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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

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]

I posted earlier about being ready to make an escape but this is something I struggle with. It's not just the stability and good pay, it's all that with a job I love in public service, which is important to me. But spending time with my kids also is important to me, and I hate living in unwalkable neighborhoods with a long commute. Sometimes I think I could be perfectly happy being a secretary for the local dentist in some small New England town. [/quote]

PP, honestly I've been looking at jobs in Fairfax and Arlington Counties lately because I too am drawn to public service but I feel like its a place where I can point to something I actually can get done that HELPS someone, in a real and more immediate sense. Just saying that the national scale is not the only way to effect change, if anything I feel like my friends who work at the state level in various states are really hustling for the people more than I ever have.[/quote]

This  concept of finding high level satisfaction from one's job or needing to do something "important" is very much a "DC thing" (to go back to the OP's original point).  I dunno. My husband and i both have the best of the best DC jobs: high compensation, great hours, great titles and reputation, and really interesting work. Like, both of us are the people that are grad school peers point to as an ideal. The career services offices love to haul us out because our jobs are the kind that new students move to DC dreaming of. But enh.  I'm of the mindset that, let's say i'm doing something really important (like others above have cited).  [b]So i quit my job and move to the mountains in tennessee.[/b]  Guess what?  Your employer will hire someone else and your work will still get done.  I think it's a coping method in DC to deal with the fact that we otherwise have to make a lot of compromises (see above).  My experience is people say that (i.e., "i couldn't possible leave DC, my job is too important, it provides me too much personal satisfaction) because they either haven't seen how good life can be outside this region, or they're too scared to confront the things that are missing from their lives. [/quote]

Two problems with this.  1) you're living in rural Tennessee.  A friend of mine quit life here, sold her house for $400,000 and bought a nice doublewide on a piece of land in rural TN to be near family.  She's been ostracized for being gay by certain family members and was bullied and eventually fired from a job also for being gay.  Fundie Christian owners who get away with that type of thing (plus crappy wages) because the job market is so poor.  2) she now is an occupational therapist assistant, earning like $12 an hour.  Your law degree may not get you hired in rural Tennessee and certainly the job will be less interesting, poorer salary and benefits, etc.

I guess that's the trade-off.  [/quote]

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