The Beginning

Three days ago, I accepted a job as an IT contractor in Iraq.

This, as you might surmise, was not an easy decision. As a married father of three and having had reasonable success in my stateside career, my focus was on raising my kids and enjoying life. I was an active volunteer, did some photography on the side, and enjoyed my work. Iraq, while in the news often enough, was merely something else and somewhere else.

The economy changed all that.

I was laid off from a job I had for around nine years back in June of 2007. I wasn't worried, and figured that I'd find another job pretty quickly - certainly no more than a month or two.

I was a little off - it took ten months.

The new job was great - even better than the old job. Ten months in, I was feeling great about the future and looking back on my layoff as an aberration in an otherwise fulfilling career. I had just come back from a trip to the company headquarters in Europe when the call came - I was back on the street again. The difference this time was that all eyes were focused on the economy, the unemployment rate, and the realization that we were in a global recession. I jumped right in to the job search; however I realized pretty quickly that the outlook was bleak. I wasn't getting many return calls. I got few interviews. I sure as hell got no job offers.

As bills mounted and collector calls became more frequent, it became apparent that I would have to find a job outside of my norm - but even this was a dead end. Positions like I had held a decade ago didn't want to hire me because they felt that as soon as the economy improved, I'd leave for a better job. I presume this was much the same reasoning held by hiring managers in other industries -- this isn't his forte; as soon as he finds something else, we lose our investment in him. Honestly, I can't say I blamed them. Of course, the competition is fierce as well; by some reports, there are so many employees applying for each position that only the relative cream of the crop are selected. So if you have even one skill missing from their requirements, it's goodbye before the hello.

Despite all this, I kept looking. One night, (6 nights ago, to be precise), I answered an ad for networking contractors in Iraq. I was shocked to receive a reply roughly an hour later -- at 11:30pm. A few emails later, I had an interview set up for noon the next day.

During the three hour long interview, I was given what I was hoping was the "worst case scenario" description of the conditions, peppered with a few tidbits of hope. I surmise that I was being prepared for the worst but left to hope for the best. At the end, I was asked to go home, discuss the matter with my family, and to get back to them with a decision.

Ultimately, we decided that it was the only reasonable choice we had - and so, I am preparing to depart.