In article et,
"Jeff" wrote:

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

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


In my family, most of us have moved far away (some multiple times) for
jobs.

One brother was stationed in Fairbanks when he got out of the service;
he loved it there, and has stayed every since (over 25 years).

One brother took a parish in North Dakota (hated it, lasted a few years)
and is now at a church in Debuque, Iowa.

One brother has lived in Cambridge, Washington DC, and New York; since
he and his partner liked Cambridge best, they moved back there.

One brother has moved several times, living in Minneapolis, San Diego,
and Lake Tahoe, and has just moved to Kansas City to take a job.

My sister is the only one who still lives close to where we grew up, and
is likely to stay (Duluth).

I've moved twice to follow my partner's jobs: first to Massachusetts (8
years), then to San Jose, where we've been for 11-1/2 years. He's
looking again (mostly, he wants us to live somewhere where there's a
chance of owing our own home; median house prices here are over
$700,000 now). So, if he DOES find another job, we'll be moving again.

Around here, I know so many people who live here because they followed a
job to get here . . . in fact, native born San Jose folks (over the age
of about 30) are rare.

So it's hard for me to imagine that it is as common as you seem to be
saying for people to only stay in a job that they've moved for for a
year or two.
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care