My expat life story teached me an important lesson

I had it all figured out.

The promotion

Got an internal promotion to move from Sweden to The Netherlands and start a new Consultancy department. Got a fancy title and my wife also got a job at the same company. She was taking temporary positions and couldn't find a full-time job that she was satisfied with in Sweden.
The family were excited to move, our son, 14 at the time, was less excited and I spent some time to make sure he got into a good international school and a place in a good Dutch ice hockey team.

Started off in my new position, made a five-year plan together with my team and got it approved by the board of directors. It was a start-up and we had some struggles in the beginning, but slowly and surely, we got contact with the right people addressing their real issues of which we could provide real added value services.

The accommodation

We moved from our 3 room apartment in a mid-size city in Sweden to one of the larger cities in The Netherlands. We got a temporary living arrangement in an apartment hotel and lived a luxurious life for the first couple of months until we could find our own accommodation.
We consulted our Dutch colleagues to find out if we should rent a flat or buy a house. Everyone we talked to said that renting is very expensive and we should try to find a good size house. It will not reduce in value over time but instead rise to around 3-5% per year. We took our time to find our dream house and finally we decided to go for one with a garden and a beautiful large tree outside the living room window, next to a canal. The price was high and our bank told us that we had to take the maximum mortgage for our income situation to be able to buy it. We took the offer because we knew that we could sell the house in a couple of years for a higher price and pay back the credit to the bank and even lift a pension as an extra bonus.

The adjustment

Our son adjusted to the new situation pretty well and he even improved his grades year after year in the international school. He was also very successful in the ice hockey and won the nationals already the first year.

The path started to get shaky

The first crisis

Then the 2008 crisis came and my Dutch company was stuck in a situation where the strategy of selling mega front end projects to the petrochemical industry failed and many customers decided to park their projects for a couple of years.
I quickly lost my job. In the meantime, the Swedish company where I came from was sold to a competitor and divided into 3 different companies so I couldn't return back to where I came from.

The pick-up

I desperately tried to find a new job and luckily found another position a 50 minutes drive from home. The salary was somewhat smaller, but I managed to save the situation and was happy to be able to continue to live in the same house and our son could still finalise his IB.
He even took a sabbatical to pursue his interest in ice hockey with a year abroad in Salt Lake City, playing ice hockey with other promising teenagers with a dream to one day play for a college team.
My wife also lost her job a couple of months after me and she had a much harder time to find a new good job. She ended up working as a nanny in different child care centres and took some hourly based jobs as a private nanny to be able to contribute to the family economy.

New challenges

My new company was based in the USA and changed owner every year.
Each new owner had new and higher expectations and new strategic focus. We had to adjust our local strategies accordingly and lost much time and focus on those internal activities. My MD at the time tried to build a solid strategy with at least a five-year direction but failed to convince the Americans that we could stick to our plan and finally he was replaced with an American expat.

The disaster

After another year with yet another new owner, the strategic focus went away from Europe and my new American MD had to make a tough decision, either hand over his MD position to me and let me take the full responsibility for the Strategical and Business development challenges, or keep his MD position and take over the Business development challenges from me.
Not so tough decision after all. He, of course, decided to let me go, even if I had the strongest first and second quarter since I started in the company, earning an extra performance bonus, I found myself without a job again.

This time the fall was really painful, it basically felt like being hit by a thunderbolt coming from a clear sky. I was in complete shock.

The desperate struggle

As the last time I immediately started to search for a new job, I applied for 3 to 5 jobs per day. The time went by and after 3 months, my savings were gone and I couldn't pay the monthly fee to the bank for our house.

The crack in our relation

My wife got very stressed up and desperately tried to do her best to provide. She started to get irritated on me for not looking for at least a taxi driver job or another simple low paid job, to at least contribute something to the situation. I knew that if I sunk myself to that level, I would never be able to get a good level job again. We had many argues about my choices and our relation started to crack.
Our son had already started University in the UK so he didn't have to experience the long nights' discussions between me and my wife.
My wife started to spend much time on Facebook making new friends with all types of people around the world and our relation started to fade.

The bank started foreclosure

We tried to discuss with our bank to rent out the house, so we still could pay the monthly mortgage, but the bank refused to give the permission and we had to rent out a couple of rooms in our house without telling the bank, to at least have some income.

My fall to the rock bottom

After 6 months of searching for a job, I started to doubt myself. Went into a depression that changed my values and self-esteem. I couldn't find the strength to care for myself and even less to care for my wife. Complete desperation and apathy for our future.

The turn came too late

Finally, after 9 months I started to get some job interviews for different positions in the UK and finally after 11 months, I got a job offer that I in pure desperation accepted.

The stubborn bank which was close to bankruptcy

Our bank had already started the procedure to sell the house. We tried to talk to them about reversing their decision, but too late. They sold our house for less than half the value we bought it for, to the first interested customer. Then the bank just asked us to pay back the difference, which was just too much for me. I would have to pay back all my future salaries for the rest of my life to be able to return that type of money. I made my point very clear to the bank that they had to take my debt with them in their own crisis package deal that they did with the Dutch government at the same time, but it was like talking to a deaf guy. They just referred to a clause in our contract and kept on repeating that I have to pay back the balance immediately. I refused and am still today refusing. Due to the fact that the bank made a good deal with the Dutch government which saved them from bankruptcy because of all bad deals they made with losers like me.

The Return

The new position in the UK

I moved myself to the UK to start my new position for an Azerbaijani company, building up the relation with large engineering houses in the UK and BP for engineering projects in the Caspian Sea.

The end of my marriage

My wife had already found a new interesting guy in the USA for wich she invested all her time and effort to build up a relationship with. She went to visit him and I knew our marriage was over.

Yet another turn

I had at least 8 very good opportunities and projects lined up for final negotiations and orders when all of a sudden the Azerbaijani State Oil company decided to postpone all new projects for another 10 years, due to the low oil prices.

The next move

My MD and I decided to park the UK office and try another opportunity to open a Valve Service workshop in Saudi Arabia.
He had found a Saudi JV partner a year earlier and now they needed a General Manager to establish the newly formed company in Saudi.
I went there with basically no choice or alternatives at hand. I made a three-year plan together with the board of directors and started the challenging task to establish the workshop, market and sell our services to the Saudi customers and establish the new JV company.
After 2 months I already reached the target set for the first year, after another 2 months I reached the target set for the second year and after 6 months in Saudi I already reached the targets set for the 3 years plan.

The unforeseen decision

During the board meeting, the Director of the Saudi JV partner recognised my achievements and asked to have a face-to-face discussion with my Azerbaijani MD. When their meeting was over, my MD came to me and told me that now I have reached my set targets and the Saudi JV partner wants to replace me with a Saudi GM. He told me that he didn't have any other choice than to let me go.
I couldn't believe what I just heard and again found myself in a complete state of shock. What should I do now? Where should I go? What did I do wrong? What could I have done differently?

Faced with the fact

I immediately took contact with one of my newly established customer relations, a Director for an Industrial Services business in the same town in Saudi. He just asked me a couple of weeks earlier, if I knew anyone who could join his company as a Workshop Manager. I asked him if the position still was available and we had a long and fruitful discussion. He came back to me after a couple of days and offered me the position, unfortunately with only half of the salary as I had as GM for the Valve Service company, but I basically didn't have any other available choice at the moment and thought it was an interesting position, so I accepted his offer.
This is where I work today. I really enjoy my job and I see that my experience adds value every day to the new company.

The lesson I learned

Always work on your plan B. Stay loyal to your present company, apply yourself to 100% in what you do, but never stop searching for the next opportunity.

Let me know if you think this was interesting or if you have any further questions or comments. I would be very happy to answer anything from the readers.