Change

Back toward the end of April, maybe early May, I came home from orchestra rehearsal one Wednesday evening to find a former co-worker of Ryan's standing in our living room. I was tired and slightly annoyed that this person's being here meant dinner was only half-cleared from hours earlier. As I walked in he said, "Hey, I'm trying to poach your husband!". I replied, "Okay," mustered a tired laugh, got my stuff put away and proceeded to do what I could to finish cleaning up dinner and the kitchen. Didn't think much of it until I continued to listen to them as I cleaned. After a few minutes it became clear that this guy wasn't joking - they were actually talking seriously!

Mild panic set in. I knew when we moved here that Amazon wouldn't be forever. But sometimes things felt so settled that it was hard to remember that at some point Ryan would move on to another company and things wouldn't necessarily be just as they are forever. Ryan's been happy at Amazon, so the thought of him leaving made me a little sad.

The former co-worker left a few minutes later and Ryan and I chatted and he told me what the guy had told him. I had to agree with him that it sounded pretty good. We were both a little in shock to be talking about this seriously as we had both figured Ryan would stay at Amazon a couple more years at least. I agreed that it couldn't hurt to look into this other option more and to check out their office and go out to lunch with these former co-workers (several former team members are at the new place, lots of really talented people) to get the whole spiel.

In the end, the spiel was pretty convincing. All Ryan had to do was put together a resume and send it to them and then they'd put together an offer. Well, no harm in seeing what they'd offer, right? So Ryan eventually got the resume put together. A few days later he got the offer. He waffled back and forth a bit, but the offer would give him a significant raise and it was hard to argue with that, especially considering our decision some days before getting the offer to look into buying a house.

So he decided to accept. And he went and told management. And then they wanted to counter-offer and started trying to sell him on staying. And our house was a hugely stressful place for a few days due to school, job, and house stuff. After the counter-offer, either choice seemed equally good, which made it much harder to decide. In the end, Ryan decided to branch out and go to a new environment. His last day at Amazon was the 12th, and he's been off this week before starting at Oracle on the 22nd.