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I posted a tweet the other day about how I was thinking of moving again and I got a lot of responses back. The most common of which was “DUH, everyone knows Indiana is boring.”  I do agree that Indiana can be a bit boring but from my experience I’ve found the location where you are isn’t as important as the people that are there. For those that don’t know how I ended up back at Purdue let me explain:

When I returned from my year overseas I was in no hurry to begin working again because I had a bunch of weddings to attend and friends to catch up with that I hadn’t seen in a while.  Also, I thought that returning to Bank of America was a sure thing because before I left my boss offered me the opportunity for a sabbatical of up to 14 months where I would still have been considered an employee with full benefits just no pay.  However, I turned this down largely because I was being underpaid (in my opinion) for the position that I held and figured that I could get a larger salary (and possibly another sign on bonus) if I were to leave and then be rehired. 

When the wedding circuit had ended I had hopes of seeking a job overseas in HK or Singapore, or working as an IT person on a cruise ship.  However, at this point the economic down turn was at its worst and jobs were at a premium.  I reached out to my contacts and Bank of America but with the mass amounts of layoffs that Bank of America was doing they weren’t able to bring me back on.  My backup plan was to accept a consulting gig with Accenture down in SC but with the economy continuing to sour the start date kept getting pushed back till the position was eventually canceled. 

I completed a few more interviews and kept waiting on an offer from several companies that all looked promising but with the holiday season and the economy not looking so good they were taking longer than I hoped. I started thinking about grad school and knew Purdue had a discount for staff. So, after a long while of not hearing anything back from the other companies and my bank account looking very sad from not working since 2007 I accepted an offer from Purdue with the intent of doing a weekend or part-time grad school program.  Turns out a week or two later the other companies finally got around to giving me the offer’s but it was a little too late.

Well it turns out that Purdue’s staff discount doesn’t apply to weekend courses and you can’t do the full-time program part-time.  Also, all my friends that made the Purdue experience so great are no longer around the West Lafayette area.  The new people I’ve met out here are great but there really isn’t a population of single young professionals to hang out with like in other cities.  There are plenty of college students but having been in their shoes before I know that wanting to do something and having the funds to do it are two entirely separate things.  As for the non-student population in the area, it seems that everyone I meet is married and have kids at home that prevent them from doing many activities.

So my tweet was mostly an emotional response having spent an extended weekend on the beach with some of my friends from Charlotte and my frustration in trying to figure out the Tuition Remission benefits for Purdue staff. Let me just clarify for everyone trying to convince me to return to Charlotte or other locations that I probably won’t be moving anytime soon.  I have only been in my current job since March and I feel like jumping ship this early would look bad on the resume . . . especially considering my last real job ended July 2007.  However, I wouldn’t put it past me.

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