Thread: What would you do?

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In a nutshell...

Would you take a job (in a crummy job market) that matched your last salary and had great benefits, even though the cost of living difference would make it essentially a 10k pay cut?

What if you had

1>a brand new baby
2>a father within quick drive that might need your help for the next 6 months to a year
3>several friends with babies the same age as ours
4>a house that might take a half year or more to sell
5>no relocation provided by the company since I only live 2 hours away


Ugh. I have to give an answer on the 17th. I want to just accept it and move on with our lives, but accepting this job means my wife would have to resign her job and search for a new one, find a home, move, make new friends, find a daycare, tc....

The plus side is we could finally both work at the same time for once, meaning more money. We have spent 5 years with one of us not working and it has drained my savings.

Okay, if you take this job and your wife has to resign and find another position in your new location, do you think it will be fairly easy for her to do so in a crummy job market? I agree it would be a plus for y'all to be working at the same time, but what if she can't find something immediately? And add that to what would be essentially a 10K paycut for you with the cost of living difference..

Even if your home is in great shape (which I'm sure it is), it may take longer than you want to find a buyer in our present economy...would suck having to juggle getting that off your hands while taking on a new house payment in the midst of paying for all the necessities of a new baby (kids are very expensive, lots of hidden costs emerge with them along the way :-))

Are your friends with children the same age pretty close to you? Sounds like you have a great network already to help out with free babysitting, having your children grow up together.....then again, friends can have different parenting styles from your own, sometimes their kids turn into little demons and bad influences on your own child. :-)

I don't know man, I hate uncertainties too...you need more time than until just the 17th to iron out some issues and figure out if this would be a smooth transition for your family, mainly because of the house selling/buying and to give your wife some time to check out job avenues of her own...I wish they'd just hold the position open for you indefinitely so you could take your time with the decision.

Sometimes the grass is greener on the other side. But when you get over there it turns out to be astroturf. Then two years later your being laid off and looking for a new job, tired of drive the long distance to work for 12 years and settle for another crappy job where you talents are being used and not rewarded, while slowly withering away into oblivion. But thats my opinion. LOL Sorry you hit a nerve. I can't tell you what to do sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. Set your standards and when you feel it doesn't suit you make a new decision. Stick to your guns. Don't put up with the B.S.

My wife is a great elementary teacher, and I'm sure she would find a job for the next school year. We wouldn't settle on a house until we knew where she'd be.

Yes, the few friends we have left here in town have had babies within days, weeks and months of our own. However, we really only do stuff with one of those couples and the rest always seem to have better things to do.

That's one of the negatives about this town. Either people are here only temporarily (Military, company transfer) or they have been here forever and won't let you into their clique. We have kinda wanted out because of that, but we really really wanted to move to Wilmington. We have lots of connections and the family even has condos down on the Gulf, but we wanted to try something new. (to us, NC is new)

A job surfaced in Wilmington, but there is no relocation offered. A move to Atlanta from here would be cheap, and I can technically commute from here. I can make the drive in just under 2 hours. Some people that LIVE IN ATLANTA have similar commutes!!

My parents live about an hour away, and her parents live in town. Oddly enough, she wants away from her parents but doesn't want to move away from mine.

We could live on my salary alone... we did it for 4 years. Even at the 'paycut,' we'd be doing pretty well. We'd just have to change some things.

*********

I moved across the country for a job once. Moved from Atlanta to Seattle... I was sick from it for the first month or so because I was one of the first couple employees to make the move. After that... I loved it. Two years later, our contract was up and I and hundreds of others were laid off. Thanks to the dotcom burst and Boeing layoffs, I didn't even bother to look for a job and moved back east.

I figured I would retire with the company I worked for here, but they also relocated and I was having no part of another cross country move (this one was north).

I'd move back to Seattle or San Francisco in a heartbeat, since I know tons of people there and love the cities. It would just be quite a strain on my wife and our families. She likes Seattle and could live there, she just thinks our parents would be sent to an early grave.

Wilbret,

Is this possible relocation to one of the communities you'd like to move to? I remember your posts awhile back on wanting to move.

Have you made the list of pro's and con's? Maybe you and your wife could do it seperately and you could compare them afterward and get a true sense of each others feelings.

Are you familiar with the company? Do you know if they have a high employee turn over? That says alot about the working environment. A person spends so much of their time at work it's important to be in a healthy environment.

Anyway....what would I do? Make the list first and review it with my spouse. It's important to be happy with your jobs and where you live. I don't recall you talking much about your current job but I do recall you being unhappy where you've lived. I don't recall you saying how it would be hard to leave your friends. As far as the timing, your child is so young that there isn't an environment and people to uproot him from (school or daycare). As he gets older it may get harder to relocate.

I'd say if the prospects look good for your wife, it just might be the time to go for it. Best wishes in making your decision, it's certainly a difficult one to make.

(I'm interested to hear other people's input.)

We've made the lists and pored over it all. The yays and nays balance out.
Maybe I'll say I'll take it for 20k more.... hehe. If they say yeah, woo hoo... if they say no... then, eh.

Go for it! Sounds like you don't have anything to loose for trying.

These decisions are always so difficult, aren't they? Go ahead and ask for more money, all they can do is say no. You have nothing to lose there, and that might be the deciding factor. What I'm hearing is that you wouldn't mind leaving the area except for your Dad, and you are concerned about the house selling in a timely fashion. Would it be possible to rent it if it didn't sell right away? I agree with Laurie S., while the baby is small is a better time to move. Once children develop attachments, it adds a whole new degree of difficulty! Well, I'll pray for wisdom for you and the Mrs., and continued blessings for your whole family, especially Dad. Best wishes.

It is a tough decision, but in my opinion, I would take it. I was laid off in November 2007. I have had NO luck getting even a call back! NOTHING. I would take it. Take it, and look for something better while getting paid.

D-Day. I'm going to accept the offer but try to get some moving benefit.
My gut is wrenched over this. Too many things add up to us moving, though.

Now the fun part begins...