How old are your kids?

So how old are your kids Steve?
This was no normal question from my manager! The fact he chose to ask the question in the privacy of his office also suggested that it was leading to something. Roland's body language and cheeky smirk as he asked the question also told me that this was leading to something positive or interesting at least.
Pausing to make sure I had the ages right, not wishing to appear an ignorant Dad who forgets his kid's middle names, ages, favourite friends etc, I helpfully replied "nine and six", pausing for effect and not wishing to give away too much enthusiasm, I followed with "why do you ask?". Continuing to be coy, Roland replied "oh, John Ricewater in Paris has been grumbling that the Australian IT team never contribute people to the global IT projects." "So why are you asking me?' I repeated. "If you're interested, you should talk to David Bernsin". Roland was backing off now. "Is this a long term thing?" I probed. "Could be, I think it will be a good opportunity for you. Talk to David, he asked me to tell you."
Whatever I had to do that day, immediately took a back seat. The possibility of an overseas stint in Paris was the best I could hope for in my career. David's office was a bit 'out of the way' so the "Oh I just happened to be passing, thought I'd drop in" approach wasn't going to work. I couldn't wait to go and talk to him about this but didn't want to appear overly keen either, in case they came to the conclusion that I was not happy or not necessary in my current position.
John Ricewater was from the Corporate IT group based in Paris. An Irish-American living in Paris and one of the few people in Corporate who seemed to understand technology and what to do with it. John had visited our Australian IT outpost a few months earlier and had been impressed with the work my team had been doing. I searched the corporate IT intranet site to find out what I could about the corporate IT "Garaxy" projects. Some creative being, or probably a whole department had come up with names like "Pegasus", "Polaris" and "Orion" to represent the key IT projects which were aiming to take Alcahel into the next era of companies using this promising new thing called the Internet and modern day technologies. It was early 2001 and for the last 12 months, Internet startups had been rocketing from nothing to multibillion dollar companies overnight. The technology and money around internet and computing was challenging everyone in business to look at modern, supposedly smarter ways of doing things. Alcahel was getting behind the wave of euphoria and openly predicting that a series of IT projects were going to set the way of the future.
David wasn't convinced. From a non-IT background, David was a businessman at heart, not an IT guy. He'd seen 2 attempts previously by Corporate to solve its woes with an IT solution fail miserably and didn't think this was going to be any different. "But seriously, John has asked for you specifically after the work you did on the ecom migration." "So what do you think?" I asked. "Well, don't be disappointed if it fails but I think it would be a great experience for you."
I followed with all the questions ;
"How long?" "2, maybe 3 years"
"They pay to move my family?" "Yes, usually have a living allowance as well"
"Based in Paris?" "Yes, La Boetie - Serge's palace" referring to our CEO.
"Kids have to go to a french school?" "If you want to but they have international schools there."
"What about my job here?" "Oh I think we'll survive" I wasn't too impressed with this but reminded myself that I'd told him on several occasions that "Nobody was irreplaceable".
"What about when I come back? Will there be a job for me?" "Your years of service count and they guarantee to pay you at the same rate. Besides, I don't think that you will have a problem!"

Wow, this was all going very fast. My head was literally tingling with excitement about the possibility. I got up to close the door of David's office, sat back down and said..
"There's a problem!".