Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Chicago?

The ball is now rolling forward.

A very good friend of mine, with whom I had worked many years, referred me to another mutual colleague (and friend) who is a fast rising star at a large firm in the Chicago area.

Our colleague had tried to help recruit me for another position with their firm in the past, but this time had an opening for a senior role in his organization. We discussed the role, timing and family responsibilities, which he agreed were very important - especially with our little one do so soon. He felt we could work out a low-travel, remote work plan until my family could relocate to Chicago next year. The pay would be better than I'm earning in rural North Carolina and in general acceptable for a period of time. Combined with my wife's income, we'll be comfortable.

Bottom line: I'm in the running for the position. The job requisition has to be publicly posted for a week before he can make a formal offer. I have to avoid being to excited - too many things could happen to kill the deal - such as a more qualified candidate, an internal transfer within the organization or, although few admit it's possible, an act of nepotism. At this point I feel I have a firm 60/40 chance in my favor.

How will this impact our finances:

Immediate:
Not much - I wouldn't start until November.

Short term

  1. + Increased salary.
  2. - Travel expenses would have to be cash-flowed until re-imbursed - expect 60 days.
  3. - More expensive recreation activities with the family when I am home.
  4. - Possible wardrobe expenses - still seems like most of Chicago's culture is business casual inside the office and tie, sports jacket outside of the office - I'll have to examine the culture more.
  5. + Possibly better benefits.
  6. - Incidental travel expenses. I may consider picking up a condo in Chicago, but it might not be necessary if the travel schedule is indeed light.
  7. ? I'm not sure when I would be eligible for retirement benefits. I may have to take them through a family business rather than my new employer. This would cost me payroll taxes on the benefit - figure $2,250.

I will post about a long term analysis later.

blogger has crashed on me three times while writing this post!

Can anyone recommend a third party tool that will post entries to blogger?

Thanks.

makingourway

2 comments:

2million said...

I tend to just write out the entire post in Notepad or Word and copy/paste the entire thing into Blogger when I am ready to go.

makingourway said...

I've tried notepad / word - the only problem has been the inconvience of formatting (i.e. hand crafting html).

I guess I may go back to that, but it really shouldn't be necessary - blogger should be working.

Thanks for your thoughts,
makingourway