Well, let's just start at the beginning, shall we?
Chad has worked for Detector Electronics for 18 years. He started working for his company as a switchboard operator, with light mailroom duties. So, when you hear of the stereotypical "Mailroom Mogul" -- that is, that celebrated ability to set out with few prospects and little experience and work one's way up the corporate ladder to the very top -- that's him. He has talent, drive, ambition -- and I am very, very proud of him.
In the spring of 2013, Chad visited the Houston office to provide some training to the Houston team in his capacity as Senior Proposals Engineer. Chad was also able to visit some of the customers that he supports. The trip was a resounding success. It was there that the seed was planted by the Houston RSMs that Chad should transfer to the Houston office and work with their team. Chad expressed interest in relocating to the Houston area, but only if certain things fell into place. Also, let's be honest -- the offer had to be right. Uprooting the entire family to move across the continent is a serious matter, not to be taken lightly.
Over the next nine months, that planted seed began to grow. Communications with HR started. It was brutally painful because weeks would go by and we would have radio silence from HR. We were living in limbo, not knowing whether or not the offer was going to come, and if it did come, whether it would be enough to actually relocate our family to Texas? We have a senior in high school that needed to start looking at colleges. We didn't know if we were going to be living in Minnesota or Texas when she graduated high school. This factored into her decisions on where she wanted to apply. Not knowing was the worst part of the whole experience. There's so many details to figure out, and yet not having an offer made it impossible to do anything.
Finally, after months of negotiation, radio silence, bass akwards communications and procedures, politics, delays and some bickering and gray hairs between Chad and me, the offer finally came. By this time, we had already decided that we really wanted to start a new chapter in our lives and take the plunge. As scary and overwhelming as the whole prospect of relocating our family across the country is, we are taking a leap of faith and hoping that our journey to Houston will be worth it.
