Yes, I have left Montana and moved to New Zealand.
Why? Well, it wasn't entirely be choice. After 25 years of working as an electronics design engineer for HP, I got a call from my boss at 8:30AM one Monday morning informing me I was out of a job. Just like that, no warning. I found out a few days later that HP's CEO had decided they would no longer allow anyone to "telework," which is what I had been doing for the past 8 years. The official announcement was that teleworkers would have to "go back into the office." But for many of us (including the other 4 teleworkers on my team) they meant someone else's office.
So, with both HP and Yahoo announcing they would no longer allow teleworking, the chances of finding another teleworking job (which is difficult to do anyway, especially when you're new to a job) were pretty much nil. That meant I really had no choice but moving to someplace where I could find a job, which for high-tech means NOT in Montana. The main places are California and Texas.
California? Been there, done that, didn't want to go back there after 25 years of "improvements" to the situation there. Yeah, it's got some great things going for it, mountains, the ocean, but, no thanks.
Texas? Been there too. In some ways it's better than Calif., but, geez, it's TEXAS!
And just too darned hot!So, where in the world could we possibly go that's as drop dead gorgeous as Montana? Is there anywhere that just might be even a bit better (like maybe Montana with an ocean nearby)? Hmm... Let me think... Oh, hey! I know! What about New Zealand!
As it happens, they've even got a shortage of high-tech workers and are actively trying to build up that industry, offering incentives (making immigration a bit easier) to get people to come work here.
This wasn't actually the first time we looked into moving here. Back at the end of 2009, early 2010, there were hints that I might get laid off and we went through a similar thought process and came up with NZ. I almost took a job here back then, but things worked out such that HP didn't lay me off and I stayed in MT. This time though, things weren't going to work out that way, so we resurrected the old plan and started looking at it seriously again. It didn't hurt that in the mean time, my brother and his family had moved to NZ, giving me a place to stay while looking for jobs. I did actually keep looking for something in the US, but got NOTHING from all of the job applications I submitted.
So, there you have it. All the sordid details of why we up and headed off to the other side of the planet. After Montana, just about anywhere else in the US seemed like a step backwards while NZ offered a whole new adventure! My wife and I often talk about if we'd been around in the 1800's we would have been on the wagon trains heading out West, or even on a ship going off to Australia (or maybe even New Zealand!). If in the future, we'd probably be signing up to go colonize Mars...
How are the Winters down there?
