The two-body problem part 9: The counter

(This is more parts than I thought it would be)

Once we were set on my situation, it was time to start the process (in miniature) with Hub. He went for a visit. Liked what he saw, negotiated a little on his salary and situation and came back happier and more excited then I've seen him in a really long time. To us the decision was a clear one. This opportunity was far superior for both of us.

But, there were a couple of downsides, most notably, we'd have to move, and sell our house (I'm wincing just typing those words).

We talked and weighed our options ad nauseum. We consulted some of our trusted friends, who kindly told us we were stupid for even considering staying. We did not, for the first time in our lives, consult our parents. This might have been the hardest part. But, we were concerned that the possibility of us being closer to home would overwhelm any rational opinion they could provided on the topic, and we really wanted to make the right decision for the right reasons. (I love you, Mom, but you know it's true).

We also, continued to follow our policy of honesty. I had told my department head, who in turn had told the dean, when I was going on the interview, when I got the job and when I got the final offer. As bad as my experience was here, I owed them the chance to make it right. I was forthcoming about the reasons both the personal and professional.

That's where things started to get sticky. As much as I knew in my heart things here were crap, being an eternal optimist, I always want to believe the best in people, and a teeny tiny part of me wanted to hold on to some hope that I had not wasted the last two years working faithfully for a department that really didn't want me anyways.

Almost immediately the reaction, on the surface, was "We can't loose her", "What can we do to make you stay?". "Don't make any decisions yet, we are not out of options here". There was an early morning phone call with the dean when I was at a conference, there was a meeting with my husband to see "what he wanted". There were alot of conversations about what I needed, what they where offering, what hub was going to do there. (It was kind of fun to watch the Dean almost choke when he saw the startup offer). BUT, there was never a concrete counter offer. UNTIL, the last possible minute. AND, it was a halfhearted "match" at that. It was never really made clear what they were "matching" my salary? my startup? hub's salary? hub's startup? and specific questions were met with a "whatever you need" type answer and nothing was given in writing. The conversation took place 24 hours before my signed offer letter needed be mailed back to the new institution. We considered it for about 30 minutes before I formally told the dean and department head of my decision. Remember, we had already weighed all of the pros and cons, doing so based on the hypothetical that current U would match. Moving still won out, so we happily signed our offer letters and Fed-Exed them off.

I hear that Universities will sometimes work hard to keep faculty. That wasn't my experience, but as more pieces of the puzzle are revealed, I wouldn't take my experience as typical. Turns out the corrupt-ness of the situation here goes WAY back, and it turns out they didn't want to hire me in the first place because some upper administrator doesn't like the potential "competition" our department poses to his power trip or something, so same administrator has some strings to pull when it comes to counter offers. Let's just say all those nagging suspicions I had about my position here weren't really in my head, but a reality.

So there you have it, that is how we solved the two-body problem, for now at least. It's a wine win, in the end it turned out to be just as much about a bad situation for me as it was about the two-body problem. But the latter was the driving factor and the very tangible one. We are very positive and excited about the new place, we can't wait to move there and get going. I feeler surer and calmer then I have in years. Hub does too. We are patiently waiting out our days here and even though there has been some crappy fallout from the decision (maybe it will make another post), I don't really mind. The truth is clear and I'm confident that I've not compromised any of my core beliefs in finding it out.