Headin' to Southern Illinois!

In the words of Mario, "Here we go!"


Tomorrow I am loading up the three kiddos and we are heading to Southern Illinois, where I grew up. We haven't been there in probably 4 years or longer. Kim won't be joining us since there isn't enough room in the car. We are planning on seeing family and soaking up the country culture of the Corn Belt! I can wait to take them to "The Custard Stand"! That was the place to get a cool treat when I was a kid. (The only place actually!)

We are returning on Sunday so that I can fly out on Tuesday for a job interview in California! So everything is working out perfectly. I will hopefully get a position just in time to move there and get integrated into the Northern California culture (I hear it is more refined than Southern Illinois culture).

I am going to try to get into the mobile blogging thing but no promises.

Have a great time!

All things happen in their own time....

WOW!

So there I was yesterday participating in a reorganization call with the company. And what happens? They announce a 17% reduction will take place in the group of which I am a part.

Within fifteen minutes of the conference call ending, I get a meeting invitation. It is an in-person meeting with HR, TN and GP! I rush through the house and get dressed (I was still working on the whole remote solution). I grab my laptop and laptop bag. I empty it of all personal items. I am organized and ready to go! I had 25 minutes to get to the office and speak with HR.

So here I am speeding through suburbia and trying to figure out what was happening exactly. I decided on the way that either I was being called to get notice that I was part of the 17% or that I was being told who on my team is part of the 17%.

I make it to the office with about 10 minutes to spare. I have one of my guys remote into my desktop upstairs and begin copying over all my files. I tell them I am going to talk to HR and they will get a meeting about the topic shortly. at that moment we hear a ding. It is the meeting invite. They have been invited to the same meeting I had just attended.

Five minutes left....

I walk briskly through the cubicle farms and at various access points I swipe my badge. I actually whispered a little prayer each time that it worked. I figured since I still had access to everything it was a good sign.

I walk in to the HR person's office.

"Hi, I'm Jay."
"OH! You're a couple minutes early."
"Can I close your door?"
"Please. I mean, sure. Go ahead."
I turn around extend my hand, "Nice to meet you."
"You too!"
"So I am hear to either be fired or told who I am going to fire."
She laughed nervously.
I say, "Seriously, relax. Not a big deal - it's just business right."
"Sure, have a seat, please."
We chatted about family and teams for just a moment. Who we both knew in the company where we had been etc. Finally her desk phone rings.
She is relaxed and smiling at this point. I think she realized I am just a good guy and have a very positive outlook and not some lunatic.
I will not drag out the whole conversation over the phone.
Suffice it to say it was typical corporate speak. You know, "Not performance based, strictly business. I am a valued member of the team. My contributions have been many, great and valuable...." You get the point. Same as I did within about four seconds of GP speaking.

So I was directly impacted. I stayed positive and hopeful. They offered me a fair severance package and several weeks of employment to find a new position inside the company or elsewhere. I will also be eligible for unemployment after my last day.

So there you have it! Many of the things I was worried about have worked themselves out! Probability bubbles collapsed everywhere and all where we needed them! I am not overjoyed or happy about it... I have a great team and actually like my job. But given the circumstances, I think it is for the best.

If you are reading this, I hope you are smiling. I am a little sad to lose such a fantastic team but I am also excited about how things just work themselves out if we have confidence and faith. Speaking of which... Now we need to sell the house. This was the last piece. Now that my job is no longer a consideration, we are definitely going to accept the position in Cali and get out there ASAP. Say a prayer, send positive vibes or whatever it is you do to collapse your own probability bubbles and send it my way that the house will sell sooner rather than later!

Two weeks+ since last post.. REALLY?!

Well... Let's see...

We had an open house on Sunday! Not one person showed up :(
That was very disheartening. I mean seriously. House has been on the market almost a month and only three people have come to see it (four if you count the couple that popped in before we were actually on the market).
We have it priced aggressively. I looked at the comps and we have the lowest per Sq Ft price of any in the area. It will sell when it needs to sell I guess.

So on the job front. still no discussion with TN. It will be a huge surprise for them if I move and never resign! That probably won't happen. I was supposed to interview for a position with speeddate.com yesterday but they had to reschedule. It would be a pretty sweet position. Wish me luck. I interview today. It is just a phone interview and if they want me for another round then I will fly out and meet them face-to-face. We shall see!

I continue to work from the house most days at this point. I think I have thoroughly proven that this job can be done from home. I am actually more productive! Last night I found myself checking and responding to email at 10PM! That was after starting email around 7AM! Seems people would be more productive if they just let all manager work from home!

Anyway... I will try not to be so neglectful of my blogging duties. However, A and A (our daughters) will be here very soon! Just a few days! Then it is off to exotic Southern Illinois for a few days! Maybe while we are gone the house will sell. That's what happened with our house last year. We loaded up the family and went to Cancun came back and had an offer! That would be great! The girls could go with us out to Cali for a few weeks prior to them going back to Tenn.

Later!

The weekend that was!

We just got back from Houston! It was a great weekend! G. spent time with his grandparents and great-grandparents. We had some good adult time and actually saw a movie (Letter to Juliette) and it was very good. We stayed in Pearland and had a fun time. G and I spent time in the pool and I have the start of a summer tan.

The little man had his first swimming lessons today and he was great diving down to get rings and all!

No tours of the house yet so no buyers snooping around. I didn't expect any this weekend but K did. So we start another week. House should have an offer on it within the next few weeks.

Our daughters get here in three weeks! YEAH! Can't wait to see them.

No news on the job front. Waiting for an offer before I talk to HR.

Awaiting words...

Haven't had a lot to report on the California mission the last few days. A lot of waiting to see what will happen.

However, today I spoke with a loan officer about my VA Loan! All is good! We have great credit and income high enough to support a decent home in a good neighborhood. Please, keep in mind, the title of the blog is about downsizing! And we will certainly be doing that! By decent home I mean one that is in a good neighborhood with good schools and, if we are lucky, about half the size of the house we are in now.

Rate should be around 5% or a bit lower! That is great! I am just as excited as could be. I now have a range to know what we can afford. We had the numbers ran with and without me having an income. Either way, we can do OK.

My sister said she will be here if we need her and she will drive across the country to help me! Man! Ya gotta love family when it comes to stuff like that!

Later people!

The offer is in

So we received the offer yesterday afternoon. It isn't everything we had hoped for but it's not too shabby. We get a lump sum to cover closing costs and moving expenses. All in all we will do OK. Not great as we had hoped but one can't be too greedy!

Still struggling with work on my side of things. I want to stay in the current position and just keep doing what I am doing. I am able to work from home and there is no reason they have given that indicates otherwise. The only issue is they want a person in close proximity to the Regional Business Office here in North Texas. So we will see how this goes.

Monday I am considering going to HR and ask for guidance on this issue. There should be something that can be done other than giving me a pat on the back. IT's not like I am a new employee. I have done this job for a while now and I am good at it. Maybe HR can tell me my actual options in this instance.

Last night was a great time. We went to dinner with the Hs. Went to a place call Brio in Watter's Creek. amazing area. I had never been there but it was very impressive. Beautiful mix-use area they have put together. I hope Little Elm does the same. I helped jump start their Town Center project when I was on the Board of Directors for Little Elm's Economic Development corporation. That was a lot of fun!

Oh well.... Washed the car, played on poptropica.com with G and now it is finally time to shower!

Tick toc....

Nothing really to report today. I talked to my local team members about me moving. They were not happy. It was kind of sad. I really like my whole team but have a great bond with the three guys I work with at our Regional Business Office.

On the positive side - We will be making a couple trips here to the house so they can see if there are any items they would like to have from the house. I love giving stuff to people. It is great to see them be happy and it is kind of freeing to shed extra stuff from my life.

I have officially started looking for work in San Francisco today. I applied for a couple jobs today. So if I get a job before the house sells then I would be in California before the family. This would mean no vacation time to spend with the kiddos over the summer. )o:

But let's be serious. What are the chances that I, in this economy, will get a job before the thousands of other people already located in the area. Don't get me wrong here. I am highly qualified but when considering the financials and the timeline, I would pick a local candidate over somebody who is "in the process of relocating" to the area.

I wanted to write all day but felt too pensive to even start. That truly is horrible. I know if I started that the world in my novel would suck me in and I would be able to escape for a while. Perhaps I will go visit there tomorrow. I love writing.

No options...

Spoke with TN this afternoon. He said there are no options available for me to stay in my position and move to California. I must say, that truly sucks. He said there is no possibility that I could manage my team or any other team from California. Not even the team in California. Wow... Not even the team in California.

Why?

Because, it would mean paying a 20% premium on my salary due to location. So to save money for the department the option would not be offered.

We discussed other possibilities. TN said he would gladly provide me a good recommendation to any other department in the company. So I looked and there is a Business Development Manager position in the San Francisco area. I shot an email to the recruiter. She said she will send me as much info as possible once she gets it. Other than that, I would be looking at a retail position. I cannot do the retail gig. The hours don't work with my life.

So now I will attempt to transfer within the company and start looking outside the company. I guess that will give me something to write about! So we have our first twist in the road to Cali.

By the end of this week we will have the offer and the relocation documents in hand. Then I will be able to make it public knowledge.

I still don't plan on quitting my job. How can this be navigated? I don't want to quit. I can do the job remotely. They can't force me to quit. Would they have to fire me if I moved and didn't resign? Anybody know the answer to this?

If there is anybody out there reading this blog and you have a solution then please let me know!

Work from home to save the world!

Working from the house again. Attended a virtual training session, some one-on-ones and a few conference calls. Not a bad day's worth of work. It seems I am more productive. The only drawback is our VPN is sloooooow when accessing documents on the network.

I talked to TN about relocating again yesterday during my one-on-one. He still said nothing. He is set to discuss it with GP today. It would be great to do it remotely but I can see the company's point of view on not wanting to pay me extra. I am working on some scenarios for shuffling teams that will alow for least impact if I move and they fire me. I know it probably isn't my place, but it's how I process things.

Sometimes I wonder how much money in hourly wages is lost with these huge conference calls. I think we had over 100 managment people on the conference call earlier. It was an hour long... average for Managers has to be about $35 an hour. That's a good piece of money to waste every day.

Almost 1:00 PM and I have't stopped for lunch. That is one huge drawback of working from the house. I get mired in calls and emails and forget to get up and eat, use the bathroom, interact with the world....

If everybody worked from home would it save the environment due to the drop in fuel consumption? What would that do to the price of gasoline and in turn, oil? Let's make it a national initiative to work from home! I bet a grub worm could get elected with that as their platform. Think about it, parents see their children more, environmentalists see a reduction in carbon emmissions, world oil markets plummet, lower oil consumption creates more stable Middle East! With one small suggestion, I just saved the world.

Pins and Needles

Yesterday was a birthday celebration so I focused on that person instead of the blog...

Had GREAT cupcakes from Dimples! If you have never had a cupcake from there then click the link! They are THE BEST! Please let me know if you have good cupcakes you know of!

It was also a recuperation day after the sleepover. Our friends got here to get their son about 11:00 AM. He's a good boy but 5-year-old boy sleepovers are very different from little girl sleepovers of the same age. My daughters were not nearly as manic! Maybe they were the same but I was ten years younger so it didn't seem as manic... Perhaps. Word to the wise... It is much better if you just dive in. Once we got them engaged in playing hide-n-go-seek and activities like that, the arguing and competition disappeared.

I talked to TN again today and asked him if he had discussed the coming move with GP. I expressed that it was going to happen in all likelihood but nothing was guaranteed until we were gone. I mentioned working remotely and he stuck to the Party Line - Need to speak with the big man, GP.

I also made it beyond the halfway point of my book's second draft! I was stuck for a while and BAM! just like that my muse showed me the way ahead. Though the path is still dim I am making it through.

Don't know if anybody will ever start reading this... Anybody?

Sleepovers and Prospective Buyers

Today Grayson is having his first sleepover. Some friends had asked us to a surprise birthday dinner but we had a lack of childcare options so we had to decline. Oddly enough, the friends who invited us needed childcare (I think their previous arrangement fell through). So we agreed to it.

Grayson had a hard time dealing with all the sharing and having another kid that got to choose TV programs and activities. His sisters don't live here full-time and they are so much older than he is, they typically just give him what he wants. It was good for him, in my opinion.

On the selling of the home... We aren't officially on the market right now. We have a sign in the yard indicating "Media Room" and "Coming Soon". I was walking with Grayson and his friend and happened to strike up a conversation with a couple coming out of the Builder's Model Home. I saw a California license plate and wanted to find where he was moving from. Turns out it was a rental and they were moving from New Jersey.

During our conversation I mentioned that we were getting ready to put the house on the market because we were relocating to California. He promptly asked if he and his wife could take a look at it. I called Kim and asked if she was OK with it. She said she was so we all went to the house.

They got a personal tour of the place. They indicated they like it quite a bit. He said he was going to have his Realtor contact our Realtor. They loved the size of rooms and the media room. He said he would not need to come back and see this house if they found it to be what they were seeking. They asked how quickly we planned to move. We said as soon as the house was sold we were gone. He said that they were set to sell their home in New Jersey on June 7th. WOW! If he is serious we could be gone before the end of June!

YIKES!

But it may all be for nothing at this point. He was only expressing interest.... We shall see.

Can we get an offer?

WOO HOO! The big boss called Kim today and let her know he has pretty much finished putting the pieces into place. Early next week we should be getting the compensation and relocation package. This is going to be quite the adventure!

Kim told him that we planned to be there before the end of August so our son, Grayson, could start school on time. KINDERGARTEN here we come! Seems weird that my last child is starting school while our daughters are in middle school and high school already. When they say time flies, this is what they are talking about.

Her boss said he wants her there before then! I think the house will be gone in six to eight weeks after we put it on the market. Kim thinks it will take longer. The day we put the sign up that says "For Sale" I will definitely blog about it. We have already had the most fabulous Hulkowich's out to take the pics and evaluate the property. Love Wendy and Gary! We are hopeful that we will have no problem moving and making a small amount of money. We just moved in here ten months ago! It's a brand new neighborhood and the spec homes sell faster than they can build them. Right now there are no inventory homes on the ground so it is in our favor!

Oh yeah.... I worked from the house again today in an effort to continue testing the theory of managing my team remotely. I attended all the calls and answered all the emails with no issues. Was actually more productive than normal because I got to start at 7:30 instead of 8:30. I see no reason for them not to let me keep my job when we move.

So we are thinking of renting an apartment for at least six months when we first get to the SF Bay Area. There are some sweet places out there. It still amazes me that the property prices are so expensive! Even the apartments are pricey. We saw a couple that are about a third the size of our current home and the rent was more than we pay for our mortgage!

Well...... The transition buildup is slow. Can't wait to see what it's like once it gets rolling! Hopefully, my posts will become more interesting.

It's All Relative

Feeling a bit disjointed today...

I have been at my desk all day. Went to lunch at Chipotle (YUM!) with the three team members that are here in North Texas with me.

I was on a few conference calls earlier and now waiting for the last call of the day. While on the earlier calls I checked out some apartments and houses in the Fremont area. Sometimes I have to swallow hard to see the prices they place on homes out there. I know the size of your house and yard aren't important in a global sense but it is at least a little important to me and my family. I am trying to get into the right mindset that moving to California is more about the quality of life afforded to one than it is about what one has.

Albert E. would say, "It's all relative, Jay. What you have there will be just as nice as what those in your socio-economic circle have. Perhaps you should focus on what you will be gaining instead of what you will be leaving."

Kim was out of town yesterday and even though it was just for one day, I missed her. She is my best friend. Funny how vegging in front of the TV with her is better than without her. Just having her near makes the world a brighter happier place! I am one lucky guy!

On a completely different subject... Checked the beer last night (my home brewed dunkel weissen) and the yeast is starting to go dormant. This means it should be ready for the secondary fermenter by this weekend. I popped the top and it smelled like fresh banana bread... Sign of a GOOD German yeast.

Maybe I will post more later... Maybe today will be a twofer.... I doubt it, but anything is possible.

Downsize to California?

Why the title "Downsize to California"?

Good question! Answer is simple... We live in a great house here in North Texas. It is a large home with a game room, media room, four bedrooms and four bathrooms. A comparable home in a similar neighborhood gets us over $1,000,000 in California. Way out of our price range! Hence, the title. We have to go to a house about half the size without a game room or media room. Makes me sad to lose two of my favorite rooms. But the trade-off will hopefully be worth it!

Worked remotely today. We have the flexibility to do that. I am making sure that it is workable to work from home on a constant basis. I am not working completely from home but I want to be able to explain to TN that I have been successfully completing all my tasks remotely so there is no need to fire me! I can just change my home address and keep on working. Hope they go for it. Be nice to keep my job.

My daughters live in Nashville right now. Their mom moved there and took them with her last summer. I gotta say... That sucked. We haven't told them about California yet. We are waiting until we actually sign the offer letter and have a good time line in place. I think our house will be sold before the end of July. They come during the summer for several weeks and may be here when the house is sold. I think it would be fun to have them along for the adventure. Maybe they will love it so much they decide they want to live with us!

Talking to the boss man...

Day one... Well day two, actually. Day one was yesterday, 5/10/2010, when I told my manager, TN, that there was a distinct possibility that my wife was going to be asked to relocate to California.

How'd that go?

Let's see:

"TN, I wanted to let you know that my family might be asked to move to California."

"Really, Jay? Why's that?"

"My wife, Kim, has a great career opportunity there with her current company. We've talked before about how great she is at her job and her reputation. Right?"

"Yeah, yeah, I think we have. Remind me again what it is she does."

(Insert appropriate small talk - Blah Blah Blah - chuckle chuckle chuckle)

"So, TN, I wanted to make sure you understand that I already manage seventy-five percent of my team remotely. Hell, I haven't even met some of them and I would like to stay with the company when I move. You know, manage the whole team remotely."

"Oh. I will have to talk to GP about that. I need to know what he says before we can really discuss it or make any decisions."

"No problem. I just want to make sure you know I would like to stay with the company and I'd like to know what my options are to help me do that."

That was round one. Nothing mentioned today about it. We will see how it goes. On the up side, if I can keep my job then I get a 20% raise for the difference in the cost of living increase in California.

Next steps... Listing the house for sale with our great friend and most awesome Realtor, WH!