Gulag Be Gone, Part Deux - The other shoe drops

Well, today I finally got what I was looking for.....the job offer from the company that I interviewed with last week that, in effect, cost me my job at The Gulag. My first day will be Monday, October 4th.

Like I said before this is a much better company that is much closer to the house with more or less much better hours and benefits than The Gulag.

Notice that I didn't say better pay.

As it turns out, this job doesn't pay very well. At all. But after talking it over with the Mrs. we know it's our best option right now, especially since I don't have anything else right now and my unemployment benefits are not gonna be any better than this and they would probably run out way before I found anything else.

But as positives I really like the company and given their huge growth in the last few months (they acquired a competitor earlier in the year that has them growing 4 times their original size in one shot), there might be some great opportunities down the road. The only problem is the basically the pay. As I mentioned in a post last year, the job market in the Ocean State blows and has for a long time thus allowing companies to pay a lower rate.

Would I have taken this job if I was still at The Gulag? Y'know, that is a great question. And, to be honest, I don't know. Part of me says I probably wouldn't have (yes, the difference in pay is that much), but that's something I'll try not to dwell on. As people say to me time and time again (especially in the last 5 years), "Things happen for a reason" and I guess I have to believe that for now.

Of course as I work at the new place I'll keep my options open and still look around for something that pays better, something I hoped I wouldn't have to do as it seems like I'm always "looking for something better" for more than a decade. At the very least this time around I'll be closer to the house, not killing my already half-dead car and spending hundreds of dollars in gas a month and actually be home at a decent hour.

As an aside: I do not like to talk politics here, but given this post I must point this out: Ronald Reagan asked the American people one thing and it won him the election in 1980: "Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?" John Kerry should be asking that same question and he might score some points with people. All I know is that in 2000 I was making more money and paying alot less than $1.75/gallon for gas.