Decision time

Emily and I have known for a few years that we wanted to move to Latin/South America.  After visiting my friends Robert and Barb, we knew that Ecuador was the place we wanted to be.  The question became: When do we make that change, and how do we do it?

I had started working at bebe stores corporate offices in January of 2012.  I thoroughly loved the job and the people that I worked with.  Larry, my director, and I had many common interests outside of work: construction, woodworking and gardening.  My "customers"/coworkers (shout out here to Yuliya, Bill, Kate, Debbie and many others) were a pleasure to work with.  Working in a relatively small office (120 employees) let me develop attachments and relationships with the people there, and I could have easily spent the rest of my career there.

Emily had a different experience.  She started working at Facebook at the same time I started at bebe.  She enjoyed the people that she worked with very much, and the culture was casual and created to entice people to spend  most of their time at the office: free meals, snacks, open office space and an attitude of "Work fast, break things" that contributed to a high energy/vibrant work culture.  Unfortunately, she had to experience a management change that ruined that culture for her.  She still enjoyed working with her peers (other project managers, directors, etc.), but her "leadership" had created an environment of competition and distrust, and her desire to work there quickly evaporated.  She left Facebook at the end of October.

Rather than looking for a new position, we decided that this was the time to make the change.  It was with much sadness that I met with my director Larry and told him that I would no longer be working for bebe.  I told him that the position that I had as Senior Systems Manager was the best job that I had had in 20 years, but I was no longer interested in working in IT.  Emily and I had made the decision to move to Ecuador and give up corporate life.

Many people questioned the change.  Some family members said, "You can't do that!".  Some co-workers said, "Ecuador?  That's a stupid place to go!".  We knew, however, that it was the place for us, and we weren't looking back.

In 1994, Emily and I moved from Minnesota to California with very little: $1000 from my 401k, my Ranger pickup, her Grand-am, a trailer full of clothes and a futon.  We had made a major lifestyle change before, so we knew that we had the experience to make the change.  The only question was when, and that answer was given to us.

We live on a cul-de-sac of 23 houses, and over the past 15 years we've gotten to know our neighbors very well.  Our best friends on the street, Rory and Lindy and their two kids Makena and Jackson, will be the most missed, along with Bill, Glenn and Maria, Greg and Mo, Alex and Michelle, Michael, Barbara and all the others.  We've been blessed to have lived where we have and wish all the best to the friends and neighbors that we're leaving behind.

Now comes the hard part - downsizing!