Hi Y'all!
Who's linked with me on LinkedIn (haha, pun intended) might know already: I'm off the market! Well, off the marriage market for quite a while, but off the labour market too, lately. And that's how it happened: When i told my -now- former boss about our plans roughly half a year before moving, he had to swallow hard. Sure - never change a running system, and besides, we were an awfully good team. My wish to keep working for him and the team remotely from Malta could not be granted due to various laws and tax regulations (thank you, Germany). Therefore, my boss made me an offer I could not refuse (insert The Godfather original motion picture soundtrack here). Which means: I take unpaid leave for a year and keep my job and have the option to rejoin if I don't want to stay in Malta. If you consider us never staying very long at one spot, that possibility surely was worth contemplating.
Thus I accepted, but you know the drill: You can't live off love and thin air alone. And besides, after six months of settling in, doing Yoga, making my own sourdough bread, creating vegan spreads, cheese, ice cream, oat milk, singing in the choir and so on, I was up for a regular job. So, after a quick and intensive detour into the weird world of iGaming (don't ask!) I just contacted the EY Malta Country Managing Partner via LinkedIn who instantly provided me with an interview appointment. Well, and just like this I have been an employee of EY Malta since 3rd of July 2023!
Okay, you could argue how boring this is - first she has been working for almost 25 years for EY Germany, and now she has no other ideas than joining the same club again? Hm, it's not exactly like this. First, over the years I worked for four different executives and various teams, I changed offices five times and my tasks drastically evolved over time. Only one thing didn't change: Although there were difficult times and situations, I almost always liked being with the company. And to be honest: Us moving to Malta was jumping into cold waters, and for a change it might be nice to already know the waters I am testing...
For sure I could have reinvented myself and start my own business as color and type advisor, wedding planner or crafts teacher and whatnot. But that's what hobbies are for, right? And to make it clear: A corporate life definitely has it's advantages - like health insurance (not always common in Malta for the employer to provide for that), paid leave and a few other goodies. I think, I did good by joining them. For instance, we have summer hours which means shorter working hours from mid July through end of August, because despite the ACs it can get pretty hot in here... I can take the bus free of charge and the bus stop is right in front of our office door (and up to now the conductor has been letting me enter all the time - I already talked about that). We get fresh fruit daily and freshly squeezed orange juice, and during lunchtime I can relax on the marvellous roof top terrace. And I have been reading real books again lately, because during my commute and in my break I have time to do that again - isn't that great? Yes, it is! Right now I am entertained by a series of books by Siegfried Lenz which had been in my bookshelf for ages.
Oh, and I don't work any more as executive assistant in assurance (at least not right now), but together with a full-time and a part-time colleague I rock the reception of our office! By the way: We only have one EY office in Malta - it's a small island, you know. And consequently it's a small office, too: Only 250 staff, appr. 15 partners and directors for all service lines together and about 5 secretaries. My immediate colleagues are super nice, and like everywhere else, there are people who collaborate well and not so well, besides it's a huge melting pot of a ton of different nationalities and backgrounds, and don't forget the bubbly emotional Maltese mentality - mediterraneously southern with a special liking for drama :-) As a reserved and cool German I can only remotely relate, but as I was born in Cologne I have some roman heritage as well. Which means I can very well live with it. But sometimes it's suffice to just sit, watch and mentally munch popcorn...
Last week we had an awesome summer party (pretty posh at the private club of an elegant resort, directly by the sea with a gin bar, a whiskey bar, BBQ, a dj accompanied by a saxophone player and fireworks at the end). Very fitting we were given fans - because it was very hot and humid. And later on I used them as centrepiece for our dinner table when we had our asian BBQ night on Saturday.
Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures, but I served sate skewers with peanut sauce, a cucumber salad with sesame oil and rice vinegar, and a pasta salad with mie noodles, carrots, bell peppers, spring onions and roasted peanuts - very yummy. Only partly vegan, as the sate skewers were made with chicken. For drinks I originally had in mind Tsingtao beer and plum wine, but to my disappointment none of that was available in Malta. Thus I opted for the fabulous Maltese Cisk beer and chilled white wine from this beautiful island. For dessert we had grilled peaches and pineapples with caramelised brown sugar with a dip of oat yogurt, fresh mint and lemon - that was incredible and I definitely will do that again!
With that being said always enjoy your time
and choose wisely between old and new!
