It's Not Me, California, It's You

It happened again. I was talking to a recruiter about a job I'm uniquely qualified for -- standing up documentation for the first time for a relatively new company, and she said,"Of course, you'll need to relocate to San Francisco." Even though I was excited about the job and the company, even though I love visiting San Francisco and taking pictures of their awesome parks (see header picture), even though I have tons of network and friends in San Francisco, I said no.

No, we are not continuing this discussion. No, you cannot persuade me to move to California. No, no, no. California is a deal-breaker. The problem is money. The problem is gender politics. The problem is ecological justice. The problem is a broken political system. All of these problems interact in ways that are devastating the labor pool available to technical companies that insist on co-presence in the technical mecca of America.

I have two kids. My spouse does not work. We live in 2000 square feet of house in a leafy suburb of Minneapolis. I can make that all work on a single income. I could not get anything like that standard of living in San Francisco. I don't know if I could even come close with an hour+ of commute, and I have done a "super-commute" and it makes me actively suicidal. So. Economically, I cannot move there...