Update on Dave

Dave pronounced July 3rd to be the New Independence Day--it was his last day as a senior auditor at his Big Four accounting firm. After 18 months of being terribly overworked, putting in hellish hours, traveling constantly, and doing repetitive work he just couldn't take it anymore.

As a courtesy, he notified his bosses about 2 months in advance--to their dismay. Apparently he was a great employee. So great, in fact, that his immediate boss emailed him to ask what she do for him to get him to stay. She told him to "name his price" because she was so desperate to keep him. I asked him if he considered demanding a 40% raise or something ludicrous like that, and just sticking it out until Christmas. He said "heck no, I want out now." I was actually happier he said that than agreeing to keep working for this monster of a corporation. Happiness > money. Yes, working for a Big Four accounting firm is that bad.

He began the grueling process of job-searching back in May. He's been working with a recruiter who specializes in placing accountants ever since then. Sigh...but as we all know, the job market isn't good right now. He's applied to many, many jobs, interviewed at several, but has been offered none. It appears that he is either vastly over-qualified or a little under-qualified for every job. Phooey. He wants to go into no-travel tax accounting or staff accounting.

But we're not broke because he's been working up in Gualala for his dad Monday through Thursday. With his overtime hours--an essential part of working with his job-addicted father--he's actually making more than as an auditor. (Plus his parents are feeding him!) He's really enjoying his work up there--doing some timber harvest, paving roads, fixing broken water lines, and whatever else a "general engineering" company does. Lucky for us, this job can be as long-term as we need it to be. And he likes it...too bad we don't live in the same place as his parents so he could actually live with me.

Following in his dad's footsteps, he's also started getting involved in the town politics. Since the family owns so much commercial property in town, he's getting familiar with all the issues associated with ownership. For instance, the town is in the planning stages of installing a "street scape" all along Highway 1. It will have street lights and a wide paved path with benches and plants. Of course, when you own commercial property along Highway 1--as the Bowers do--then you will lose a lot of your property to this "public space." No one is sure how to compensate someone like my dad-in-law for his lost parking spaces in front of his grocery store, say, or the street parking in front of the movie rental place. Or how to mitigate losing delivery truck turn-around space. The super-advocates of this plan don't seem to understand that without parking spaces a grocery store will not be viable. Parking spaces = customers = income. Another issue is who exactly will pay for the on-going maintenance of a street scape landscaping or nightly electricity bill for those old-fashioned lamp posts along the walkway. We're all interested in spiffing-up downtown Gualala, but people need to be reasonable. Anyway, Dave is going to all the business owner and municipal planning meetings--and he tells me he's really into it.

Having Dave away during the week isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I've been keeping busy with canning food, eating dinner with friends, going to the dog park every night (our fur-babies and I have made some friends there), etc. I guess I don't mind Dave continuing to work up north and coming home to Davis for only 3 days a week...BUT I'm concerned that this ever-widening gap in accounting work on his resume will pose a problem when applying for jobs down here. Many people have commented that Dave shouldn't have quit his job in the middle of an economic slow-down. But those people weren't stuck with "busy season" 10 months of the year, working 15 hour days, traveling out of town every 2 weeks, and overall sacrificing their personal well-being for a generally boring and specifically hellish job. And yes, being a tax accountant does mean long hours and busy season--but only 3 months of the year, not 10!

He had a tax internship during his last semester of college and he loved it. The work was always different--he did personal income tax preparation like you'd expect, but also did forensic work for divorce cases (you have no idea how many people try to hide their money from their estranged spouses!), and tax work for small non-profit groups. He's hoping to find another position like that one.

So for now he'll be traveling back and forth (but spending less on gas driving only once a week instead of every day--crazy how that worked out!) and applying for jobs after work. We drafted a cover letter to attach to his resume that we will take to each of the tax firms here in town (there are many). Not all firms advertise open positions on Craigslist, Monster, or JobSearch. When I went job-hunting after college I contacted all the environmental firms I could find in our area and simply asked if they were hiring. It totally worked! I figure it is worth a shot for Dave, too--the worse-case scenario is that they say "no, we have no openings."

Let me know if you happen to be a nice tax accountant here in Davis looking to hire a handsome, hardworking CPA-to-be! If you're looking for an ugly, hardworking CPA-to-be then look elsewhere...'cause my hubby is one handsome fellow. =)