When East Meets North West

I took off today to go exploring Big D with hubs and the kids. Since C had to turn in his ream of paper work, we decided to make a trip of it. He also wanted to show off his new office. I felt I should check the place out in case I need to find a future job.

Normally when I think of an "office setting" I think of the drab white walls with the cheesy inspirational posters and a unending sea of cubicles. NOT that I'm picturing my current office right now or anything..ahem.
Our CEO/president of the company, promised us a "rocket ship" of an office with our new building. In other words a large office area in a shopping plaza, across the street from a cemetery. I promise I couldn't make this up if I tried. I'm sure it will look lovely and rocketshippish on the inside. If they ever get it finished.

Enter countrybumpkin little ol us into downtown Big D and you get East (East Texas) meets North West (Big D). The buildings are a hundred times bigger and 100% rocket ship. I completely felt like a fish out of water. I will have to post about the high end fashion shops on the first floor of his building on another post.

Hubs took us in and the first thing you see is a giant wall painted in a bright blue. There are no white walls. The wals were either blue or red or yellow. A full spectrum of color. There were no cheesy inspirational posters on the walls, instead they had one huge wall dedicated to some beautiful amateur photography. I want to guess there was some kind of contest involved as I saw a giant ribbon next to one of them.
Sure there was a sea of cubicles but these were cutting edge retro groovy kind of cubicles and everyone of course had giant flat screen monitors. I honestly wanted to walk around and just gander at the plethora of little conference room offices and an actual centrally located copy room; instead of just a copier thrown in one department where everyone goes to make copies and shred stuff. When your cubicle is right next to said copier and shredder you literally want to either start stabbing people or charging them 10 cents a copy or better yet, start sounding like the making copies guy from SNL..not that I would know anything about that.

It does not take much to impress me.

As if just the office itself was not enough, C showed me the feather in the cap of impressed. Their snacks and drinks aka carbonated beverages are free. PLUS -THEY HAD THEIR OWN BOTTLED WATER. Yes, you heard that right my friends, their bottled water has their company logo on it...free of course. Well blow me down.

Maybe you guys who work in fancy offices have all these cool things that I mentioned, if so- lucky you. Our office is the typical The Office office. Even theirs is cooler than ours. I have nothing against my company whatsoever..except maybe a few things but that's neither here nor there. All I'm saying is this company that hubs is going to work for is a company that cares about it's employees. It has even made it on the Forbes top places to work for list. To me that means a lot no matter the pay.

(No T, they did not have a ping pong table-that I could tell. At least we have that going for us right?)

And The Realization Begins To Set In...

I should have realized that I needed to be a little more direct to Wonderboy about the whole life changing event that's happening. Oops.
I didn't have to even really say anything. Gameboy just casually mentioned something to Wonderboy like, "when we move to Big D blah blah" and then the water works began to fall from Wonderboy. The realization set in.

"I like my house."
"I want my school B Elementary"
"What about O? He will miss me."
And so many more questions.

I tried to comfort him as much as possible, but also told him that it's totally understandable to be sad about missing his friends and routine. Change is hard for him. I also told him that we're taking this new adventure one day at a time.
Poor little guy he is trying to be stoic and wipe away his tears as he tries unsuccessfully to hold them in. Meanwhile I'm trying to remain stoic myself..not that I'm sad leaving per say but sad for him and just want to reassure him that we're all in this new adventure together.

His big brother of course is totally stoked about the new adventure and doesn't seem to have regrets..yet. I'm thinking maybe his realization hasn't quite set in.

The Big Reveal

Remember the vague thing ? Sure you do. Well I'm finally able to come clean of my little secret. The gag order has been lifted.

My hubs..my awesome hubs has been offered a job in Big D, pretty much doing exactly what he does now but with an extra little bit more change in his pocket. This is of course a yippee kind of moment but with a little bitter sweetness to it.
The plan for now is, for me to stay here and keep working while hubs stays in Big D during the week. Most of the time he will be traveling during the week and wouldn't be home much in the beginning anyway.

Right now everything is so up in the air that were doing this on a day by day basis. We don't know how long he'll do the commute thing. He wants to get his feet wet so to speak. I can understand, it's a bit nerving to leave a job after 9 years where your an expert at what you do, where your highly valued and then just leave it all behind for something new.

Our company couldn't come close to a counter offer which is sad as they will always tell him he's a valuable employee at what he does. It really is going to sting them a bit when he leaves. No hard feelings.

So that's basically it. I know I probably built up the excitement way to much. I'll keep you updated.

Whew I feel so much better now.