The choice is clear

Because certain persons were not in the know - and we didn't want them to immediately be - I have not yet discussed this subject in a public forum. A situation arose and a decision has been made.

Hold on! Don't you dare scroll down to the bottom to see what the decision is... that wouldn't be right, now would it?

About a month ago, Shelly decided to apply for a job, doing much the same work that she currently does, with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. The decision to apply was based on an interesting job description for which she matched the qualifications. There was also a factor of prestige in that the job was with the Smithsonian.

The application went in and we received a phone call a few days later. Shelly was granted a telephone interview. This 45-minute interview turned into an hour and a half. Everything went well and she was told there would be a second round of phone interviews, followed by the live interviews.

The second round of phone interviews never materialized. We received another call within 48 hours advising her that live interviews had been tentatively scheduled and to be thinking about which day she would prefer to interview. After another 48 hours we had our plane tickets and hotel reservations.

Shelly and I flew to DC...

Wait a minute... I've told you all of this before, haven't I? Why didn't you stop me?

Okay okay... let's get on track. Shelly had the interview and was offered a job last Thursday. I had prayed all along that, no matter what the decision should be, that it should be obvious whether or not she should take the job. At first, it wasn't obvious. Shelly was offered a salary that, in raw dollars, was significantly higher than anything either of us had ever made.

Upon further investigation, she had already done some figuring. She determined that, for a location cost-of-living differential plus benefits that are currently paid by OSU, she would need to be offered approximately $3,000.00 per year more than what she was offered. There was still room for negotiation so we (well, she, really) spent the weekend agonizing over whether or not she really wanted to accept the job if they offered her the right amount of money.

Again, I prayed for clarity. I prayed for the decision to become obvious... and it became obvious this morning.

Despite the desire of the departmental supervisor to hire her, there was just not enough in the budget to even match her minimum requirements.

We will not be moving to Washington, DC any time in the near future.