Well week 1 came and went really fast and all in all was fun, frustrating and challenging. Starting any new job is daunting; adding to that a move across the world and only having 2 days to get over the 7 hour time change may not have been the best combination in retrospect...but that is the way I role.

Day 1 and I arrive to shuttles into a little room with 30 other new hires for the introductory training on Microsoft Ireland and Microsoft in general. 20+ of the new hires are recent college graduates. This is an 8 hour session on everything from putting a lid on you coffee to make sure you don’t get a burn to the IT Security policies. The session on the makeup of the Ireland office, with European Operations Team, Localization Development Teams and Ireland Sales Team is interesting as is the actual IT stuff. The rest is HR fluff that I could do without; I have had a job before!

I did get my picture taken for my blue badge, should have it within a week or so.

Tuesday really is my first day on the job. I got an email Monday night from my manager Donna asking me if I wanted to dive in and attend a 2 hour Partner strategy meeting with one of the 16 Microsoft Partners I am responsible for. Why not! I arrive onsite at 9:00 to prep before my 10:00 meeting. I get through security and sent up to the 8^th floor where I walk around for 15 minutes looking lost and decide to sit at the open staff area hoping to find someone to ask where to go. 15 more minutes with no human interaction and I start walking the floor lost again. Finally someone tells me I look lost and offers to find me my manager. Voila, I am about to start my day.

A quick hello, get handed my temporary laptop, sign on to the network, get some mail and off to the meeting. It is in this meeting that I find out that I am the Partner Technology Specialist responsible for server technologies (PG1 for the Microsofties). This means I need to be an expert in W2K8, virtualization, System Centre, DPM, and of course SBS/EBS. I have to backfill and support the IW stack (SharePoint, Office, Project Server, UC, etc). Nothing like finding out your job in the first meeting with a Partner!

Keeping with the get your feet in the fire, I was then send off to 2 more Partner meetings, taking up the entire day. There you go day 1 and I have been to 3 meetings with Partners.

You would think that working at Microsoft, a technology based company technology would be readily available. The short answer for this is YES and No. It is a very large organization, with over 150 000 people working in all the offices so there is a little bit of bureaucracy and rigor to all processes. Lets take getting a phone. I need to get a desk phone and extension. The Dublin office is primarily using Unified Communications and older IP phones. I of course want to use UC so I can use a soft phone from home as well as integrate to my mobile (that is coming next). To get UC I need to have an IP phone and then get upgraded...OK, that seems logical. A bunch of SharePoint based forms later, and a phone call to the local IT manager and I have someone setting up my IP phone on Friday; then some more online forms to make the change to UC for sometime next week.

This all seems OK, but I am new to Ireland and I need a phone to be able to call and get registered with the tax department, with immigration, etc. So I then wanted to get a mobile so I can make some calls in the wait for a desk phone. Wait, we are in the middle of a product refresh and there will be no new mobiles for 2 weeks or more while the Treo 850 is delivered and longer if you want one of the Sony phones.

Great, I happen across an older Windows Mobile phone from a hand me down on Thursday, but still need a SIM to get it functioning. A bunch of emails to various people...no go.

Friday night there is a team diner and drinks for some people who are leaving the team. This is a great way to meet everyone and really get to know them. We stop at one of Dublin’s oldest pubs before diner for a pint of Guinness and then off to a very upscale restaurant. Over a number of drinks I find someone with a spare SIM and by Monday I will have a working phone on my desk and a mobile I can use until the new phones arrive.

 Partner meeting location....golf course half way to Belfast....I like this job already :>)

 That is week 1 on the job

This where all the fun for the week really is. We decided to make a short trip out of Dublin on Saturday and see the coast. It is Sarah’s birthday today and we needed to do something fun for her and going up to the ocean is a great start for prairie people. We travel south of Dublin to Greystones. A tiny village with a very beautiful and rugged coast line about 30 km south of where we are staying. It is very windy, gusts up to 70km/h and it one of the best experiences of our life as the salty air slaps you across the face at the same time as the tide pounds the coast line. We have a nice Irish breakfast after or time on the shoreline and then drive back to Dublin. On the way home we discover that Emily seems to have developed a car sickness issue in Ireland.

On Sunday we take the LUAS commuter train to downtown Dublin to take in St. Stephen’s Green, an old gated park in the centre of town with a huge duck pond and beautiful gardens. After a picnic in the park we walk the Grafton Street area with all the shops in buildings from the early 1700 & 1800’s. This is a fantastic family day and maybe our best day in Ireland so far.

We then head home for supper and we can watch the rider game on TSN.ca when it is completed and posted. Go Green!

It is done, we have managed to pack and move to Dublin. Thursday was the big flight day and it was an adventure getting to this date and an even bigger one getting through it. In the weeks that followed my hiring by Microsoft there was a lot of waiting around, filling out forms, answering questions, etc. The companies that Microsoft has outsourced its relocation services to do a wonderful job of getting every last detail handled. The problem is you fill out all the questionnaires near the start of the process then you sit and wait for the Visa/Green Card process to complete before any of it can happen.

That can lead to a lot of frustration as you never actually have a travel date. You are given a window when it could happen, but never know for sure. This results in a lot of good bye’s with friends prematurely as you don’t know when you will really see them again. But when the green card process is complete, let me tell you the time is short between approval and pack, load and fly day. For me the official word came on Thursday August 21^st and by Friday they had booked the movers, hotel for us in Regina once the house was packed, a rental car for use in Regina, flights, an apartment for me in Dublin for the first 30 days, a rental car in Dublin for 30 days, a chauffeur to pick us up at the airport, contact the tax consultant in Dublin to schedule an appointment and a relocation specialist to start our home search and school search. That was in 24 hours!

The pack happened on the Tuesday and Wednesday, we cleaned the house and touched up paint, final renovations, etc until 2:00 AM Wednesday night and then flew to Dublin on Thursday afternoon/evening. We flew Air Canada the entire way and they had a great set of times. We left Regina at 2:09 local time to Toronto, had a 2 hour layover in Toronto and then direct to Dublin over night arriving at 9:00 AM Dublin time on Friday morning. This is where the Air Canada thing fell apart. I did some research and based on my previous travel experience with good old Air Canada had told the kids there would be movies and TV on the planes to watch. This was going to make my life my easier as we would not have to enterain them for the entire flight and avoid them making every passenger on the flight hate us. Well……

They have us seated like this (we are the x’s):

00 x0

00 xx

00 xx

Not so good for looking after 3 kids under 8! Luckily someone switched seats and I was able to sit beside the 2 older girls. The problem is there are NO TV’s on this flight. So with some coloring books, Polly Pocket’s, a craft gift from Emily’s very good friend Sachia we were able to make it most of the way without the kids screaming. The baby was real good. We let her walk the isle way between the 2 seats and she had fun. She made faces at the other passenger and they seemed to enjoy here laugh so it was all good. We get to Toronto with no scars and everyone in one piece. A short layover to get a meal in (they didn’t even give us a cookie on the flight!) and we are off to board the other flight.

So we arrive with enough time to spare before the pre-boarding is to begin. Sarah decides to take everyone to the bathroom first since they have not made the call yet. In the 5 to forever minutes they are off going to the washroom the call is made for the people with children (that one down), the call is made for the elite card patrons (another one down), and general boarding begins for the rows back to 27. Then they all show up and we are in a long line to board. Let me tell you carrying 8 carry-on bags, pushing a baby stroller and trying to keep 2 kids from running through security is no easy task. We managed to get on the flight and not have our pictures hung worldwide terrorist threats.

We get on the plane and it is the oldest 767 in Air Canada’s fleet. From my reading there are 2 that have not been upgraded with the new leather chairs and individual TV’s….and we have one of them! Great, 6 ½ hours with no TV to keep the kids amused. We are dead! The flight is completely booked. 5 minutes to departure and the pilot comes on saying they need to remove some bags from the flight as they people have not arrived for the flight….that equals a 15 minute delay.

My 4 year old Elizabeth asks me about the “remote control” in the back of the chair. “If this is the remote, where is the TV?” I explain to her that there is no TV’s again and that Kung-fu Panda is not going to be played and that remote is a phone. She then asks “What is Finley’s (her best friend) phone number?”

Sarah gets the kids their blankets and stuffed animals and the 4 year old falls asleep waiting for the bags to get removed. Now Air Canada has again seated us in the best possible manner:

0x xxx 00

00 x00 00

Perfect with a baby, mother 2 more kids and a dad. Luckily another passenger changed seats (for his own protection I believe) and we had 5 across. Then we get a visit from the flight attendant asking why the baby wasn’t sitting on Sarah’s lap or in a car seat. We explained that Celeste had a ticket and that we were told to put the car seats in the cargo with our luggage as she would not need one. After some checking they confirmed her as having the seat, but Sarah needed to hold her during take-off. Sarah cuddles the baby through take-off and 15 minutes into the flight we have another sleeping child. 2 down and 1 to go, we can deal with that!

Now this 1970’s plane comes equipped with a great entertainment system. The old school 2 pronged headphones and a projector hung from the roof the size of a small car. I am sure it was playing VHS as they fast forwarded one of the in-flight commercials. As for the movies, the first was a period piece bank robbery movie with Michael Cane and Demi Moore that sucked and then “What Women Want” with Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt. Wholly Crap! The 7 year old isn’t gonna watch this.

The meal was good and Emily ended up going to sleep about 90 minutes into the flight. Sarah and I stay awake for the whole flight and arrive in Dublin with about 9 hours sleep in the last 60 hours.

 We get off the plane on the tarmac (international airport with 1.1 million people in Dublin and we exit onto the asphalt!) and head to the Irish Immigrations booth before we get to our luggage. The lady at immigration reads my scanned copy of the green card and letter from the lawyer who filed for it ….a quick head shot for the computer system file and off we go to collect our bags and then to customs. Now, I am arriving with 8 carry-on and 9 checked pieces of luggage, 3 trolleys worth of luggage plus a jogging stroller just so you get a picture of me in the airport with Sarah and the kids. We are heading off to customs they have 3 lines:

Red:       Came from Ireland origin flight

Green:  Came from EU, N.A. or other origin with nothing to claim             

Blue:      Came from EU, N.A. or other origin with something to claim or unsure

You are kidding me right! So we head to the Green line. It is very long and there is a reason for it……you don’t get checked! This is the honor system of international customs, you walk through the door and there is the lobby to the exit doors. I kid you not, no checking. I am use to entering the USA and returning to Canada from the USA and being asked detailed questions and even searched in very inappropriate ways to try and find 1 extra beer in your possession. Here….walk on through sir….good day!

We were shocked in disbelief and tired from the travel but we had made it to Dublin unscarred, and then we somehow lost Emily who was pushing the baby stroller with the baby in it. When we walked through this magical tunnel that is customs someone had cut in between us and she turned left instead of right. Well this was a great scare. Sarah stayed with the bags and Elizabeth and I looked for her in the airport lobby. 5 minutes later and I had found her by the door trying to finds someone who worked at the airport to report her problem to. She was calm and did exactly what we had trained her to do. Everyone was safe and she was rewarded for a good job instead of talked to angrily for loosing us. A long 5 minutes, but they turned out fine.

Our chauffeur was waiting and we managed to fit everything into his Chryster mini-van and off we went to the apartment. We unpacked and walked down to the local grocery store for some supplies to make chicken and spaghetti for dinner. We were surprised at how reasonable the food prices were and amazed to find organic vegetables and fruit was about the same price as the other. We had our dinner, walked back for some ice cream and then it was an early bed time as everyone was tired. We woke this morning and felt refreshed and everyone seems to have adjusted to the time change OK. We took a train today to the mall to get some more supplies and have a bit of an adventure.

All in all life in Dublin is good so far. Monday will be the real test as it is my first day at work and Sarah’s first day with 3 kids in an apartment in a new country, but I know she will do great.

Will

So we have been getting ready to pack up our lives and move them to the emerald isle over the last couple of weeks. This is a very confusing task really. We don't have a home in Ireland so we really don't know what exactly to pack and what to sell. We have made the decision to not take very much with us and just take the basics. Well this seems like a good idea, when you involve 3 kids under the age of 8 and a mother who wants to being most of the kids stuff it becomes a struggle.

I love my wife and kids, but the reality is that we have become willing participants in the commercialization that is North American life. We have too much stuff! It is so easy to do here in North America; we live in very large houses and have shopping centers surrounding our communities. It really doesn't hit home until you need to pack it up as to how much stuff you really own. Moving to a country with much smaller homes has given me an appreciation for less is more and as a result we needed to revisit all of the stuff we have and decide what really was important and what was not. This process leads to the ever popular "Garage Sale". We had one on the weekend and it was soooo much fun.

I hate garage sales! There, I said it. These events bring people I would never invite to my house to my house to route through my stuff and make comments on its worth. Why is it people cannot walk up to a box of items marked as 25 cents each and expect to pay 25 cents for them. This is not Tijuana, where bartering is expected and built into the price. Why is it people expect some type of warranty on used items and question how you could charge $10 for a slow cooker that was just removed from your kitchen as they are available in a store for between $30 and $60. Do you have the box it came in or the instructions? People, it is a slightly used slow cooker, there are 3 power settings, OFF, Low and High....you should be able to figure it out. Don't be a bitch in asking these questions and I will not respond as if you were being a bitch. Like it is not hard enough to sell of all of your belongings, but add to that people giving you attitude like they are doing me a favor by buying my ridiculously discounted items.

This leads me to the alternatives; Online listing services. Ebay is the king of this service and one I use regularly for my shopping needs and occasionally to sell some stuff. There is also a growing market of "local" online garage sale type sites. In Regina, the most popular is usedregina.com. An old school bulletin board with some of the web 2.0 features. This has proved to be a much more civil manner to sell items. List a description, a price, and some contact information and those interested will call or email. Now this is progress! This is so much better than a garage sale as I don’t need to interact with people unless they are serious about an item.So lessons learned, own less stuff so that you can avoid the garage sale but if you need to get rid of stuff go the digital way and avoid the people. As you can tell I am a people person!

That is it for this installment in “As the Craddock’s Move”

-Will