A personal one-eighty

One month ago I was committing to move my family and my massive tax payments from Wisconsin to Michigan. I had mentally checked out of Wisconsin and was thumbing my nose at the $15 billion “health care” boondoggle you suckers were going to enjoy.

I have been working in Michigan on a contract basis for over a year and my manager was encouraging me to apply for a permanent position that was to be posted in August. He and I had even begun salary and benefit talks, and I had started house hunting.

But on August 22, while my wife was here on one of those house hunting trips, I was informed that the project I am presently working on will be put on hold for an indefinite time, and we will need to begin to close things out. In other words, it was time to find a new job - fast.

(NB – There are some fantastic real estate bargains in the St. Joseph area. Our realtor showed homes to my wife and me on each of her two visits that we would have immediately bought if I had a permanent position here. Relatively low property taxes, too.)

Since then, that permanent position has never been posted and I have observed others currently working in similar positions. After seeing the poor treatment and awful working hours required of these people (2 of whom abruptly retired), I have decided that this job is not for me.

Meanwhile, a colleague I was helping to place in a different job decided against taking that position. In our follow-up correspondence he learned of my situation and offered to recommend me to his employer. Making a short story shorter, last Friday I had dinner with my colleague, the owner of his company, and our spouses. An offer of employment was extended, negotiations began this week.

Good news for Jim Doyle, my new W-2 will continue to list a Wisconsin domicile.

It is time to swap headgear.