re: #507 Anymouse

What do you do? My training (aviation electronics repair) was rendered irrelevant by my epilepsy (the FAA will not let me work in my field, nor will any electronics repair shop for fear of a seizure or something). My life’s work was rendered irrelevant.

You do not have to live in the most expensive housing market because your job and training supposedly require that (it is rationalisation on your part). You can choose to do whatever you want.

I have a friend who was offered a job for Web design at Cabela’s main office in Sidney, Nebraska. He lived in Kalispell, Montana and couldn’t afford it any longer.

He turned down the job in Sidney because it didn’t pay enough. (It started at $60,000 per year.) That amount of money would put you in the top 2% of my county.

The real issue is he didn’t understand that living in a tourist trap like Kalispell is not the same as living in another part of the country. He refused the job.

He is now unemployed and begging me for money, scraping by in Chicago and bothering my mother there. I’ve told him to leave her alone and he was an idiot to turn down the job in Sidney. Pesky personal responsibility how does it work?

I’m a Scientist, particularly a Molecular Biologist. I get paid pretty well and it’s interesting work, and it’s what I trained to do and have done for 35 years. I’m pretty good at it, at least all the companies I’ve worked for seem to think so. I’m also not sure what else I could stand doing as a job.

One reason to live where I do is that the nature of the industry is that there are a lot of failed companies, which lasted between 5 and 20 years, but in the end couldn’t make a go of it. Or the DID make a go of it, and a bigger company bought them and laid off most or all of the staff. It can happen pretty suddenly. When it does, you want to be in a place with a lot of OTHER companies who might hire you.

Mrs. FBW and I have talked about where else we could live, but the problem is always, “What if I take a job there, and that company folds?” We are not the kind of people who like moving, so we’re strongly disinclined to take risks like that.