Game On!

That was the longest test time and clean up after a class I have ever had. Or at least it seemed like it. I could not wait to call Patrick back and get the rest of the details. When I went home Patrick gave me the name of the company so I did research on it and looked up the contact names on LinkedIn and generally played Nancy Drew. I had to drive down to Salt Lake City to pick Patrick up from the airport the next day. He was so excited that he had me doing research on the computer using his cell as my modem on the 3 hour drive back home!
Never one to let a project lie at my feet, (unless of course you have seen my sewing room) I attacked learning about immigration to New Zealand. One of the first things I realized was that it was going to take time. According to the list of things I had to do, getting a full FBI background check was one of the longest hurdles to overcome. So that meant we needed to get ours done NOW. So on March 10th we headed down to the police station to be printed and then to the bank for our money orders to mail off with our prints. Looking back that was a pretty bold and BRILLIANT move on my part if I do say so myself.
Patrick had his first phone interview with them on Monday, March 9th. This was the first of many to come over the next almost 2 months. He even had to take a series of tests, similar to our version of IQ testing. We were updated as to his progress and told the pool was being narrowed down and he was still in the running. I am just thankful that I was wearing fake nails at the time because mine would probably have become bloody stumps!
While the wheels were grinding away for the New Zealand position several others were looking very good too. Arkansas became a serious contender as did Wisconsin. There was another LARGE company that wanted him but vacillated on where to put him. I was pulling for North Carolina but it was looking like it would be Pennsylvania. A consulting firm put a pretty good offer on the table too that would have had Patrick traveling quite a bit and we could have lived anywhere.
Finally towards the end of April the New Zealand company invited Patrick down for an interview. At the same time 2 more companies started putting the full court press on Patrick to come to work for them. One was in Australia and another was in Hong Kong. And to make it even more interesting, the consulting firm started up’ing the stakes and offering us international placement. Now we were facing some serious decisions and each option carried its own risk/reward ratio and vastly different life styles.