I've been dating a great girl for about 18-months, a super-great girl. I don't want to lose her, she and I are incredibly happy together.

She's starting her 4-year PhD at Rice in August.
I have a great paying job working for FEMA and for the sake of this thread I'll tell you I probably make more than I'm worth.

Reasons to go:

• I love my GF, a lot
• My current job is a bitch in some regards and requires me to do things I fundamentally agree with in regards to funding corruption with tax money; I feel ethical and legal vulnerability because of this
• She doesn't have a lot of cash and will probably have to live in a "marginal neighborhood" if I don't go and contribute my fair share to rent

Reasons not to go:

• I'm afraid of the private section and those meetings we had twice per week where the bosses decided who to lay off for performance, 25% of the staff were laid off monthly. If I had a bad week or even a bad day, I was fired. I don't want to go back to that. I think back to those days where we had to kill or be killed in regards to sales and strategy. Typically, the guy who stole the most clients was the guy who kept his job.
• I don't have a lot of skill because I have a BS in Emergency Management and Community Planning which means at best I could score a job as a shitty account manager or sales and I'll probably get eaten alive
• I won't make as much money and I'll have to moth-ball my track car for about 4-years
• I LOVE TT with NASA, it's been my dream to do something like this since I was a kid and I'm not sure that I can "turn it off" for a year if not 4-years
• We could split up (I doubt it)
• Might never find a job that lets me live comfortable in regards to cash or pressure

 

Are there no offices in Houston or opportunities for horizontal movement within your current organization? In my current company, for example, we have helped several employees transfer from one city to another. They sometimes (usually?) change specific positions or responsibilities, but stay with the same employer.

If you have a supervisor or mentor within your unit, they may have contacts that could assist with exploring those potential opportunities.

 

I work for FEMA...you've never seen so many worthless ***** in your life. We don't have an office in Houston and if I'm going to make a move, I'd like to move to something more respectable than this. I just gave away $6m more than I should have on a $22m contract because the contractor threatened to sue the agency and my boss in DC was afraid and forced my hand to award the money.

 

what happened to new england?

 

She knew I would not go there.

 

Let her move, keep your job, search for something respectable in her area. If you can't find **** and it strains your relationship, then decide what to do. If you can't find **** and it doesn't strain your relationship, stay.

You'll be pissed if you move out now, live in a shithole, mothball the car for 6 months, and then find a decent job and have to drag yourself out of that hole. Dip toes, don't jump in head first.

 

Tough call because if you move and get a crappy job you may hate it and indirectly effect your relationship but if you don't go that may also **** **** up.

Other options I see. Live with her on the weekends, it is about a 4hr drive w/out traffic:
you wouldn't have to move or work at a potential craptastic job
you can easily help with paying her rent to keep her out of the slums
you would still be able to race

Also have you felt out the job market out up there? I would look at that hard before actually considering moving up there. Maybe you can live where you are now, search for a job up there that is acceptable, and move in with her once you find the job you want.

 

Its a huge risk either way, and if you both love each other there's no reason not to be able to live apart for at least a little bit til you guys can figure out something better. Coming home from a crappy job you hate every day will affect your relationship anyway.

 

What about a similar but different agency or subsidiary under the same broad organizational umbrella (in your case, .gov)? Said another way, FEMA in Houston would be a perfect substitute for FEMA in Dallas. HUD in Houston would be an imperfect (but functional) substitute for FEMA in Dallas.

What other agencies would have something comparable to what you do now (not necessarily exactly the same)?

 

I really want to get away from the Federal government. If I make a switch I will not stay with the feds.

I will not move until I have a job and she's not asking me to.

 

I say go for it.

Sometimes the scary decisions end up being the best ones a person can make. Don't be like the majority of people and stay put cause you feel "comfortable".

If you're gonna make it you're gonna make it.

 

No one doubts he'll make it.
But there's a difference between "making it and hating life" and "making it and being comfortable"

At my previous job at a retail pharmacy I hated life. Every day I drove to work I hated life. Every day going home from work I was pissed off and irritated. I hated life and it showed big time. My wife would sometimes be afraid to ask me something because I was so touchy and pissed off all the time after work. It was hell.

At current job I don't remember the last time my work carried over into my personal life. When I get off I'm relaxed and happy. Its awesome and it shows. Stress level is down 300% lol

Just sayin.

 

I'm guessing that's a typo and you meant you are required to do things you fundamentally disagree with?

I was going to make a joke that your conundrum is a moot issue because the government would be hiding you away for admitting corruption on a public forum, and then I realized, "Hey -- everybody already knows our government agencies are corrupt and nobody gives one whit anyway."

 

I was in a very similar situation. My (then) girlfriend and I were living together when she got accepted to UW for a clinical psych PhD. It put me in an interesting spot because I was still finishing up my undergrad, so when we moved, I would have NO job prospects AND no degree (though I had lots of connections locally, so if we stayed, I would be OK once I graduated).

So, I said **** it. We got married. Then we moved 2200 miles away from home.

I've never been happier.

I had to shelve my car addiction for a few years, but I stuck it out, saved up, worked my ******* *** off, and now we live in a baller house, I'm working on my second car build since we've moved, and she has her masters and got a federally funded grant (so she might actually graduate with that PhD some day :P ).

Just go for it.

 

follow your heart
not your dick
if you follow both and end up in houston, then i think you have your answer.

 

His heart is his dick

 

I heart my dick.

 

lulz

You can always move to Nigeria and become a Prince, hustley.
Lots of money in that. Or open a cash-for-gold.

 

You saw it pulse didn't you?

 

WTF?

I have to ask- what company was this in which there was a 25% MONTHLY turnover rate? And what sort of position were we talking about- telemarketing, account-based sales, etc?


This happens all the time in the private sector, too. The only difference is that after it's all said and done, they perform a margin analysis on the project and then nominate a scapegoat (always from the project-execution side, never from sales) to blame for why the project lost money. "Because we massively overpromised on our capabilities, sold it for 20% less than we projected it would cost to execute and then gave away a $half-million worth of change-orders for free after the order was signed, all on the specific orders of the national sales manager that we were to win this project at any cost" is rarely considered to be an acceptable answer.