Gordy:
He says he's got a year left. For some reason he managed to get the program done in six month (?). I guess he felt comfortable over the time left and waited...
granted, back in your days at that place in Titusville (what was the name again? ;-) ) when you taught me, it didn't feel good when Jens told me: "sorry buddy, I just hired 7 guys two weeks ago".
At first the idea to stay where you learned seem to be the only viable option, in hindsight I can say that going some place else was the best thing that could have happened to me! I got lucky to first get the best training and than the chance to look across the fence and network my way into different branches than just offshore (not that there's anything wrong with that, but it appears that that's where a lot of graduates go - incl. the chief instructor!).
But I agree, the year left after waiting six month sound a bit fishy.