Well:

I thought I had a choice about this extension. Friday morning, though, I got an email with a subject line of "approval of extension." The email was a forwarded chain of emails to my boss in Washington, the guy who actually holds the billet I am on, and my American bosses out here to get approval for me to stay. All of the approvals came through before I even got copied on the email. Well, except for my Australian boss, who luckily is perfectly happy to have me stay longer.

I was a little annoyed that I didn't get a choice in the matter, but I know that our HR person (who started this whole chain of events) was just trying to be helpful and thought if I said I would talk about staying with my boss, I meant that I wanted to stay so long as my boss was OK with it.

I think I've been backed into a corner here. I don't really mind staying, I just wish it had been handled differently.

I suspect the main reason that the HR person wants me to stay till my replacement comes is so they can keep my apartment, which is fair enough. The rental market here sucks, and I do have a pretty great place.