Brace Yourself (for Something Most of You Already Know)

The horse is probably out of the barn for pretty much everyone who reads this, but just in case anyone hasn't heard our big news, here it is: WE ARE MOVING TO GERMANY.

This has been simmering since the holidays, but it's finally official and the slow but massive wheels of Intel are in motion to make it happen. While I was in Portland in December with Nicole and Lily back in Leimen with Oma and Opa, the manager in the cube next to mine mentioned that he was opening a position in Europe. This was the same manager I worked for during my temporary assignment in Munich last fall. And the same manager who told me before, during, and after the temp assignment that there was really no chance at it becoming permanent. Well lo and behold the normally tight-fisted Intel god of job openings let his fingers slip wide enough that this job dropped down into our lap.

You might think that I did a backflip and immediately called Nicole to tell her the good news, but no. While all in all I was really happy with our temporary assignment, I came home thinking that it would be very difficult for me personally to do anything non-temporary there. This primarily boiled down to me feeling much more isolated in Munich. Of course I was away from my base of friends and family, but I also felt like I couldn't communicate with random people as much as I wanted. Whether it was walking into the drink market and having no idea what the owner was asking me, or sitting at a table in the cafeteria at work and trying to figure out what my colleagues were talking about, I was definitely not feeling at home. And yes, the people at work speak excellent English, but who can blame them for slipping back into their native tongue while chatting over lunch?

I actually waited over a week after returning to Germany for vacation before even telling Nicole about the position. I felt like I needed to get comfortable with any possibility of applying for the job and all that goes with it (more on that later) before bringing it up, because I knew which side of the fence Nicole would be on. So I got halfway comfortable, brought it up, got the response I expected from the family as a whole, and got a little more comfortable. For the "all that goes with it", let me tell you about the position. It is a Business Development Manager position, which means that I will be a sort of salesman for Intel Ethernet products. I will get to tell our customers about why our products are so great, how much they'll have to pay for them, and what products are coming next. And of course I'll listen to them tell me how much they'd like to pay, and what features need to be in the next generation. As with most sales-y positions, this one involves some travel, actually about 30-40% of my time. That was a pretty big hurdle for us to accept in this process since all three of us value our family time (I'm almost always home for dinner by 5:30). Not to mention that this is another step away from my engineering background, something I've felt has always been my foundation and strength. Another hurdle is that this is a "local hire" position, paid in Euros, requiring a German work/residence permit, and there is not a guarantee that a position back in the states will be waiting for me when we're ready to come back across the Atlantic. Yes, at this point we're looking at this as a two to three year opportunity. But I was also thinking of my move to Oregon as a two to three year thing, and here we are eleven years later...

So after all that doubt, how did we get to this point, with a signed lease in Munich, many of our possessions available for sale on Craigslist (please buy them!), an employment contract that begins April 15, and an agreement to sell our condo (whew!)? A long time ago we both said that we really wanted to do an assignment abroad, and especially in Germany. Nicole grew up changing scenery every few years and liked that experience. While I grew up in the same house for the first eighteen years of my life, I really enjoy traveling and have always been pretty comfortable in faraway places for work trips and vacations. I actually planted this seed in my soon-to-be manager's head about five years ago. Of course when we made that initial wish for a foreign assignment, we had no concept of where we'd be in our lives right now. Leaving your country behind with a two year old and a one-way ticket feels a lot bigger than saying "wouldn't it be cool to live in Germany?". But at the end of the day, we decided we wanted to take a big leap and do something that we're 99% sure we'll look back on in 20 years as a great part of our lives and a formative experience. Opportunities like this don't present themselves every day, so we're going for it. Actually the more we thought about it, the more we realized that right now is actually the perfect time to take the leap. We're a single income family (no complications with finding/keeping a second job) with a little girl who is not yet in school. So we can leave on this adventure thinking that we'll come back before (if) Nicole wants to go back to corporate life and Lily is ready for kindergarten, but who knows if kindergarten will be in an Elementary School or in a Grundschule?

Ok, I've brought you to where we stand today. In our next installment Nicole will tell you all of the fun details of where we'll be and the not-as-fun details of getting ready to move with 2 cats and a toddler.