NYT :: The Five-Bedroom, Six-Figure Rootless Life

[Dover]

...As a subgroup, relos are economically homogenous, with midcareer incomes starting at $100,000 a year. Most are white. Some find the salaries and perks compensating; the developments that cater to them come with big houses, schools with top SAT scores, parks for youth sports and upscale shopping strips.

Others complain of stress and anomie. They have traded a home in one place for a job that could be anyplace. Relo children do not know a hometown; their parents do not know where their funerals will be. There is little in the way of small-town ties or big-city amenities - grandparents and cousins, longtime neighbors, vibrant boulevards, homegrown shops - that let roots sink in deep.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/01/national/class/01ALPHARETTA-FINAL.html?


Isn't this the same group as the corporate climbing, upwardly mobile executives that have been around since the 50's?

There is also another group that has formed...it's those who have been able to settle in and work more out of their home due to the advent of the computer and other communications technology. And then there are the ones who actually CHOOSE to be home and CHOOSE a job that is conducive to and can accomodate their family life.

[Maple]

1. What a horrible

way to live!

Back to the hunter-gatherer nomadic stage!

[Dover]

2. It's the stuff of 'corporate culture'. Many just simply lose touch

and connection with their hearts, their families and themselves.

Is it any wonder that there is no strong moral or ethical compass or humanity coming from these people? Is it any wonder such a culture gives rise to Enron-gates, political and corporate corruption, greed and a Bush-type presidency that caters to the upper classes and nurtures exclusivity?

[izzie]

4. Well the service is the same with out the money

They have even been studies as a true-sub culture. If you wish in the service you can live inside the culture and never go out side of it. Or you could in the 50's and 60's and I would think it even better now. This the Times is talking about is more just rootless as you do go into society even if it is a level of their own making. Sub-cultures are really interesting. They even wrote about the space age workers once as they were a group of very smart people who all inter married, lived to gather and produced more space age workers. Night working people are also sort of a sub culture. The large problem is that you end up thinking like each other and the Times group are the ones that are going to hire us. People they do not know at all.

[punpirate]

3. Such people are, actually...

... a subset of the population which has been a fact of life for about five decades. Corporations have determined a way of life convenient to them which makes nomads of their employees.

They aren't given time to think, to consider, to evaluate. The acquisition of money and property is the determining factor in the lives of these people. They will never understand, never consider, never notice that life has passed them by. After a lifetime of striving, they will have an expensive house and little else.

They will never realize what they have missed, and, in their old age, will feel, but never understand why, that they've been cheated of something they are unable to define.

Ah, well, that's America today. Forty years from now, when these people come to rest, they will wonder where they are and how they got there.

[triguy46]

5. Ok, you sell your soul,

and now you whine about it? Step off the career path if you really give a flip. Why do you keep relocating to the same vanilla, bland, homogenized, trophy suburb? Get a freakin life, it can be done in spite of your employers demands. If not, you are just a robot. But if you are not willing to make a sacrifice in your life, just shut your pie hole.

Before I get flamed, I did this. I walked away from a CEO slot, took a 50% cut in pay, but attended all my kids school and sporting events, took vacations, remodeled my house, ate home every evening. I have not paid more than $18K for any vehicle and our house of 25 years will be paid off in 12 months. What I gave up was the superficial trappings of success and happiness that people choose over real life, a title, a country club membership, expensive cars. Funny, I don't miss any of it.

"You may ask yourself, 'How did I get here?'" David Byrne

[ixion]

6. From one who is currently in this breach (but not whining about it)

First off, let me just say that people who whine about this should just STFU. The corporate life is just that, and it's a choice that people make. If they don't like it, they should stop doing it.

I was an English/Sociology major in college, and as such when I finally moved on (after 7 years) I had loads of education but no degree. This was prior to the dot com boom, in the early 90's. Many of you may remember that the job market sucked a** at that point. There were no good jobs, especially for over-educated, mavericks sans diploma.

Then came the internet boom. Anyone who could make sense of a web page could find a job. So I sat down and started learning HTML and Javascript and Perl and XML and Java. It took a couple years, but I was able to move from English major to software engineer.

I did this for ONE reason: to make money.

My first love will always be art and literature, however I finally realized that to go unto the hell that is the corporate existence for a limited time would ultimately provide me with the money I needed to do the things I wanted to do. I'm here only until I get that means, and then it's time to move on.

The thing that I like about business is that there is no love there. It's simply about work and money. I love to write. I have the ability to program. See the difference? I make a choice to be in this world for now, not forever, and I don't whine about it, at least publicly. ;-)

It (soul)sucks like nothing has ever sucked before, of course. That's a given. I knew that going in. No big surprise there.

I am not heartless, soulless, etc, although I have to admit that there is not as much 'magic' in my life as when I was a starving artist. I see that as a temporary condition, though, and know that someday it'll return -- the magic, I mean... not the starvation.

Removing the starvation factor is, of course, the primary reason.

At any rate, just wanted to provide a different perspective. :-)

[sinkingfeeling]

7. Been there, done that. I was a part of 'corporate America' for 30

years and relocated a total of 6 times. The 70's and 80's were the prime times for the idea that to 'get ahead' in the company, one had to relocate to various plant sites and experience many sides of the business. You would go from staff positions to management and back again.

Unfortunately, I was a single mother and my son was in the second grade when we started the 'nomad' life. He ended up attending 8 different schools. I deeply regret the lack of stability in his life now (he's 35 today)! But I also felt that I had 'lucked out' when I joined the corporation. Not only did I double my income (I did not finish college) but I also had wonderful health insurance and a pension plan. The company paid all moving expenses and everything was packed for you during the move. They even provided additional money during the extreme home mortgage rates of the early 80's when a move cost you giving up a 7% mortgage and going to a 13% one.

While I enjoyed living in a variety of places, it was very lonely. I remember crying at my son's 8th. grade graduation because we had only been in Tucson a couple of months and no one knew who he was and I was the only person there for him.

I now wish that our lives could have been different. I did what I needed to do. We never had child support and I wanted him to have as much as I could give him. Now I tell him how sorry I am.

[IrateCitizen]

8. Potemkin life....

That's all I can think of when reading this article. It's a lifestyle based on status, sameness, acquisition of more and bigger things, and a general sucking away of the soul.

Hell, I get bothered just by my commute into NYC every day by train -- so much so that I started working toward a teaching certificate so I can change careers even though it will result in a pay cut of up to 50%. But at least I'll have a life outside of some bland suburb full of vanilla people living their lives on a treadmill.

[Skittles]

9. boo freaking hoo

what kind of rootless existence do they think miltary families experience?