Next!

Another project major milestone completed yesterday in Delaware. We celebrated with some rabble rousing, surprisingly not with my consulting colleagues who all fled for the weekend, but as a guest of the client project team. As much grief as they have given me in the last couple of months, it was fun to go out and let off some steam together at the lovely Wilmington waterfront. It's not so often as a consultant that you are treated as one of the gang on the client side.

It has been surreal to be back here in Delaware, the place where my consulting career began. Every restaurant, bar and store holds a memory and strangely I have felt bittersweet emotions during my stay here. My personal life was quite difficult back then and the career outlook was even worse. In life it is sometimes hard to see the incremental changes you go through as they happen almost imperceptibly. Coming back here I can see how I have changed in the last 7 years and it doesn't look too bad. If nothing else I find myself more comfortable in my own skin as I approach my mid 30s.

Spending time with the client team last night I found out that a number have doctorates in chemistry as I do. It was fun having all kinds of geek conversations and reminiscing about graduate school, as well as wistfully wondering what had happened had we taken different roads than what brought us all together on the brewery patio in a big summer thunderstorm last night. I was even invited to send my resume in to come work with them if I was tired of consulting.

It has been entertaining watching the multinational team descend on the US and experience my home with then from their unique vantage point. I giggled endlessly when I saw a silly group of people walking down the highway to dinner and realized they were the Germans from one of the project teams. I guess they have figured out by now that you need to drive.

While here, my boss asked me to consider continuing on with the project afer November for the next phase of the project back in Europe/Middle East/Africa in a new position. More travel and depending on which territory I got I could be spending some of my winter in the darkness of Finland. Intriguing. The other two people I would be teamed with are some of my favorites so I am tempted to go for it. I may need to push for the sunny Barcelona slot though.

I'll spend the next week here doing some clean up and then its on to a visit with my parents and two weeks of vacation back in Munich before picking back up with the New World.

Posted from Delaware