My father-in-law died. I was truly saddened by that and still in mourning over his loss. He was the last of our parents. Just another sign that I am getting older. It was time to make a major life change and we decided to go for it. He was the on the only reason we were still in California.
My career has been good, but not great because I have been stuck in a mid-level market that for my industry has been serviced mostly from the San Francisco/Silicon Valley or Sacramento areas. As such, not many IT companies locate offices in Fresno despite there being almost a million people in the metropolitan area.
I am long past working for mom and pop companies who can’t pay enough and I was really tired of working for out of the area companies working from home. I spent 15 of the last 18 years working from my home office. I am tired of that. I miss the camaraderie of an office with coworkers and the hallway conversations where we can exchange ideas and I can learn from people who have been learning together for years. Because of my father-in-law, we stayed in Fresno at the expense of my career.
My wife told me it was time to look at a move. I certainly didn’t want to relocate to the Bay Area, Los Angeles, or anywhere else in California. I wanted out of that cesspool. Six weeks after I began looking for a new job, I am living in Northern Indiana and working for an amazing company, Impact Networking. I am in a role like one I did for three and a half years and so far I feel like I fit in well. The office I am in is great as are the people and leadership.
I don’t think this is the final location for me as I am tentatively scheduled to settle in Indianapolis early next year. That was the initial target destination and my offer letter was for Indy. For now I’m doing what I was asked and filling in until the office here gets fully staffed.
So far, I love Indiana. The people are great. I’ve been here a week and I haven’t seen homelessness, red light runners, or rude people. What a change from California. This was a smart move for me. Now I can’t wait for the rest of my family to move here too.