Going home or not?

It's pathetic. There's really so little work to do at the warehouse! Looking at the data everyday makes me worry. We used to have averagely over 30,000 units of outgoing orders everyday but nowadays, we have less than 15,000...more than 50% down in sales! I am not involved in sales so I really do not know what plans they have for the year but I sure know that there will not be any increase in sales. So this year, there will definitely be no pay increment and most probably no bonus. And I need to the budget for the next fiscal year starting April for the department...really don't think there is much budget to invest in anything new this coming year.

Over the last 16 years of my working life, I have been through a couple of financial crisis and personally to me, this is not the worst as I have been hit quite badly during the Asian financial crisis in 1997. I was doing business on my own and during times like these, it's even harder being the boss. I remembered that I didn't even have money to give my mum to buy food for the household and she had to forge out money from her own savings to buy food for us. I was broke, pregnant and going through a broken marriage. It was the darkest time of my life and I really pray that it will never happen again.

My staff in Singapore are calling me to ask if I will be posted back this year as they have been hearing that my contract in Hong Kong will end this year. The problem is, I really don't know. I definitely hope that I can go back this year but the crisis is making me think twice. I am not willing to take a pay cut and go back as in this situation, it will take forever for them to raise my salary back to this present level. If I continue to stay here until the market is much better in Singapore, they will have less reasons to cut my pay by then. Logical, right? But then again, hubby is unhappy here and we are both getting rather sick due to the terrible air-pollution here...so is it worthwhile to stay?

We are both blaming on the air-pollution but there are more than 7 millions of Hongkongers staying here breathing the same air! Why are we both special? Just because we have a place we can always go back to? Will our health get any better if we relocate ourselves back?