The Great Relocation… Part 1
I’m sitting under a fleecy blanket on the couch in my new home in Schenectady, New York.
It’s currently 6°C and raining, and we’re about three weeks into Spring.
It’s been one year and ten days since this journey began.
How did I get here? I’ll tell you; but you better settle in, because it’s quite a story…
One afternoon, it was Friday 07 April 2017 to be exact, I headed over to my (now) father-in-law’s place for family dinner. Bagel arrived sometime after I did, and he seemed a bit jittery. That’s really odd because he’s probably the coolest, calmest cucumber I know.
After a little while, he took me aside and confessed that he’d seen a job opening in the USA on his company’s intranet site, and that he’d sent an email asking if they’d consider a non-local for the role.
I was a bit shocked (read: quite flabbergasted), but my immediate reaction was to encourage him to ‘go for it’ if they were willing to transfer him. He was quick to tell me that it probably would never happen and that he was sorry for not chatting to me about it before even sending the email out, but he hadn’t even attached his CV to the email so it would probably be a slow process, if anything at all.
Apparently, the news of his interest in the role travelled fast because by the time we got home just a few hours later, he was receiving calls and emails requesting that he do a telephonic interview for the role the following week. At this point, we both began to freak out just the tiniest bit.
I know how important Bagel’s career is to him; he’s probably the most ambitious and driven person I know, and this would mean a massive step up for him; one he certainly wasn’t going to get in the role he was in at the time. So, I put my emotions to one side (as best I could) and encouraged him to do the interview and grab the opportunity with both hands. I couldn’t live with myself knowing that he’d missed out on such an incredible opportunity because of my selfishness and fear of losing him.
Surprisingly, I wasn’t very emotional at all that weekend. But Bagel was uncharacteristically emotional. At one point, we were sitting at the kitchen counter and I remember telling him not to worry about moving far away from his family because they’d all keep in touch and they’d be able to visit, and I’d take care of them and make sure they were all okay. And at that point, he blurted out that he didn’t want them to feel that he’d just abandoned them, and it wasn’t so much about being afraid to leave them, it was that he didn’t want to leave me.
Well, obviously that brought on some tears for both of us, and led to the discussion around if I’d be willing to leave all my friends and family and join him in the USA if his interviews were successful. I didn’t really even have to think about it; it was an immediate ‘yes’. My only conditions were that when we got married in the future, it had to be at home in South Africa so that our closest friends and family could join us, and that he had to ask my dad’s permission first. He happily agreed.
What happened next?
Bagel had a few video conferencing interviews the following week, and they went well. On 30 April, he travelled to the USA for his face-to-face interview with his prospective boss and the client. During his week there, he also spent a bit of time checking out the town and surrounding areas where we’d be based if he got the job, and got a feel for which areas would be good to set up a home in as regards traffic and such.
We were only meant to know the outcome of his interviews once he’d returned home, but the day before he flew back to Joburg, he got a call saying he’d aced the interviews and the job was his! I’ll never forget the moment he told me the news. It was a Friday afternoon and I’d just climbed into my car to head home for the day, when his message came through. I was beside myself with excitement and had to keep reminding myself to ease up on the accelerator all the way home! Two days later, I fetched Bagel from the airport, and we began planning the big move.
Bagel and I celebrating his job offer (the first one).
But…
Two and a half weeks after the fabulous news, we got a call saying that due to some recent activities and changes within the business, the role Grant had been offered would need to be opened up again. Essentially, the job would only be his if there were no local applicants in the coming week.
The main problems here were that Grant was expected to move to the USA by the end of June, which meant we’d need to sell our house, and anything else we weren’t planning to ship over at a later stage, in less than two months. We’d already started that process and it was difficult to reverse it. The second issue was that we’d already told our closest friends and our families about this move, and emotions were already running high; to go back and hit everyone with a ‘never mind’ would just be a nightmare. Finally, I’d already let my boss know about the upcoming move and we’d started discussing when I’d wrap up working with the team, and when they should start advertising my role. Grant had done the same with his team at the time. So, to go back to our employers and hit them with a ‘never mind’ would not only be a huge inconvenience for them because they’d already put contingency plans in place, but it would also look extremely unprofessional and quite silly of us!
Thankfully, on 31 May we received official and final confirmation that none of the local applicants’ interviews had been successful; the job was officially Bagel’s (no take-backs this time!) and we were officially going to move to the USA! Insert massive sigh of relief, and also nervous giggles, here.
It wouldn’t be easy though…
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series to find out what happened next in The Great Relocation!
Take care,
C
xo
Thumbnail image courtesy of Slava Bowman on Unsplash
