Last Splash

The gene pool could use a little Chlorine.

I had a moment last weekend. We had visited friends in a town an hour and a half away (a town where I have been offered a very good promotion and have until May to decide if I want it or not) and were on the way home. It was late, maybe a little after 3AM, and we were just leaving the outskirts of town. It had snowed. The roads were slick and there was almost no one on them. We passed a huge building on the right, all lit up. It was a local headquarters building for CitiBank. I don't know what they do there, they may be telemarketers or bill collecters or they may just be data-entry people, but there was a big sign on the site that had a website for jobs. And very nonchalantly, J turned to me and said "write that website down and I'll look at it tomorrow".

Now, let me backtrack a little...we've been frustrated lately by the fact that we both have lucrative job opportunities on the horizon, but mine involves moving to a place where State jobs are infrequent at best, and three or four paygrades lower than what he's making now. Our options are to move to a town in between and both commute an hour in opposite directions (neither of us has ever had a commute of more than 25 minutes), or for me to take the job and him to find some kind of work (likely a step down, and not working for the State, where he is now "tenured"), or for me to pass the opportunity up and wait. At this point, none of these are great scenarios, and of course this job I've been offered is the perfect step for my career, but I'm going to be part of a 'unit' soon and cannot make a decision like this without factoring how it will change our lives.

So, basically there has been a big back and forth in our household of me trying to point out why commuting is the best option, countered with J pointing out that any money we make in raises will be negated by gas and car maintenance, countered by me pointing out that my company is being bought in a few months and I need this title on my resume in case I get canned in the takeover, countered by him saying I'm not going to get canned anyway and you KNOW we're going to open a store in ______ in the next year and I should wait it out for that one countered by me saying "there's no way that store will be as high volume as the one I'm being offered now" countered by him saying "it doesn't matter what volume the store does, you can turn it into a higher volume store" countered by me saying "you don't understand this business...a higher volume store makes you more visible, and that store will be smaller and hold less merchandise, meaning it really can't be as high volume..." and so on and so forth. And this conversation happens about 3 times a week.

So imagine my delight when he wanted to check into jobs at this CitiBank location, meaning he's at least trying to look around and scour the options, which makes me secure in knowing he really does want what's best for me. And I was already happy, but then the radio started playing "Fade Into You" from Mazzy Star, which is never played on the radio and was one of our favorite songs back in the day and I looked at him and he reached for my hand and we just had this moment where I thought "no one knows you this well, or probably ever will" and I got all emotional and cried a little and everything was right with the world.

posted by: Cannonball14 at 16:16 | link | comments (2) |

Comments:

#1  16 February 2006 - 16:25

 

Awwwww. :-)

greeneyes

#2  17 February 2006 - 02:49

 

Great story, CB! It gives you faith that you made the right choice. Together, you two will work it out...I know you will!

Windhazel

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