From NC to PA to........

The saying "the only constant in life is change" is continuing to hold true to us. After almost four years of living in our current home, we are moving yet again! This all happened very quickly, and pretty unexpectedly - I hadn't planned on listing our house and moving with such a young baby, but sometimes opportunities arise when you least expect them, and if they are too good to pass up, you just need to go for it!

Back in March while I was nursing Emilia, who was only a few weeks old, I was passing the time by looking through LinkedIn on my phone. I was interested in checking out where some of my former GSK colleagues in RTP were headed since they were closing that site. I stumbled upon a post from my former GSK colleague from PA, Monica, who posted that there was an open position in her new group at Bristol-Myers Squibb. Monica and I always had had similar career interests, in fact, after she left GSK I had my eye on her vacant position, but was never able to make the move since everything was pretty locked down for the past year with hiring freezes and lack of internal mobility. Her new position at BMS aligned exactly with my interests, and I couldn't think of a better candidate for the job since my previous experience was a perfect match. I got excited right away and sent Joe the job listing, and emailed Monica to find out more about the position. However, the big issue was timing at this point. I was only a few weeks into my maternity leave, which I was very much looking forward to, and had purposely lengthened from last time (I took 12 weeks off with Nolan) to nearly 5 months. I wasn't willing to compromise shortening my maternity leave to take this new job. Monica completely understood and told me she thought there would be more openings down the line since they were expanding and said she would let me know. I let the opportunity pass.

My maternity leave is untouchable :)

Fast forward a few months, and add a lot of turbulence going on at GSK. It was hard to get a read on what was going on while being out, but it was clear from emails that there was a significant restructuring happening and pretty solid plans to move our facility from King of Prussia to Collegeville within a few years. I made plans to have lunch with a few of my colleagues to catch up and get a handle on the changes. What I heard made me pretty uneasy - outside of the large restructuring of departments, there was plans to flatten reporting structures on every level, meaning there was a chance I could be "demoted" by having my direct reports taken away (or conversely of course, promoted by taking over more direct reports!) Either way, I didn't see the changes going well with the personalities in my group, and it sounded very clear that the plan was to move to Collegeville, which would double my commute time. Add on top of this that we had planned to move from our house within the next year or two anyway since we knew it wasn't a forever home when we bought it (and financed with an ARM due to this knowledge), and my mind started wandering back to the BMS position.

Visiting GSK during my maternity leave at the same time as a colleague. Emilia is hanging out with baby Celine, born a few weeks earlier. 

I checked back and the position was still listed, months later. I contacted Monica and she explained that they had gone all the way through the hiring process and the chosen candidate took another job so they were re-starting the hiring again. This time I chose to go for it. I was only about 6 weeks out from the end of my planned maternity leave and could negotiate a start date around that.

Long story short, I underwent a 7 hour interview including an hour seminar with severe sleep deprivation, but still got the job! In the end, it wasn't a very easy decision to make. We really like the main line area of the Philadelphia suburbs as it offers so much. I wasn't necessarily unhappy at my current job, although there had been some periods of unhappiness along the way due to conflicts with hard-to-work-with group members. I was in a relatively good place and standing, feeling like I was being recognized and targeted as someone with potential at work. In the end, this gave me great negotiating power as BMS had to recruit me more than I needed to leave. They gave me an offer that was extremely hard to refuse, and included full relocation (remember, we had to move anyway within a few years, and closing costs are SO expensive!)

Saying goodbye to my colleagues at GSK was very bittersweet. I've had a great relationship with my boss, Shing, and direct reports, Han Wen and Qi over the years. I know I surprised a lot of people by leaving, and the outpour of touching emails I received was pretty overwhelming. I can only hope that I have as great of colleagues at BMS and that I am as appreciated there! Last week my immediate group took me out to lunch on Wednesday, and then we had a happy hour open to all on Thursday evening. I had a really great time at both events, and will really miss my GSK friends!

My report Han Wen and I at lunch on Wednesday. She has been with me from the very beginning!

My boss Shing, who has always been such a great supporter and mentor!

Feeling very loved!

SO! We are MOVING! Although we're not exactly sure where we're moving to, yet. The position is in Hopewell, NJ (Princeton area), which is about an hour away from where we currently live. We are working hard now to get our house listed for sale, and looking into houses on the buying end. Right now we've targeted the Newtown, PA area and are also looking into the NJ side (Mercer County - Hopewell, Pennington, Princeton, West Windsor, Robbinsville). We're struggling a bit trying to balance the desire to settle as quickly as possible/minimize extra moving and taking our time to find the perfect place to raise a family. Will this be our long-term "forever home"? We have no idea. To be honest, the commutes are a bit of a concern, as with Joe staying at Campbell's - again our jobs will be pretty far away from each other. But this time, I don't want the home itself to be the reason why we'd have to move again. I want one that at least has the potential to be a forever home if we decide to stay in that area. Timing with these things are so tricky! Right now the plan is for me to commute from our current house until we sell it. Then it will all depend if we buy right away or decide to wait it out if we'll need to rent for a bit in the new area. I'm a planner, so I'd love to know now what will happen, but this is something that we'll just need to figure out as we go!

The adventure continues! We're busy busy busy now with a lot of things to figure out. But, we discussed this decision MANY MANY times, and we're hopeful that the pro's outweigh the inconvenience of uprooting our family. Let's hope we're right!

Bring it on!! We're ready for the next adventure!