Watch This Space

There's a couple of old saws at play here. The first being that no international assignment is assured until you're on the ground. The second being that, no matter how long they tell you that you'll be gone, the time away from home will be doubled.

Are these beliefs in conflict?

I received my final medical result this morning, "Our company physician has approved you for deployment." This certainly looks easy enough, but was not even close to that. To go to a war zone these days, even the lowly Contractor has to be a healthy physical specimen. Full physical. Full range of innoculations. Blood tests, lung tests, hearing tests. Eye exam. Dental exam. Pokes and prods. I bet I spent three full days on the process.

And at each step, I was afforded the opportunity to fail - to *not* receive the physician approval.

In the background is the project, and contract, and politics, and war. Any of which could self-destruct at any time. As each day passes, though, this trip seems more assured,... but I'm still not on the ground. In the mean time, I'm hanging out at the Home Office for a few days, meeting the team and doing some prepatory work. Some of the team still has some medical crap to deal with, some are trying to figure out how to pack for five weeks on a military facility, and how they will hump all of their crap one they get there.

My first rule of thumb - no bright colors. As such, my entire wardrobe should allow me to blend in with the surrounding dirt at a moment's notice. Second rule of thumb - imagine there will be no restocking. It's hard to say what will be available at the local Post eXchange, so clothing, tools, and incidentals need to be thought out early and conveyed in full. The big decision is to define everything that you'll need to be self sufficient, less food and water, for an extended time away from everything. If it's not with you at the start, you'll probably need to do without, as there won't be a Walgreens on the corner. On the opposing end, anything uneccessary that makes its way into your kit will have to be humped around for weeks.

I've got a pretty good list, though, refined through the years, that makes this a little easier. It still needs little project specific tweaks, but I end up being mostly efficient. The downside, if it really is, is that I've brought few Home Office appropriate togs with me, and my dirt colored wardrobe doesn't quite match the ties and suits that roam the corridors here.

Aaah. Whatever.

Second saw, time away. When they first sold me on this work, it was for a 39 day gig. Once they had buy in, they loaded the front end and delayed the return, maintaining the number of days in country, but upping the total days away from home to 47. Last week, we were asked to spend two weeks towards preceding the submittal at Corporate, adding another 12 nights. All told, 39 days expanded to 59, or about 50% more than the original bargain.

Typical.

To answer the original question, there's no conflict. Sometimes projects get cancelled for any number of reasons. Most times, they go on for longer than anticipated. Right now, I think this projects a go. Right now, I think the time there will fly by.