The worst good news (two job offers- suprisingly, it sucks)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Before I get into this, I want to explain that I’m not here with some “poor, poor pitiful me” story or anything like that, but rather that this truly is a tough decision to have to make. Here goes…

I’m an engineer. I like making things run better, improving processes, checking quality systems and whatnot. I’ve worked for a glass company for the last 4 years and have had my salary go up 30%. But I’ve also had to move to no-wheresville NC. Being single, I’ve found this to be too much over the last 6 months and have been job hunting for a bit.

A close friend of mine is a tech recruiter and I’ve been telling him how bad this place is for some time, but since I’m not a techie, he could do nothing for me…until recently. He found that his company, a global computer business consulting company, is interested in people with quality backgrounds and is willing to train them to run load tests on e-commerce software. He managed to get me an interview and I aced it. Then I got an interview with a company in California, which I took just to be on the safe side, which I also aced. My buddies company gave me an offer within 2 business days. It’s a lateral move in salary, relo is included, and it’s back in Columbus, OH, where I know tons of people and went to college (Go Bucks!). So I was stoked. I was totally ready to head back homeward and try something new and see all my friends. This was last Wednesday. Thursday I turned in my 2 weeks notice here.

Friday I got an offer from the company in Cali. It’s a manufacturing job, which is what I’ve been doing. It’s located between Ventura and Malibu. They offered me fully 26% more than the Columbus job and 28% more than I make now (for example, and these are just round numbers to make the math easy: if the Columbus offer was an even $50k/year, the Cali job was offering $63k, and I would be around $49 right now). Also, the Cali job offer included 3 months paid temp. housing, whereas the Columbus one had me in a hotel for 2 weeks while I scramble to find a place to live. Both include moving, Cali would ship my car, Cols would pay the miles for me to drive it up there. Benefits (health, 401k, vision, dental etc.) are the same at both, or close enough to be a wash.

The reason I started this search is because I was unhappy with where I lived. Either offer, taken individually, is a great opportunity, but together, I just don’t know. On the one hand, I’ve got friends, a familiar city and fair money but a totally new job. On the other hand, I’ve got a continuation of the work I’ve been doing and stupid-big money but no one I know and it’s all the way across the country. I really don’t mind being somewhere new, so I guess that’s not a problem, it’s just that I really like Columbus.

I guess it comes down to: familiar place w/ new job & same money versus familiar job w/ big money and new environment.

What would you do?

2

Well, I’ve lived recently in the Midwest and in southern California and I can tell you that the difference in salary shouldn’t be a consideration. You can live as well on 50k in Ohio as on 63K in SoCal, if not better. So, if you really like Columbus, stay there.

(Me, I’d be off to Malibu in a heartbeat, but I really didn’t like living in the Midwest.)

3

Yeah, depending on the cost-of-living calculator I use and the specific town I put in (Ventura vs. Camarillo vs. Thousand Oaks vs. Malibu) the difference in money changes dramatically, so I’ kinda think it’s a wash there.

4

Well, how do the two jobs (which sound different) fit into your long-term career trajectory? If the money isn’t an issue, I’d focus on that. Where do you want to be (careerwise) in five years, and does one job seem to better when it comes to getting you there?

Or, you could look at criteria like earthquake predictions, or whether OSU looks like they’re gonne suck this year, important comparative stuff like that.

Congrats on having this dilemma. I mean, it bites, but to have two companies wanting you! Woo-hoo!

5

Your OP leads me to believe that your love life is a big part of your motivation to leave NC (“But I’ve also had to move to no-wheresville NC. Being single, I’ve found this to be too much over the last 6 months”).

If that is the case, I’d recommend the Columbus job. Anywhere you already have a support group of friends is going to be a better place to start finding someone to be more-than-friends with.

Good luck, thinksnow.

6

…anyway

Cranky, oh dear, OSU never sucks, they just don’t beat the team from the state up North as often as I’d like. Earthquakes, yeah, I thought briefly about that, since they seem to be happening in completely random places now, not just in the normal expected fault-line areas.

As for “long-term career trajectory,” things have changed so much in the last 3 1/2 years I have a hard time thinking out much farther than that. Sure, I know I’d like to retire by 50, so I have the IRA and stack my 401k and all that, but between now and then, well, I don’t know. I’m not saying I’ve just been diddly-boppin’ down the road of life, but I didn’t figure on having to decide this sort of thing already. I come from a family where my father worked one job for 36 years, my mother, after being a stay-at-home mom for years, worked for another 10 or so at one job, all the while, my parents have had a craft business since 1978. longevity is something I always assumed. I didn’t want to be the typical “jump-jobs-every-three-years” guy I heard about in school and read about these days (supposedly the average length of time in a job is something like 3.7 years for us enginerds). I guess I figured I’d make the natural progression up through project work, gradually taking on more responsibility, managing projects, then people and moving on from there. I haven’t mapped out my future, too much is uncertain: will I get married? have kids? decide to chuck it all and become a ski instructor/SCUBA divemaster? I mean really, who knows?
I think the tech stuff, actually, could only help. I was looking at it as though I was throwing away those years of my life in manufacturing, but I think it might actually read more that I am gaining a broader skill base, and tech certainly is in demand these days.
Knead I suppose there is something to be said for romance and whatnot…and that something is that there isn’t much around these here parts. I exaggerate somewhat, of course, but not too much. It really is a whole different way of life down here. I remember very clearly being amazed at the, and excuse the baseness of this comment, quality of the women in Cali, they were simply stunning! Event he women in the plant looked as though they could moonlight as strippers, they had such incredible bodies. I began to think that maybe breast enhancement was required or something, it was amazing…and quite a welcome sight to these tired eyes ;). But I suppose you are also quite right about the building of relationships among friends, or “support group[s]” as you put it.

I need a sign <putting out the flaming trash can ignited by the lightning bolt> any old sign <studiously ignoring the wailing sirens and flashing klaxons> yup, anything will do.

<sigh> Guess I’ll have to figure this one out myself…thanks all.

7

I picked Columbus.
I know I’ll be happy there, there are so many people I long to see and have missed terribly and who could forget, the Buckeyes!

I can’t help but look at the money I’m giving up, not just the salary, but as it turns out, the 401k too, as the job I’m taking won’t kick in any matching funds until the quarter after my first full year, the stingy bastards.
Oh, well, money isn’t everything. :frowning:

Thanks again, folks.

8

Sounds like a good choice. I dated an OSU grad student last year, and kinda liked the area after I got used to it.

AFAIK, she’s available, so if you want a wishy-washy, emotionally dead, but still gorgeous and smart PhD, let me know and I’ll get you her number. :slight_smile:

9

Just as long as she’ll let me take pictures, Montfort :wink: Hey, her name wouldn’t be Wendy, by any chance?

(I swear, picture taking was never an issue before that whole Anniz thing!)

10

I think you made the right choice, thinksnow, and not just because it’s the choice I recommended.

Not just because. :slight_smile:

11

I’m in NC too. Who is your recruiting buddy?

I’m a techie and so is my hubby.

Plus I would love to talk my best friend into moving here for a while. She is 33, a knockout beauty, and a great person. She graduates next year with a double degree - Biology and General Biology & Science teaching. She also has lots of lab experience in a microbiology lab.

Send hints my way please!

12

you see, I don’t like NC, that’s the porbelm that started this whole thing.

My buddy, the recruiter, is in Columbus, OH. If you need some recruiters, I’ve got quite a few, but they are mostly enginerding ones.

13

…which is a problem unto itself.

<ugh>