Reply to Tired of the DC thing

Forum Index » Jobs and Careers

Reply to "Tired of the DC thing"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I know a lot of people who make an active choice walk away from the DC thing - to Portland (both of them - ME and OR), research triangle, florida, texas, Norfolk, Richmond, Charlottesville....  Lots of people who move to other big cities, but those don't really count for this discussion.

We did it once (jobs brought us back to DC) but are putting the pieces in place to do it again. Sometimes, my friends have pretty good jobs here (say, duel feds) but not good enough that they'll ever get ahead and not good enough that they are so committed to that path. So they just blanket a new area with resumes and move 6 months later.  My husband and I both have very good jobs that would be harder to walk away from, so both times we moved involved years of, as we call it, dropping breadcrumbs to get where we want to be.  In our situation, it will probably ultimately involve my husband staying in his senior exec role but working from home (because his only real face time requirements are with clients, who are all over the world) and me probably either consulting or doing something else totally new. The col difference is so outrageous and my husband will still have a high income, so really we don't need my income at all after we move (we only need half of his) so we figure we can always make something work.

One problem we had the first time we did this: you find the random unicorn awesome job in this desireable area with low COL. But then 3 years later, the job isn't that great and you're ready to move on. But there are no other good jobs in your new town. So you're stuck.  We lived in an amazing region where tons of people like to move for a better life, and many of our friends were former DC people, but we all struggled with this.

One other warning: if you go someone lower key, you have to just accept a professional step down. either because your job is less good or pays less well, or simply because you'll be surrounded by a bunch of other people who don't give a crap what you do because they are teachers, or zumba instructors, or a/c repair guys, or stay at home moms.  We define much of our happiness in DC by our jobs and our degrees. By necessity, a low COL community is going to have less people with good jobs, is going to have less good jobs, is going to have lower quality colleagues in your somewhat good job, is going to have less good clients.  [b]No matter how good your job is in the new place, it will never be a "DC job". [/b] We are sooooo okay with that. We are a power couple and have it all (reputation, success, $$), but we're like "who cares?" and happy to walk away.  Just a warning.  [/quote]

Yes, this.  I used to think about my home town in flyover country -- nice, relaxing, midwestern college town.  Recently I've had to do business there to settle some affairs.  First it's quite different than here.  There's so much less national news, access to information.  Also my job here in DC allows me to make policy that affects the entire US-- it's really important to the future of the planet.  I feel compelled by it, interested in doing the very best that I can and like I am making a difference.  This is a DC job-- nothing comparable is available in my hometown.  I would really miss this-- the responsibility, the complexity, and the incredibly high level of people I work with-- they are quite simply amazing people.

Ultimately I have decided to stay out here and keep my DC job.  We've found a slower pace of life through our communities here (religious, school, neighborhood).  Our house is close in and affordable, albeit smallish.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics