by Hi! Welcome to the blog. Hotel quarantine does funny things to people, and in my case, on my 9th day of quarantine (only five left to go!) I decided that it’s time to start a blog. Why am I in hotel quarantine? We’ll get to that.
I started working as a lawyer with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in Geneva in 2011. With stars in our eyes my wife Amey and I set out from our jobs in Canberra to a new European adventure. I told Mum we’d be gone for between two to three years. If I stayed with IATA for less than two years, I had to pay back the costs of my move to Geneva, if I stayed for three, they would pay to send me back to Australia. So that timeframe seemed pretty reasonable.
I moved in the right direction in 2014, when we moved to Singapore to take up a far more exciting legal role in IATA. But it wasn’t for another seven years and a pandemic that has all but killed my beloved aviation industry that I’m finally exploring life after IATA.
It’s a great feeling to be out. I received a nice severance to cushion the financial blow, and after a month or two of thinking “hmm, what should I do next”, I’m in the process of setting up my own law firm. That’s really exciting and a little daunting, so stay tuned for updates over the next few months.
It was good to be forced out of the golden IATA cage. Over the past few years I’ve started (and have almost finished) an Executive MBA, toyed with the idea of becoming a barrister, considered joining the Royal Australian Air Force as a Legal Officer, am planning on eventually setting up a health retreat and considered leaving the law altogether. It all points to knowing that I wasn’t happy in the current job, but having no idea what I wanted to do next.
This is a blog that will track the journey of a lawyer who started in Government, went to a top tier firm, worked for the air traffic controllers, moved to Europe, lived the dream in Singapore and now exploring the potential of a virtual law firm.
So what’s with the quarantine? Well we managed to get flights back to Australia from Singapore at the end of January, and are now trapped in a hotel room at the Mercure for two weeks. Surviving quarantine will most definitely be the subject of a future post!
