On The Road Again (Soon)
I’m just barely back from Singapore (in my mind anyway, it’s been two weeks today that my feet stepped off the plane in Cali) and now I’m gearing up and packing up for my next work adventure.
This time Boss Man is sending me off to a different part of the world. An area a little more in my wheelhouse.
In exactly one week I’ll be saying helllooooo Costa Rica.
Or, more properly, Holaaaaaa Costa Rica!
: cue a Latin beat :
Yup, that’s right folks, I’m headed to Central America.
Before you start imagining idyllic days by the blue-green sea, ratchet all of that back and imagine me in the middle of the densely populated capital city of San Jose.
While the trip to Singapore was all hand shaking and good food, Costa Rica is going to be some seriously hard work (and hopefully good food). I have an employee there who is still pretty new (yes, I hired her without ever meeting her in person) and she needs some back up.
Today I’m watching my calendar fill up with meetings for next week. Heads of Finance, IT, HR and the site director shall feel my steely wrath. Ok, less wrath and maybe more along the lines of “stop treating my employee like your hired hand or I’m gonna call in some really big boss types, and no one wants that.”
In Singapore I was there to make friends. In Costa Rica I’m there to have some pretty hard conversations. And try to make friends while I’m at it.
The good news is that most Costa Ricans (they call themselves Ticos) speak English, because my Spanish is Spanglish at best and I’m quite out of practice. I’m certain I can still easily order a beer and inquire as to the location of the bathroom, but beyond that I might stumble.
But I’m looking forward to trying!
And in other somewhat related news…file this under the World is Very Small and the World is Very Large:
Last week I had a one to one meeting with my employee in Costa Rica. She asked me about my trip to Singapore.
She said “Karen, I have something to confess. When you said you were going to Singapore, for some reason I thought that was located in Africa. I thought you were going to be out there with wild animals in the middle of the desert and I was really worried about you! I told my mom about how worried I was and she said “what is wrong with you?” So I Googled it and looked at photos. There’s all these big buildings. That’s nothing like what I thought.”
We had a good laugh because, well, geography can be a tricky thing.
Then I confessed that when I’d told a couple of my friends I was going to Costa Rica, they were like “now….that’s over by Brazil, right?” And I sighed and said “um. No. Central America. Nestled in there between Panama and Nicaragua.”
I say all this while admitting my own knowledge of geography is no great shakes.
We laughed again and agreed maybe I’m like a super secret spy and it’s better no one knows where I’m really going.
But really…
I’d like to buy the world a geography lesson, and teach them harmony.
.
.
.
I’m both excited and terrified about this trip. The Good Man isn’t coming along this time, so I’m on my own.
Courage! rawr.
Image from FreeWorldMaps.net.
