"Hillary Israeli" wrote in message
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(...)

When I was 14 or 15 years old, my dad "commuted" from a suburb of
Philadelphia, PA to a job in Stockton, CA that he "couldn't turn down". He
had an apartment in Stockton, and he would stay there for 10 days, and
then come "home" for 4 days (Fri/Sat/Sun/Mon). He *hated* it, and as soon
as he got my mom to agree, they moved to CA. Of course, mom's initial
theory that she could never be happy "so far from home" was correct, and
almost exactly a year later he quit the job and they moved back home to
the Philadelphia area. Obviously YMMV....

Employees who move long distances for their companies have a higher
attrition rate than those who stay put.

One guy who worked for my old company was asked to move to CA from NYC, and
he did. After about 1 or 1.5 years, he left to return to the east coast. He
later ended up working for one of our competitors.

Another one who moved from CA to NYC ended up getting divorced and moving
back to CA (and I think me moved to Europe after getting into some legal
trouble - apparently it was either that or jail).

In one case, he wanted to be on the east coast and in the other, the stress
of moving may have had to do with his divorce.

So moving long distances is not a good way to retain employees (just look at
how all those soldiers come back from Iraq and want to leave the armed
services). On the other hand, you don't know if you will like it until you
try it. And in many cases it is a good move. My brother moved to CA for
medical school and is now on faculty there. And as much as I hate big
cities, I will be teaching middle school in Harlem, NYC.

Just out of curiosity, did you move to Stockton, too? Or did you stay around
Philly?

Jeff