As I type this Tuesday morning, I’m still recovering from the ill effects of expelling some bad lunch I got yesterday, with fever, aches, chills, and more, which I won’t go into detail about, but involves both ends of my body.

Things started well on Monday, where I met up with three other guys, all from the U.S. and we stopped by the HSBC bank to get bank cards and new bank accounts that Cathay wants us to have. I spent an hour in this bank on Friday, but that did me no good, because I found out that I needed a different account. Bummer! The bank opened at 9:00 am and we all needed to be up at the sixth floor to begin orientation at 9:45. The first guy was finished at 9:30, and then I finished at 9:45. I rushed up to the sixth floor, but they said just to wait on the other two guys. All that rushing around for nothing.

Thanks to Deby’s help, Laura’s mom, I had one form letter that I left back in Ohio in my hands, and it’s a good thing, because I definitely needed it. Deby was able to find it in our house and e-mail it too me. I printed it off while waiting for the others to finish up in the bank.

Once everyone was on the sixth floor, we all met Amy Cheung. I had corresponded with her a lot via e-mail, but this was the first time to meet her. Everyone else was in suits because they had e-mailed her and asked what to wear for day one. I, on the other hand, hadn’t asked, so I was in a shirt and tie — there’s always one in every crowd, right? We signed a bunch of forms, were given a syllabus, handed over the forms we were to bring, got our ID pictures made, were given tours, and signed more forms.

It was during lunch that I got some chicken curry, one of my favorite dishes, and things weren’t the same after that. My stomach felt uneasy, and for the rest of the orientation, I felt light headed, my back ached, and I was sweating a lot. “Nerves,” I thought. Well, it was all I could do to finish the orientation before heading back up to the room, taking a shower, and going to bed. This was about 6:00 p.m. Around 7:45 is when the troubles hit me. Let’s just say that I felt much better after my episodes in the bathroom, but even this morning (Tuesday) I still feel bad and achy. I hope this all passes because I have to study for a test I have to take on Thursday.

The other three guys are Dave, Barrett, and Chris. Dave is from Peru and living in Miami, and flew for American Eagle. Barrett flew for ASA, a Delta Connection airline like my own Chautauqua, and lives in Atlanta, and Chris is former Navy, flew at Southwest for a year and then came here. They seem like really great guys.

We had a vice president come in and talk to us about Cathay. He was really nice and talked about the culture and business model that guides Cathay. He said that we are completely independent, and receive no government help. He talked about how in the U.S., the airlines seem to be run more by lawyers, than managers, free to have a bad business model and then just bail into chapter 11 for recovery. Chapter 11 for Cathay here in Hong Kong is not an option. He also talked about how Cathay isn’t a government sponsored airline like Singapore or Thai, where the government gives breaks to the hometown airline. For example, Cathay built a maintenance hangar in between the runways here at the airport. Believe it or not, that hangar was the most expensive real estate in ALL of Hong Kong, per square foot! More than property on Victoria peak or anywhere! But, Singapore Airlines built a similar hangar at their airport, and the government charged the airline one dollar for the whole building!

Cathay feels like the only way to survive in this market of uncertainty and to be profitable for the long haul, is to have lots of money on the balance sheet. Some airlines, like Emirates, would rather buy big shiny airplanes, where as Cathay, being more conservative, would rather have money in the bank, than a big shiny airplane sitting on the ramp, not making any money.

I tell you, after arriving here, I feel a lot better about the stability of my career than had I stayed at Chautauqua. No place is perfectly secure, but I think Cathay is about as sure a bet as any. Now, being on the bottom of the seniority list, I hope they keep growing! Rumor is that Cathay has enough money, that if all income stopped, they could still operate for two and a half years! Amazing. Could a U.S. airline do that? No way.

We’ll, I’m feeling a little better, and the trips to the bathroom are fewer and fewer, so it’s time to start studying. We’ll see how the test goes . . .