy customers and a free round of drinks already and it was still only 10am.
So anyway, as the five dedicated professionals that made up the Shell Gabon IT department recovered from this influx of work the boss wanders in. This was always a bad sign, Peter seldom ventured over to the deepest darkest porta cabin that was IT. Mainly due to the fact it was a long walk from the management offices, at least 500 yards, and it was way to fecking hot outside to be covering these type of distances.
This had to be serious.
"Ok guys, we have a request from central IT" at this point we all start looking at our shoes and shuffling towards our desks. Requests from central IT always meant that they had came up with another stupid innovation to make everyones life in the OpCo easier. We tended to deal with these requests in one of two ways, the first and preferred option was to completely ignore it, failing that the second method would involve getting a contractor in to do the work.
This particular one turned out to right dooser though. It seemed that central IT had decided to implement windows NT and upgrade all opco networks to the newly released Novel 3.1. This was HUGE, there was no way of wriggling out of the mountain of work involved in this. Having passed on this information Peter waited for a response from his eager IT professionals. Unfortunately, since he had never actually employed any eager IT professionals, he was met with nothing more than audible groans.
"Come on guys, this will involve lots of great training. This is cutting edge stuff" This was greeted with still deeper groans.
Now a life lesson I have picked up along the way is this. Never be the first to ask a question. In fact just keep out of the whole question loop altogether.
At this point though I had not learned this lesson.
"This is a big piece of work Peter, who is going to manage all this, there is lot to do you know and we just don't have the people".
I realised my mistake as soon as the words left my mouth.
"Really glad you asked that question Chim, I was just saying to Wilhem" this was Peter's boss "that we could really use a project manager for this job" I was now doomed "and now I think about you would be perfect for it" peter continued "After all, you have lots of experience of the site and you are a natural communicator" peter states with a huge, I am making a real management decision, grin on his face. "So thats it sorted then, we can get the contractors in and you can manage the whole thing. Perfect"
And so it came to pass that I became Shell Gabon's first IT project manager.
So there I was, sat outside PDG's office. Now the last time I was here was when the Gendarmery complained that someone from the expat camp had run over a local in town the night before. For some reason I had been implicated in this crime and since the guy had actually died they where treating it as a relatively serious matter. As it happens though I played a lot of Golf with PDG, so after a nice chat we managed to come up with a cunning plan to resolve this little problem. That though is another story.
So I am summoned into the office. "Chim, hows it going" Paul says with a smile. "Good I think Paul, although given I have been summoned here in working hours I suspect that this could change" I say. "Not at all" laughs Paul " I just have an interesting little job that needs doing and I think you will fit the bill perfectly"
As it transpires this little job involved shutting down Shell Headquarters in Port Gentil, headquarter that employed a great many of the local population and kept them in a very nice manner. This would not go down well.
So it came to pass that Shell Gabons best PM was called on to manage the whole affair.
Well to honest, at this point I was Shell Gabons only Project Manager as the one that actually new how to do the job had been bitten by a rather nasty Snake the previous week while looking for his ball on the golf course.
So it fell to me to undertake the work and that is where my first brush with the armed forces came in.
Due the rather sensitive nature of the site closure, combined with the locals propensity for burning things down and rioting when faced with a life of complete poverty on the departure of the local meal ticket, go figure, some people are just never happy. I found myself sat in the office of Gabon's Minister of Defence perusing a list of military equipment and units that I could hire to ensure the safety of the operation.
This I must admit was rather good fun. It was a bit like playing soldiers when you where a kid. I got to pick how many rifle guys and machine gunners I wanted along with a price list for a small range of tanks and armored vehicles that I could hire. All this while discussing perimeter boundaries, troop deployment, security techniques and combat command and control. Excellent.
This whole project manager thing was turning out to be a lot more fun than I had originally envisaged, this, combined with the very healthy pay increase meant that I was undoubtedly starting to settle in to this job quite nicely.
Well that was a rather long winded answer to a question. May avoid answering further queries until I am feeling a little less lyrically inspired
Edited by Chim on Friday 23 November 23:19
Adenauer said:
Absolutely wonderful read, Chim, thanks.
And standing there, without a Passport, then relisation dawns, Jesus, I can really imagine how you felt!!
There comes a time in everybody's foreign travel when you realise that once outside of the western world you really and seriously have no rights any more, nobody respects you, there is no 999 to call, there is no NHS to patch you up if you're injured, and if the sticky stuff does hit the fan, you, and only you, are going to be interested in sorting it out. And standing there, without a Passport, then relisation dawns, Jesus, I can really imagine how you felt!!
It never happens though, something always comes along.....
Well, i've gone and done it, finally.
Jacked in my job, renting my house out, sold my cars, sold most of my belongings, sitting in a very empty house waiting for a lift to the airport.
Gave up my job of 27 years and decide i'm going travelling for a while. Don't know how long a 'while' is yet but could be a few years to explore the world.
Going down to new Zealand to join a private yacht thats leaving for New Caledonia, Vanautu, Australia, then up through Indonesia to Thailand, might then go onto Sri Lanka and India.
When the decision was finally made to go - boy it felt good. A massive weight was lifted from my shoulders and after have sat at my desk like a vegtable for the last few years, I suddenly felt alive again.
Thank you Pistonheads and PH'ers for an enjoyable stay, its been fun !!
Regards,
Simon
Jacked in my job, renting my house out, sold my cars, sold most of my belongings, sitting in a very empty house waiting for a lift to the airport.
Gave up my job of 27 years and decide i'm going travelling for a while. Don't know how long a 'while' is yet but could be a few years to explore the world.
Going down to new Zealand to join a private yacht thats leaving for New Caledonia, Vanautu, Australia, then up through Indonesia to Thailand, might then go onto Sri Lanka and India.
When the decision was finally made to go - boy it felt good. A massive weight was lifted from my shoulders and after have sat at my desk like a vegtable for the last few years, I suddenly felt alive again.
Thank you Pistonheads and PH'ers for an enjoyable stay, its been fun !!
Regards,
Simon
Chim said:
Wow, taken back a bit with the comments, this being PH I expected at least some typical "witty retorts" shall we say.
To answer a couple of the questions. Not ex forces, there was one point though where I had a very interesting brush with the military in Africa. This came about following a summons one particularly fine morning from PDG. Now PDG may sound like a fairly innocuous acronym. In the world of Shell though the mere mention of these three little letters were enough to send even the toughest roustabout into a cold sweat. PDG was in fact, when translated into proper English, the President Director General. This lofty title being alloted to Shells 3rd in command, with the owner of the titles primary responsibility being all African operations.
My appointment was scheduled for 2pm that very afternoon.
Now it should be mentioned at this point that I had now achieved the lofty status of project manager. This elevation from humble IT support geek may seem like quite a meteoric rise and in the real world you would expect at the very least for it to have came about from much studying of Prince manuals, endless interviews and a determined career based outlook.
This though was not the real world, this was the bizarre world that is known as Shell International.
My promotion therfore came about one quiet Tuesday morning as we enjoyed our third well deserved coffee break of the day. It has to said that it had been a rather tough start to the day, the phone having rang off the hook twice already and it was only 10am. Admittedly one call was from the Rig Manager, Joe Diamond, who was a bit bored and enquired if someone could pop over to install Tetris on his machine. Now normally we would have dismissed such a request out of hand, such things being totally against company policy. We where though won over by the promise of Joe buying the first round in the bar that night so decided to overlook the rules on this occasion. The other call being Pete french, our Head of Transport. This though turned out to be a wrong number as he was still feeling a tad hung over from the previous evening and could not see straight yet. His mood was lifted though when we informed him that Joe had offered to buy the beers in the club tonight. So two happy customers and a free round of drinks already and it was still only 10am.
So anyway, as the five dedicated professionals that made up the Shell Gabon IT department recovered from this influx of work the boss wanders in. This was always a bad sign, Peter seldom ventured over to the deepest darkest porta cabin that was IT. Mainly due to the fact it was a long walk from the management offices, at least 500 yards, and it was way to fecking hot outside to be covering these type of distances.
This had to be serious.
"Ok guys, we have a request from central IT" at this point we all start looking at our shoes and shuffling towards our desks. Requests from central IT always meant that they had came up with another stupid innovation to make everyones life in the OpCo easier. We tended to deal with these requests in one of two ways, the first and preferred option was to completely ignore it, failing that the second method would involve getting a contractor in to do the work.
This particular one turned out to right dooser though. It seemed that central IT had decided to implement windows NT and upgrade all opco networks to the newly released Novel 3.1. This was HUGE, there was no way of wriggling out of the mountain of work involved in this. Having passed on this information Peter waited for a response from his eager IT professionals. Unfortunately, since he had never actually employed any eager IT professionals, he was met with nothing more than audible groans.
"Come on guys, this will involve lots of great training. This is cutting edge stuff" This was greeted with still deeper groans.
Now a life lesson I have picked up along the way is this. Never be the first to ask a question. In fact just keep out of the whole question loop altogether.
At this point though I had not learned this lesson.
"This is a big piece of work Peter, who is going to manage all this, there is lot to do you know and we just don't have the people".
I realised my mistake as soon as the words left my mouth.
"Really glad you asked that question Chim, I was just saying to Wilhem" this was Peter's boss "that we could really use a project manager for this job" I was now doomed "and now I think about you would be perfect for it" peter continued "After all, you have lots of experience of the site and you are a natural communicator" peter states with a huge, I am making a real management decision, grin on his face. "So thats it sorted then, we can get the contractors in and you can manage the whole thing. Perfect"
And so it came to pass that I became Shell Gabon's first IT project manager.
So there I was, sat outside PDG's office. Now the last time I was here was when the Gendarmery complained that someone from the expat camp had run over a local in town the night before. For some reason I had been implicated in this crime and since the guy had actually died they where treating it as a relatively serious matter. As it happens though I played a lot of Golf with PDG, so after a nice chat we managed to come up with a cunning plan to resolve this little problem. That though is another story.
So I am summoned into the office. "Chim, hows it going" Paul says with a smile. "Good I think Paul, although given I have been summoned here in working hours I suspect that this could change" I say. "Not at all" laughs Paul " I just have an interesting little job that needs doing and I think you will fit the bill perfectly"
As it transpires this little job involved shutting down Shell Headquarters in Port Gentil, headquarter that employed a great many of the local population and kept them in a very nice manner. This would not go down well.
So it came to pass that Shell Gabons best PM was called on to manage the whole affair.
Well to honest, at this point I was Shell Gabons only Project Manager as the one that actually new how to do the job had been bitten by a rather nasty Snake the previous week while looking for his ball on the golf course.
So it fell to me to undertake the work and that is where my first brush with the armed forces came in.
Due the rather sensitive nature of the site closure, combined with the locals propensity for burning things down and rioting when faced with a life of complete poverty on the departure of the local meal ticket, go figure, some people are just never happy. I found myself sat in the office of Gabon's Minister of Defence perusing a list of military equipment and units that I could hire to ensure the safety of the operation.
This I must admit was rather good fun. It was a bit like playing soldiers when you where a kid. I got to pick how many rifle guys and machine gunners I wanted along with a price list for a small range of tanks and armored vehicles that I could hire. All this while discussing perimeter boundaries, troop deployment, security techniques and combat command and control. Excellent.
This whole project manager thing was turning out to be a lot more fun than I had originally envisaged, this, combined with the very healthy pay increase meant that I was undoubtedly starting to settle in to this job quite nicely.
Well that was a rather long winded answer to a question. May avoid answering further queries until I am feeling a little less lyrically inspired
Completely missed your tales first time around. Incredible.To answer a couple of the questions. Not ex forces, there was one point though where I had a very interesting brush with the military in Africa. This came about following a summons one particularly fine morning from PDG. Now PDG may sound like a fairly innocuous acronym. In the world of Shell though the mere mention of these three little letters were enough to send even the toughest roustabout into a cold sweat. PDG was in fact, when translated into proper English, the President Director General. This lofty title being alloted to Shells 3rd in command, with the owner of the titles primary responsibility being all African operations.
My appointment was scheduled for 2pm that very afternoon.
Now it should be mentioned at this point that I had now achieved the lofty status of project manager. This elevation from humble IT support geek may seem like quite a meteoric rise and in the real world you would expect at the very least for it to have came about from much studying of Prince manuals, endless interviews and a determined career based outlook.
This though was not the real world, this was the bizarre world that is known as Shell International.
My promotion therfore came about one quiet Tuesday morning as we enjoyed our third well deserved coffee break of the day. It has to said that it had been a rather tough start to the day, the phone having rang off the hook twice already and it was only 10am. Admittedly one call was from the Rig Manager, Joe Diamond, who was a bit bored and enquired if someone could pop over to install Tetris on his machine. Now normally we would have dismissed such a request out of hand, such things being totally against company policy. We where though won over by the promise of Joe buying the first round in the bar that night so decided to overlook the rules on this occasion. The other call being Pete french, our Head of Transport. This though turned out to be a wrong number as he was still feeling a tad hung over from the previous evening and could not see straight yet. His mood was lifted though when we informed him that Joe had offered to buy the beers in the club tonight. So two happy customers and a free round of drinks already and it was still only 10am.
So anyway, as the five dedicated professionals that made up the Shell Gabon IT department recovered from this influx of work the boss wanders in. This was always a bad sign, Peter seldom ventured over to the deepest darkest porta cabin that was IT. Mainly due to the fact it was a long walk from the management offices, at least 500 yards, and it was way to fecking hot outside to be covering these type of distances.
This had to be serious.
"Ok guys, we have a request from central IT" at this point we all start looking at our shoes and shuffling towards our desks. Requests from central IT always meant that they had came up with another stupid innovation to make everyones life in the OpCo easier. We tended to deal with these requests in one of two ways, the first and preferred option was to completely ignore it, failing that the second method would involve getting a contractor in to do the work.
This particular one turned out to right dooser though. It seemed that central IT had decided to implement windows NT and upgrade all opco networks to the newly released Novel 3.1. This was HUGE, there was no way of wriggling out of the mountain of work involved in this. Having passed on this information Peter waited for a response from his eager IT professionals. Unfortunately, since he had never actually employed any eager IT professionals, he was met with nothing more than audible groans.
"Come on guys, this will involve lots of great training. This is cutting edge stuff" This was greeted with still deeper groans.
Now a life lesson I have picked up along the way is this. Never be the first to ask a question. In fact just keep out of the whole question loop altogether.
At this point though I had not learned this lesson.
"This is a big piece of work Peter, who is going to manage all this, there is lot to do you know and we just don't have the people".
I realised my mistake as soon as the words left my mouth.
"Really glad you asked that question Chim, I was just saying to Wilhem" this was Peter's boss "that we could really use a project manager for this job" I was now doomed "and now I think about you would be perfect for it" peter continued "After all, you have lots of experience of the site and you are a natural communicator" peter states with a huge, I am making a real management decision, grin on his face. "So thats it sorted then, we can get the contractors in and you can manage the whole thing. Perfect"
And so it came to pass that I became Shell Gabon's first IT project manager.
So there I was, sat outside PDG's office. Now the last time I was here was when the Gendarmery complained that someone from the expat camp had run over a local in town the night before. For some reason I had been implicated in this crime and since the guy had actually died they where treating it as a relatively serious matter. As it happens though I played a lot of Golf with PDG, so after a nice chat we managed to come up with a cunning plan to resolve this little problem. That though is another story.
So I am summoned into the office. "Chim, hows it going" Paul says with a smile. "Good I think Paul, although given I have been summoned here in working hours I suspect that this could change" I say. "Not at all" laughs Paul " I just have an interesting little job that needs doing and I think you will fit the bill perfectly"
As it transpires this little job involved shutting down Shell Headquarters in Port Gentil, headquarter that employed a great many of the local population and kept them in a very nice manner. This would not go down well.
So it came to pass that Shell Gabons best PM was called on to manage the whole affair.
Well to honest, at this point I was Shell Gabons only Project Manager as the one that actually new how to do the job had been bitten by a rather nasty Snake the previous week while looking for his ball on the golf course.
So it fell to me to undertake the work and that is where my first brush with the armed forces came in.
Due the rather sensitive nature of the site closure, combined with the locals propensity for burning things down and rioting when faced with a life of complete poverty on the departure of the local meal ticket, go figure, some people are just never happy. I found myself sat in the office of Gabon's Minister of Defence perusing a list of military equipment and units that I could hire to ensure the safety of the operation.
This I must admit was rather good fun. It was a bit like playing soldiers when you where a kid. I got to pick how many rifle guys and machine gunners I wanted along with a price list for a small range of tanks and armored vehicles that I could hire. All this while discussing perimeter boundaries, troop deployment, security techniques and combat command and control. Excellent.
This whole project manager thing was turning out to be a lot more fun than I had originally envisaged, this, combined with the very healthy pay increase meant that I was undoubtedly starting to settle in to this job quite nicely.
Well that was a rather long winded answer to a question. May avoid answering further queries until I am feeling a little less lyrically inspired
Edited by Chim on Friday 23 November 23:19
Did you ever get around to posting more?
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