I just found out last week that my company is relocating from Orlando to Atlanta this summer. While I have been offered a relocation package, in better times I’d just go find another job here in ORL since I don’t want to relocate for various reasons including housing and the wife’s career. If I chose not to take it, I’ll be laid off after the move
Unfortunately given the housing market and the job market, I think I may be stuck between a rock and a hard place and am trying to figure out a viable solution.
What I am considering doing is commuting weekly to the new location in Atlanta, and flying back home on weekends. I’m curious what dopers experiences are if anyone has done this long term? How did you handle flights and other logistical issues? Impact on family life? Would you do it again?
I really have not considered the financial aspects of this yet, so I’m interested in that side too.
Any other thoughts or insights would be appreciate as well.
I’ve worked in management consulting for most of my career and the industry is known for extensive travel. Typically I would fly/train to and from some remote client site for weeks or months at a time on what they call a 3-4-5 schedule. 3 nights in a hotel, 4 days at the client site, and the 5th day back at the home office.
Obviously this can be expensive, but that’s the client’s problem since they pay for it. Your employer probably wont be as accomodating. I recommend finding a cheap appartment.
Psychologically, it can be difficult though. What I found was that I seemed to spend more time forming closer relationships with the people on my team/clients since we were all working together 15 hours a day then hanging out at the hotel together at night. Then I come back home to an appartment where I have to squeeze my entire home life into a couple days until I fly out again sunday night or monday morning.
The George Clooney film Up in the Air paints a pretty good picture of the lifestyle.
It doesn’t sound like you have much of a choice but I think it is smart to do it that way at least for a while. I also recommend getting a lease on a cheap apartment. Those are way less expensive than even the cheapest acceptable hotels. I have known people that did it including my mother and stepfather (he took a job a few hundred miles away for a couple of years). It will put a strain on you and your family in a few different ways but you are really buying yourself time. Going through a home sale, family relocation, and having your spouse look for a job at the same time would be much worse than just having you check things out in the new location over time. You may not even want to work for the company anymore in the new environment.
Is there any chance of a ‘work from home’ solution? I know it depends on what you do for the company, but in some cases, you can provide them value just as easily from a home office as you could at their locality. The enabling technology has come a long way in recent years. My dept. was spun off and acquired a couple of years ago. The new company is based in OC California. So they set us (Illinois workers) up as remote workers. I miss the face to face interaction, but my commute is fantastic. <grin>
Looks like I accidentally deleted the meat of my reply.
I did this for a while, and it was very costly. Only the fact that I could claim it against tax made it worthwhile. I don’t think that’s going to be the case with you.
I currently commute 130 miles Sunday after supper to the college town where I have a relatively cheap room. I only have classes Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and I’m home for supper Wednesday night. Can you arrange a partial week schedule?
With daily phone calls, plus the special-ness of weekends, I think we’re a closer couple than before. Plus I’m really enjoying teaching vs. my old job in the computer industry, so my wife likes that I’m happier.
I did a similar commute for 2 years in the early 90s (worked in NYC, lived in Washington DC). I did the commute home pretty much every Friday night, then returned to work either Sunday evening or Monday morning. I had the advantage of better travel choices - 2 different airports at each end, or Amtrak. Plus it was a much shorter distance (230ish miles vs. your 475ish). So, while car+NYC = Bad Idea, I could have driven if I’d needed to.
This was before kids. I gather you have children?
In my case, we had a generous housing/travel allowance, so I had an apartment in a decent neighborhood in NYC. and didn’t have to worry about the expenses. In your case, I would assume that would not be the case, so you’d need to find cheap living up there (maybe look for a room in someone’s house, or an apartment to share). Airfare isn’t cheap either - look at the kind of fares you might get from Atlanta to Orlando to get an idea of the costs. On the “bright” side, you’ll get a lot of frequent flier miles and upgrades to first class etc. And food etc. - you’d probably wind up doing more restaurant meals overall so that’s an added expense.
Another poster mentioned asking about working from home - even if they wouldn’t allow you to do that full time, they might be willing to be flexible in your case (e.g. M-Th in ATL, F at home, or one week there, one week home).
Another logistical issue: what if you need routine medical care. Do you find a doctor up there? or schedule doctor visits while you’re home? I didn’t have much chronic when I was in NYC except asthma (and I was taking weekly shots), so I found an allergy/asthma doctor up there. I didn’t really have a primary care doctor at the time, so if something else cropped up I just called the asthma doc and asked them to suggest someone local (IIRC, I wound up seeing a gastroenterologist due to a nasty case of food poisoning, an ENT due to a run of sinus infections). I also did my followup for a broken elbow, and some knee problems, with a NYC-based orthopedist. I did gyno visits back home.
In 2002, my husband got a good job 800 miles from where we were living. Our daughter was in high school and we didn’t want to move her, so we lived apart for 2 years until she graduated. It was the third time we’d had to live apart due to job changes, and by far the longest stretch.
At the time, we owned a boat that was adequate for my husband to live aboard, but the cost for the marina was more than we were paying in FL, so that was an additional expense. He hated to cook, so he ate out a lot, and he didn’t like to do laundry, so he paid to have it done. I would fly up to visit him for long weekends, so I’d get to see him monthly most of the time. We were both making decent money, but it was still a strain on our budget.
It was stressful for both of us. I had to deal with our daughter and some aggravating teenage stuff mostly alone. I was also stuck with selling the house - third time I had to do that myself. He was far away from family and friends - OK, he did live in the same city as most of my family, but he wasn’t one to hang with them. Neither am I, for that matter. He made friends at the marina, but it was still lonely for him much of the time. I don’t think he’d expected that.
Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. Sometimes short-term sacrifice leads to long-term improvements. Some people handle the long-distance thing better than others. It was a tough couple of years for us, but in the end, it was definitely worth it. We’re living where we want to be and we have a comfortable life. Looking back, the major changes I’d have made are that we wouldn’t have bought 2 of the houses, but at the time we didn’t know we’d be staying in those places only 3 or 4 years.
My mom did this for about a decade. Several factors helped:
She was able to work from home 1-2 weeks a month.
Her company thought she was a god and were totally willing to pick up the (enormous, over the years) tab.
Work is really important to both my parents: they really value being good at their jobs and both buy into the idea that a person should be pretty obsessive about what they do.
My parents aren’t social and the kids were all grown. When my mom was home, she and my dad could spend all their time together, she didn’t have to run around keeping up lots of social ties.
My dad is an introvert and while he missed my mom during the week, he was pretty content to read the internet and watch TV when she was gone.
I have had to consider this as well. I have considered taking consulting gigs. These gigs generally pay a per diem to help with the expenses (although lately they just seem to take half of what I would consider a good salary and call it per diem). However, it does have the distinct advantage of not having any tax due on it (it is not considered salary). You, on the other hand, would likely need to list all your deductions, and you would still be paying FICA. While I have not done it yet, I have come to the following conclusions;
I would not do it if airports were involved (too much time wasted and potentially too much money). If a train is involved, I might consider it. Find out exactly what the expenses would be (housing can vary considerably). You will very likely need a car.
There is also an emotional cost to this arrangement.
There is a new express bus running between Orlando and Atlanta. http://us.megabus.com
It is 8 1/2 hours. The regular fare is $34 each way, but they run a lot of specials if you book ahead. I just booked a fare for a friend of mine $8.50 for the round trip. $5 one way and $3 the other way. The Megabus stops at the Marta Civic Center downtown. You might want to find a place to crash close to the subway line.
The real estate crash is on in Atlanta as well. A quick Zillow search turned up 760 houses for sale under $15,000.00. I would love to be able to move there right now. . .
And I would think that renting out an Orlando house would be fairly easy - isn’t it?
My boss did this for several years. He was crazy-rich and could fly first class, so that helped matters, but his health fell due to all the travel and his marriage was pretty flimsy.
He worked in Calgary (Think Denver) and flew home to Toronto (Think Chicago) every single weekend. For years. I know I couldn’t do it.
Yuck. Flying between Orlando and Atlanta every week sounds like a horrible situation. Mrs. Giraffe did someting like this for about six months a while back, where she worked in Arizona during the week and flew home on weekends. Even with a fixed end date and the company paying for everything, it sucked. Doing it open-ended on your own dime? Blech. It’s going to be very expensive, emotionally draining, and offer a poor daily quality of life to basically do the same job you’ve been doing. Going to work just got a lot, lot worse! Hooray!
If you feel you need to do this to keep yourselves afloat while you look for a job closer to home, I’d at least talk to your employers about meeting you halfway in terms of covering some of the costs. They may be willing to pay to avoid having to find someone to replace you. Barring that, ask for a raise.
First my folk’s experience. For two years my dad lived in San Francisco while my mom, and my brother and I lived outside of Washington, DC. It was HARD on their marriage. This was their first long separation since the Korean war. They tried Dad coming home once a month but could not do it financially, long term.
Next I lived in upstate NY and rented on of the rooms of my rented cottage to other members of my company who would work 4 days then go home to family in the DC area. This started when my company closed our DC datacenter and said if you want to keep your job you will work in upstate NY. In the 3 years in NY I had 2 guys do this kind of commute before quitting after finding jobs in the DC area.
I’m going to suggest you see if you can rent a room or a basement from one of your coworkers so you have a place to stay in Atlanta, while you see if you can both physical (healthwise) and emotionally (marriage and family) keep the commute going. Also look for another job in Orlando while still working in Atlanta, is my other suggestion.
