No Fly Zone

I just want to start be acknowledging I'm being grossly immature in this post.

I love my job here in Hong Kong. In many ways, however, it's far from ideal. I used to lead a huge team. Here, I'm a one-man-band. I struggle to connect with candidates both on a basic linguistic and cultural level. It's tough to convince someone to come work for us when you have trouble understanding each other.

But what I love love love is the travel. And now I have to stop. In a staff meeting this week, I was only paying half attention as usual:

Director: blah blah blah blah budget blah blah blah 11 million dollar reduction blah blah blah no travel blah blah
Me: *ears pricking up* -- No travel?!
Director: Well, it's not quite no traveling, but blah blah blah ...

I began mentally scrolling through all the travel I had planned in the coming months. Japan, Malaysia, Korea, Singapore, Belgium, Switzerland ... I had a full schedule planned! I broke down sobbing right in the middle of the staff meeting. Just kidding ...

I went back to my desk and tried to decide what travel to cut. It was like deciding which of my children to let drown. Japan was the first to go - I did all of my meetings over the phone. Then Malaysia and Switzerland. Belgium (the trip I was dreading for some reasons I'll share later) stays unfortunately. Maybe the U.S. team will buy my ticket to Singapore? Better not get my hopes up.

"You can fly coach to Tokyo," suggests my manager. I already fly coach as it is, so that gave me no peace. So until then, I guess I'm just forced to simply enjoy Hong Kong. Man, I don't really have any tough problems do I?