I completed my first month of work without any acts of gross incompetence and wondered what I did to deserve my first paycheque. The first two weeks were spent in college learning about accountancy and audit. I lose track of what’s going on and I don’t recover until a minute before the exams were taken (a month later). Debits and credits really are like a language. But once it is understood there is a satisfaction in using it correctly. I convert my personal finance tracking to use double entry.

Then The Firm send us to Athens to meet up with other new joiners for a training conference.  There’s time for sight-seeing in between learning about audit.

Armageddon

The new joiners don’t realise how important they are until they leave the country and the financial world collapses. Lehman Brothers disappears. AIG tries to follow but gets rescued. The stock markets nose-dive. Crazy stuff.

Then there are two uneventful weeks in the office doing odd jobs. Some more stuff happens in the financial world but it’s not worth writing about.

My thoughts turned to the start of my job in London. There were forms to fill out. I had to prove that I wasn’t an illegal immigrant. I wrote large cheques to my landlord and estate agent. I get a comfortable and well furnished apartment for my money. Heating and electric problems would be a thing of the past.

I bought a new guitar, which destroyed my budget plans for the whole year. Turns out that a new guitar doesn’t make you a better player.

Beijing Olympics

They say that the Olympics marks the coming-of-age of China as a key global player. I reacted by returning back to the UK and working during the opening ceremony. My excuse is that I don’t need to hang around in Tianjin for the games because they will be coming to London for 2012. A mistake perhaps?

First Day at Work

As I walked into the training room on my first day a lot was on my mind. Who would be in my department, making a good first impression, who my friends would be and if I would fit in. It was like the first day of school again. I worked out that I got my job offer about 35 months ago. I had waited almost 3 years. I needed that time to step off the treadmill of the typical career path (school to university to work to retirement). It was difficult to climb back on.

I could never explain to anyone what an auditor actually does. Now was the time to find out. Auditors have a distinct culture with a focus on the ceremonial counting and re-counting of beans. They speak their own specialised language. You will be shunned from audit society until you learn how to use 4 different colour of pen in everyday situations. I learnt all this on the first day.

I left Tianjin on the 14th July after a wonderful and unforgettable 18 months. I finished as I had started: in a frantic horrible rush to say goodbyes, buy presents and pack. I was still working on the school’s website the day before I left.

I would have liked to have stayed in Tianjin but it was the right time to move on. I was on holiday in Paris after I returned. I used some Mandarin in a Chinese restaurant. It wasn’t the same. Life in China was anything but mundane and that’s what I miss the most.