Canary in the coal mine

Work front, I have recently witnessed the canary in the coal mine moment with many people leaving - some after many years of work, some only after one year. I'm not going to lie, I was considering looking for other work too, but due to my circumstances of preparing for a wedding, switching my visa (future post maybe?), I felt that the timing was not in my favor. However, with the fallout of so many people leaving, it means my workload is going to increase - and I predict a lot more business trips for this year. 

As I have committed to a one year contract - and sticking to a contract is a much bigger deal in Japan compared to other countries - my plan is to stick out this year, but I'm going in to this with the expectation that I won't continue after this year is over... unless something pops up at my work that would be favorable to me. 

My wife has suggested looking for work related to my interests, as I'm at stage in my life that I can't keep jumping between jobs every few years anymore, and I am inclined to agree with her on that last point. If we are to start a family, we both need stable jobs, with permanent work being the ideal situation. However, finding a job that I would genuinely enjoy is something that I think is not realistic, and I like keeping my work and hobbies separate, though it is something that I shouldn't quickly dismiss either.

I have asked around about job hunting, as the usual channels are usually advertising ALT work, or work related to ALT dispatch companies. Searching a little bit in to jobs similar to what I do right now, I found I have to search beyond those channels, as those kinds of companies very rarely advertise there. However, someone did point me to a Japanese job hunting website, commenting that with fewer foreigners using those kinds of websites, there will be less competition there - of which I have bookmarked that site for when I will most likely begin job hunting towards the later part of the year.

There has been a lot more that has happened in the last few months, but I may share about them later when the time is right.