Actually I work pretty much 9-5. I am no workaholic, as any of my close friends will attest. The key is building and maintaining visibility with the right execs, working smart, and understanding how to prioritize key deliverables.
I have a family, and my career choices allow my wife to stay home raising the children. I hope to follow the example of the poster who had a friend who did the same move but to Houston, planning for a return to SD with a big salary and lots of $$$ in the bank. CAVEAT: Houston sucks!!!! I would have a very difficult time swallowing the move to Houston, however $200K there would let you sock away at least $2K/month in taxable savings after maxing all 401K/stock purchase plan etc. Houses there are dirt cheap.
It sounds like most on this board aren’t exposed to the executive job market. Directing a large organization and participating in high dollar transactions is great fun; I don’t even consider it work, and as such I find I have very little job-related stress (or any stress for that matter). It is a privilege to associate with all of the brilliant people that I interface with every day.
To the poster that asked about L.A.: I grew up in L.A. There are some good jobs, but the ratio of F500 companies between LA/OC/SD and SF/SJC are like 1:3. The only place in CA to make real money is the Bay area. Take a look at the recent Bureau of Labor Statistics on average weekly earnings to see where the $$ are: NYC, SF/SJC, Boston. L.A. was higher than OC and SD, but not by much and lagged the aforementioned metro areas considerably.
The RE market is really starting to bear out the income picture. A post on Lansner’s blog in the OC Register today stated that 3 homes in Dove Canyon (nice South OC area with a private country club) , all over 3K sq ft, just went into escrow for the high 800’s. These are very nice homes in a very upscale area that just two years ago were going for $1.5M and up. But in today’s stringent underwriting environemnt, guess what? Very few in OC make the kind of money that would allow them to buy those homes on a conventional mortgage. Those prices were a real stunner, and a wake up call to every over-priced area of SoCal. Where will the buyers come from?????
