The last two weeks have been extremely stressful. I can't go into too much detail about it because it is an internal CS matter but suffice to say it was a major exercise we had been gearing up to all year. The difficulty for me came from the fact that whereas I was originally supposed to play a peripheral role the focus was changed the week before to bring my group much more into the spotlight. In one meeting I was originally expected to speak for one hour at the end of a three hour session but in fact I became the main event in a four hour slog and had to attend virtually all the meetings anyway.
I have been sleeping extremely badly and even started to come out in spots because of the stress. It's over for the moment so some calm should return except for the small matter of our New York move.
We have planned to move to the US for many years. We spent so much time there preparing for Harriet and holidaying there and grew to love it. Since we want to do surrogacy again it makes more sense to be based there and enjoy all the legal certainty it gives us. In an ideal world it would be somewhere on the west coast but in reality it is more likely to be near the major financial centre of New York.
The first challenge to overcome was selling Field View and we all know how smoothly that went. Then with the departmental reorganisation I became the head of the quant group so I had to work on establishing the new group. For Credit Suisse it makes more sense for me to be based in London because that way I can cover the US and Asia but for me it makes more sense to be based in New York.
My approval request has been signed off at the highest level in the Strategic Risk Management group and in the current climate that is how far it has to go. The sticking point had become the cost but on investigation it turned out that they perferred it to go in the 2010 budget rather than 2011. So the relocation request is being expedited - I have even seen an email that sets November 12th as the target date. That is too optimistic I hope but we are aiming for a very quick move.
I'll post more details as it goes along. I expect that the next stage is the wait for a US visa appointment.
