Our first assignment was to take a choice we made and discuss both the decision we made and how we communicated that decision to other people. I had a hard time with this paper, partly because the decision I chose was not as removed from the present as it could have been, partly because it was hard to articulate how I communicated that decision and the cascading choices that arose afterwards.
Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it - memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey.
It was a bomb, set off in a crowded room. Everyone was affected. Our jobs were being relocated, revised or removed entirely. My options were simple: stay to go, or go to stay. I could stay in with the company I'd been with for nearly 15 years and go to a city I'd never even visited. Or I could go find a job with a new company and stay in the city where I'd lived for most of my life. My first instinct was "no way!" I couldn’t possibly leave my town, my state, and all my friends from and since college. But there were those niggling doubts about the unfriendly Massachusetts job market, the problems with selling my house in an uncertain time, and the expanding duties of family among my friends. Hundreds of details and worries and fears crowded in. In the end I chose to uproot my family and gamble it all on a new adventure in a new place: Kentucky.
When I was a child, we moved around quite a bit, and it was always fun. My parents were college professors and, while you wouldn't think you would move a lot, they took sabbaticals to do research at other institutions. By the time I was in fourth grade, we had lived in Wellesley, MA, Florida, Wellesley again, Colorado, Wellesley yet again, Ohio, Victoria, BC, and Wellesley once more, before we moved permanently into our former summer home in Colorado. I even returned to Wellesley to go to college the first time. I met my husband there, got a good job at a law firm, and settled down to stay in the Boston area. Moving a lot does give you a better sense of how easy it is to restart your life, particularly when your parents actually do all the moving. However, it’s never as easy in practice as it is in theory, and you never know when a change is coming around the bend.
The bomb exploded on a beautiful September morning, bright and clear, not too warm with just a hint of crispness, a prelude to the gorgeous fall colors which were coming soon. I had been coughing continuously for most of two weeks. Being asthmatic, I caught chest colds fairly frequently, but whenever I went to the doctor, she told me I had bronchitis and there was nothing to do but wait for it to get better on its own. I called in sick to the office on a Wednesday morning. My boss, however, sounded rather odd over the phone; she kept asking if I was going to come in after my appointment. Usually she’s a hypochondriac, running around with disinfectant wipes whenever someone makes the mistake of coming in sick. I just thought she had a major project she needed me to work on, so I assured her I would come in if I could, before toddling off to the urgent care clinic.
I waited for a while in the lobby, then in a clinic room. Finally, one of the on-call doctors came in. She got out her stethoscope to listen to my breathing while I sat on the table. The doctor frowned. That’s never good. She asked me to get a chest x-ray, which is definitely not standard for bronchitis. Afterwards, the doctor reappeared with a grave expression.
“You have pneumonia.”
She gave me some prescriptions and sent me home for the next three days. I didn’t mind taking the sick time, but I wasn’t sure how my boss was going to react. Back outside again, I pulled out my cell phone to call her.
“I just finished with my doctor and I have pneumonia. I’ll come in if you really need me, but the doctor wants me to stay home for the next three days.”
Silence.
“Oh.” There was a moment of hesitation, then she continued, “No, you should stay home. I’ll see you when you get back on Monday.”
Three hours later, my best friend called at the behest of my boss who did not want the rumor mill to be my source of information. There had been a mandatory meeting for all non-legal staff. The head honchos told us the firm was opening up a service center to centralize most of the non-legal operations. Three hundred jobs were being relocated to Lexington, KY. If we were lucky, we would be offered the opportunity to move; otherwise, we would be let go. They needed an answer by the end of November. Two months to decide if we wanted to start our lives over in a brand new state.
Oddly, being home with pneumonia was preferable to sitting in that conference room when the announcement was made. I heard how terrible the atmosphere was at the office, both before and after the meeting. Being told your job as you know it is effectively being terminated is hard to hear; in many ways it was even worse than being actually fired.
I posted something extremely vague to my blog and then a day later I posted a link to a news article about the upcoming changes, so I could really rant about it. I was not pleased with the shakeup of my comfortable life. Getting it all down on “paper” let me share the extent of the problem with my trusted friends without getting into an emotional feedback loop.
After my first vehement denial, the idea of moving appealed to me. Most of my friends didn’t have a lot of time for the spontaneous visits we did right after college. Many of them were busy starting families with all the requisite changes. Once I received my official offer letter, I discussed the pros and cons with my husband and also talked it over with friends and family to get other perspectives. My parents were excited about the possibilities, since the move would put us within a couple of hours of my brother’s house. It would be much easier for them to visit both of us, and I might actually see my brother more often than once every three years.
My firm offered everyone an extremely pleasant, highly choreographed long weekend to Lexington to make the decision easier. Two days of choreographed movement bracketed by two days of doing your own research. I didn’t see any major problems with Lexington during our visit, and there were many things I liked.
Finally, we did decide to pick up our lives and move to a brand new city. We called my parents and my husband’s mom, then dropped a quick note on chat or email to some very close friends. Eventually, we sent out a big email blast, plus a blog post and Facebook status. Two weeks before we drove our truck away from Massachusetts for good, we had a big going away party: an afternoon barbeque with gorgeous weather put the seal of approval on our decision. I made mix tapes for everyone. I loved the ones I have and thought they were a great way to remind our friends how they had touched our lives.
The decision by the firm was purely a business decision, and one which cost the firm many valuable employees. Most of the people affected did not move to Lexington. Looking back, I would have made the same decision, but I wish I’d asked some more questions. Even with all the discussions we had, there were many details I wish I’d thought about before we made the decision to move. We remembered the big issues -- schools for the kids, good neighborhoods, how long the commute would be -- but simple things, like what my hours would be in the new location or how to work in a different office from my bosses, were completely forgotten over.
We also didn’t consider all the logistical details of a big move. When you are moving within a city, you can make trips ahead of time to bring over those 8 boxes of books you don’t want to move that day or go back afterwards to pick up that lamp you forgot. Moving out of state makes multiple trips impractical at the very least. Trucks cost more to rent; movers cost more to use. On the other hand, I wish I had spent more time looking into staying in Massachusetts. I hate taking risks and I was so concerned about the possibility of not finding a job that I completely shut down that line of thinking. I should have remembered that I had over a year to find something, plus a severance package to tide me over. While I don’t regret the missed opportunity precisely, it’s easier to find fault with the decision to move after the fact.
Moving to Lexington was a major change. The transition was challenging and scary, and I had many second thoughts. This move was the first significant relocation where I made all the decisions myself, instead of following along after my parents. The process brought me full circle, as I made all the decisions about the move for my children. In the end I realized home is not a place, but what you choose to take with you.
The bomb exploded on a beautiful September morning, bright and clear, not too warm with just a hint of crispness, a prelude to the gorgeous fall colors which were coming soon. I had been coughing continuously for most of two weeks. Being asthmatic, I caught chest colds fairly frequently, but whenever I went to the doctor, she told me I had bronchitis and there was nothing to do but wait for it to get better on its own. I called in sick to the office on a Wednesday morning. My boss, however, sounded rather odd over the phone; she kept asking if I was going to come in after my appointment. Usually she’s a hypochondriac, running around with disinfectant wipes whenever someone makes the mistake of coming in sick. I just thought she had a major project she needed me to work on, so I assured her I would come in if I could, before toddling off to the urgent care clinic.
I waited for a while in the lobby, then in a clinic room. Finally, one of the on-call doctors came in. She got out her stethoscope to listen to my breathing while I sat on the table. The doctor frowned. That’s never good. She asked me to get a chest x-ray, which is definitely not standard for bronchitis. Afterwards, the doctor reappeared with a grave expression.
“You have pneumonia.”
She gave me some prescriptions and sent me home for the next three days. I didn’t mind taking the sick time, but I wasn’t sure how my boss was going to react. Back outside again, I pulled out my cell phone to call her.
“I just finished with my doctor and I have pneumonia. I’ll come in if you really need me, but the doctor wants me to stay home for the next three days.”
Silence.
“Oh.” There was a moment of hesitation, then she continued, “No, you should stay home. I’ll see you when you get back on Monday.”
Three hours later, my best friend called at the behest of my boss who did not want the rumor mill to be my source of information. There had been a mandatory meeting for all non-legal staff. The head honchos told us the firm was opening up a service center to centralize most of the non-legal operations. Three hundred jobs were being relocated to Lexington, KY. If we were lucky, we would be offered the opportunity to move; otherwise, we would be let go. They needed an answer by the end of November. Two months to decide if we wanted to start our lives over in a brand new state.
Oddly, being home with pneumonia was preferable to sitting in that conference room when the announcement was made. I heard how terrible the atmosphere was at the office, both before and after the meeting. Being told your job as you know it is effectively being terminated is hard to hear; in many ways it was even worse than being actually fired.
I posted something extremely vague to my blog and then a day later I posted a link to a news article about the upcoming changes, so I could really rant about it. I was not pleased with the shakeup of my comfortable life. Getting it all down on “paper” let me share the extent of the problem with my trusted friends without getting into an emotional feedback loop.
After my first vehement denial, the idea of moving appealed to me. Most of my friends didn’t have a lot of time for the spontaneous visits we did right after college. Many of them were busy starting families with all the requisite changes. Once I received my official offer letter, I discussed the pros and cons with my husband and also talked it over with friends and family to get other perspectives. My parents were excited about the possibilities, since the move would put us within a couple of hours of my brother’s house. It would be much easier for them to visit both of us, and I might actually see my brother more often than once every three years.
My firm offered everyone an extremely pleasant, highly choreographed long weekend to Lexington to make the decision easier. Two days of choreographed movement bracketed by two days of doing your own research. I didn’t see any major problems with Lexington during our visit, and there were many things I liked.
Finally, we did decide to pick up our lives and move to a brand new city. We called my parents and my husband’s mom, then dropped a quick note on chat or email to some very close friends. Eventually, we sent out a big email blast, plus a blog post and Facebook status. Two weeks before we drove our truck away from Massachusetts for good, we had a big going away party: an afternoon barbeque with gorgeous weather put the seal of approval on our decision. I made mix tapes for everyone. I loved the ones I have and thought they were a great way to remind our friends how they had touched our lives.
The decision by the firm was purely a business decision, and one which cost the firm many valuable employees. Most of the people affected did not move to Lexington. Looking back, I would have made the same decision, but I wish I’d asked some more questions. Even with all the discussions we had, there were many details I wish I’d thought about before we made the decision to move. We remembered the big issues -- schools for the kids, good neighborhoods, how long the commute would be -- but simple things, like what my hours would be in the new location or how to work in a different office from my bosses, were completely forgotten over.
We also didn’t consider all the logistical details of a big move. When you are moving within a city, you can make trips ahead of time to bring over those 8 boxes of books you don’t want to move that day or go back afterwards to pick up that lamp you forgot. Moving out of state makes multiple trips impractical at the very least. Trucks cost more to rent; movers cost more to use. On the other hand, I wish I had spent more time looking into staying in Massachusetts. I hate taking risks and I was so concerned about the possibility of not finding a job that I completely shut down that line of thinking. I should have remembered that I had over a year to find something, plus a severance package to tide me over. While I don’t regret the missed opportunity precisely, it’s easier to find fault with the decision to move after the fact.
Moving to Lexington was a major change. The transition was challenging and scary, and I had many second thoughts. This move was the first significant relocation where I made all the decisions myself, instead of following along after my parents. The process brought me full circle, as I made all the decisions about the move for my children. In the end I realized home is not a place, but what you choose to take with you.
Works Cited
Williams, Tad. "Tad Williams Quote." BrainyQuote. Xplore. Web. 27 Sept. 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment