Why live in the greater Chicago area when you can live in New Mexico or Colorado?
The problem is, you can't. My employer closed down an office in Santa Fe just a few years ago. That was only two years after my wife and I were thinking about moving there (one of the VP's had told me, 'Sure, we're always trying to get engineers to move to the Santa Fe office').
As it stands, I telecommute 2 days per week, and have a 160-mile round trip for the other 3 days. Just because some activities can be accomplished over the wires doesn't mean that one can always or even often be away from the main office. I'm a SW engineer, and my job is "made" for telecommuting far more so than most. But telecommuting still doesn't cut it.
Yes, I live outside of major metro areas, but when I moved here my company had another office a mere 60 miles away. Then my job moved to a different location. It's very hard to do what I'm doing, and I have racked my brain trying to think of a way to fix my commute issue. But that means buying a house with property taxes of $10,000 per year, which is kinda steep for me. So, do I prefer paying high property taxes, or a lot of money for gas? :-( |
