Make sure to read up on the company structure and the main characters before diving into the diary.
2014-10-04
I first meet Patrick, the founder of The Green Lion, in Peru on October 4th 2014. I had co-founded a Spanish school there in 2012 and The Green Lion was interested in working with us as their South America representation.
During the talks from October 4th-7th it turnes out that The Green Lion has major IT troubles. Patrick’s son Emile had started an IT company and had been working on a new booking system for The Green Lion. The result was slow, faulty and expensive.
A deal is struck where I would go to The Green Lion’s office in Thailand, my business partner would stay in charge of Peru operations and a colleague from China would go to Peru to fill in for me.
2015-01-20
I am moving to Thailand to start working with The Green Lion. I get promised shares of The Green Lion or another company still to be founded. I worked closely with Patrick. He kept making me compliments on how smart I am and how good my work is. He promised me a big future with The Green Lion. Once he retired I should be part of a team that takes over the company.
During that time he sent me messages like these:
Once I got into a bad fight with him and considered leaving The Green Lion. He sent me this:
2019-11-09/10/11
Its the yearly global meeting, this time in Hua Hin, Thailand. About 50 people attend. The Green Lion has teams in about 40 countries and many have sent a representative. I give a one-hour-talk about something new me and my team had been working on in our leisure time since March: We had studied international trash flows, looked into plastic recycling, conducted research on the situation of plastic recycling in Thailand and built plastic recycling machines based on open source plans. The first item we made are combs, created from recycled coffee cups.
A friend of mine felt inspired by our work and had developed an AI based low cost approach to differentiating the different kinds of plastic. He had just joined us in Thailand. Together we had developed a concept for a voluntourism program where young travelers learn about global garbage disposal issues, collect trash along rivers and beaches and turn it into new everyday-items that we could give away to locals to create awareness.
I present our plans and timeline to replicate the machines and roll out the program in many of our countries worldwide. It would solve so many problems The Green Lion’s current business model is facing. There would be no animals involved, no children, travelers would not be put into roles they weren’t qualified for, such as teachers. This program would embrace technology and education.The idea had resonated amazingly with travel agents in Europe and all signals were set to make this The Green Lion’s most successful program.
The attendees love it. That night I get handed a bottle of Champaign by Leo in front of everybody and thanked for being the employee who had contributed the most to The Green Lion during the past year.
During one evening a staff from The Green Lion East tells me: “Nothing moves in our team. We just don’t have somebody like you.”
2019-12-20
I am leaving Thailand to go home for Christmas.
2019-12-23
By the time I wake up, Patrick has terminated me by instant message, just 3 days after I left the country and one day before Christmas.
Continue to Chapter 2
The Green Lion Diaries 