When you just get out of college, an interview question many people ask you is, “Where do you want to be in five years?” I usually said that I would like to still be an engineer.  I really did not want to be a manager or executive, and as of now that is still true.  I am still an engineer, but in the past five years I have learned a lot of things in the jobs I had and on my own.  I am comfortable with where I am at right now, and when you stay an engineer there really isn’t a lot of room to move “up”.  Some people may say that’s a deadend job, but it is a pretty decent deadend job and I am fine with it.

Another thing I figured out pretty quickly is that I don’t care about money as much as a flexible work schedule and a good supportive work environment. I am not afraid to quit my job and find something new if I am unhappy, and I am not afraid of being jobless for a while .  Basically, I have developed a confidence that I could survive on my abilities, and I refuse to believe that I have to stay in a situation that I do not like.  I see a job as a path to retirement, and not the thing that defines my life.  Some of my family members have said that I am a job hopper just because I am on my third job in five years, but it is pretty common here for people to move around, and I think I’m actually pretty normal.

With that said, I have to admit that my current job is really the best job I have had so far, and although I know I would be paid more at my previous job I am content to be where I am now. It is not perfect, but it is a place where I can work on my own terms and a company with a great product line. If that changes drastically or if an extremely well rounded offer comes along then I would leave, but I don’t see that happening any time soon.  I am much more clear about what I want from a job now than I was five years ago because I have worked at multiple places and I know I have a pretty good situation here.

Finally, the Silicon Valley is really an awesome place for young engineers to learn about the world and accumulate some wealth.  For the most part, software engineers do the same thing in a multitude of companies.  I think the interesting difference between my work and another release engineer’s work  is just the product we ship out and the impact the products make on the world.  The products are what make our work somewhat meaningful, because otherwise it’s just a waste of time.  The Valley is also a good place to sharpen your skills, earn an above average salary, and make great connections.   If you are frugal and plan well you can save enough in a few years and retire somewhere cheap.  We will definitely get out of here when we retire, because it’s a great place for what we Chinese call the “bare branches” (single men), but once you have a family the cost of living here is just not worth it.

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real cialis online- In many cases one partner’s income is completely eaten up by childcare expenses, work related expenses, and taxes.  Even when that is true many people still go to work day to day just to be away from their children.  Personally our family is not currently in this situation, but if we had one more child and had to pay childcare for both children then we would have more disposable income if one of us stayed home due to the tax benefits we would receive and the childcare and other money we would save.
real cialis online- Greer says that only in the “only in the last half dozen decades that the home has become nothing more than a center of consumption; before then, it was a place where real wealth was produced.”  That “real wealth” is not money, but the fact that households produced actual goods from raw materials.  This still happens in many households, but it is no longer the norm.  The norm now is to have jobs and buy the biggest and brightest thing you can so that you look better than your neighbors.
real cialis online- Greer makes a point that economists dismiss the value of the hosuehold economy because it lacks economies of scale, but when you work for an employer a lot of the value in your labor is consumed by your employer.  On the other hand, work in the home is consumed directly by the family and improves the family’s standard of living directly.

real cialis online – Greer briefly talked about how many feminists believed that working for one’s family is a form of slavery while working for an employer isn’t.  Basically, feminism shattered the household economy without equalizing the relationship between gender and work.  Although I am a working woman, I must agree with Greer here.  If women believe that working at home is slavery, then there is no reason for them to think that working for an employer isn’t slavery.  If the feminist movement sought for equality between the genders then the value of household work should be promoted so that more men can take on that role without shame and ridicule.  I really think feminism actually did a disservice to women because now many women work more than before, and aren’t necessarily any happier.
real cialis onlinereal cialis online- Greer says that most families will not downshift even if it makes sense financially  because they are mesmerized by that paycheck and they do not think of the “whole cost of systems”. It is counterintuitive that one paycheck is better than two in many cases, and many people just feel that going to work is the normal thing to do and I think many families believe that they absolutely need two incomes to survive.  The fact is, many families have two incomes to keep up with the Joneses and drive up the costs of things that they consume.  One of my friends recently said that he is not looking to buy a home because he realized there is no possible way he could compete with married couples with two incomes.  The funny thing is that  you can rent a place at half the price of a typical mortgage payment here, so the dual income married couples that are driving housing prices into the stratosphere are simply working more for the same or a slightly lower standard of living when compared to a single income family with a stay at home partner that rents a similar home.

I think that many of my friends and I have been taught that being a stay at home mom or dad is in some way demeaning, and that working for money is the only way that you can prove your worth.  The fact is that the household economy has more value than we were led to believe.  I think right now the only reason the both of us are still working is that we want to retire early.  The sooner we can opt out of working for others the sooner we can pursue more meaningful work in our own household.

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The most common question I get right now is, “are you ready yet?”  Honestly, I don’t think anyone is ever ready for a real kid.  You can read all the books you want and learn all about the process of conception, delivery, and breastfeeding, but when that little nugget pops out it is just a fairly unique experience for everyone.  As to labor and delivery, I certainly have learned a lot from books and classes, but I haven’t experienced the pain so I cannot say that I am ready for that.  The hubby’s aunt simply said to be flexible and don’t set your mind on any specific birth plan, because things can change.  I totally agree with that, and I would not reject pain medication or a C Section if they are absolutely necessary.  However, I definitely would like to avoid any surgery if possible.

We don’t really know what to expect after the kid is born besides that we will have to feed him and clean him a lot.  One thing I am planning to do is to get a flexible spending account at work for dependent care and medical expenses in 2010.  The reason for this is that babies go to doctors quite a bit in the first year, and also we will be paying for child care since both of us work. This is the cheapest way for us to pay for the expenses since the money is paid into the accounts before taxes.  I will not go back to work until mid January, but the rest of the year still needs to be taken care of. Looking back, I should have probably funded my medical flexible spending account just a little this year, since I have spent around $400 on the entire pregnancy and I could have paid for that tax free and saved a little over $100.  The only problem is that I had no idea how much money I would have needed this year for medical expenses. I also had no idea how many things a flexible spending account  covers, so I intend to take full advantage of it next year.   Anyway, I will probably write a full post on flexible spending accounts when I start using it.

For the most part, we are not that concerned about the extra expenses a baby brings.  The only thing that worries me is that we might not be able to have as much time to spend with the kid as we like because we both work.  I think having time to do whatever we want to do is one of my biggest motivations in wanting to “get out of the rat race” as soon as possible, and lately the hubby has come around to the same goal.  He actually said to me, “you can never save too much! If we save more now we can retire early.”  I am very proud of him and hopefully I can teach our baby to be smart with his money so he could be financially independent at a young age.

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This will be the first game that the hubby is shipping, and right now it is in open beta.  It seems that pre-order sales are going really well so far and tens of thousands of people have tried out the beta.  His company actually did not expect the game to be so popular in beta and there were some server issues and crashes, but those seem to be mostly ironed out by now.

For months I have been more excited about the game than he was because I was able to play the game more than him.  He was busy working on creating the systems and fixing problems.  Also, when you work on the same product for so long you can easily get sick of it.  However, last night he got to see the nearly finished game in action and he thought it was actually quite fun and finally he said that he is excited about the launch of the game.  Thousands of other players were playing at the same time and that made it much more interesting  and hilarious than just testing the game alone. For example, we saw a newbie player who could not figure out how to block hits from the bad guys and just kept on standing in front of a gun and dying over and over again.  Even after my hubby told him how to block hits he could not figure it out.  I was just sitting on the side and laughing my butt off.

I am just glad to see that so many people are enjoying a product that my hubby helped create. Three years ago he quit working in enterprise software and took a huge pay cut to take this job at the game company, and now he is finally making a little more than his former salary.  I think he was pretty brave to do that because the gaming industry is actually a pretty risky business since it takes so much investment to create a game, but if the game is  a dud the entire company could just go kaput. This is especially true when the company is small.   So I guess right now I am also breathing a sigh of relief because it looks like this game is poised to be quite successful and that means job security and possible bonuses for the hubby.

The hubby’s company is launching another game next year, and I am hoping that one is even more amazing.  In my career I have released dozens of products already, but in all honesty none of them really excited me that much.  I know that the products I released have impacted many people around the world, too, but a game is just much more fun, tangible, and comprehensible to most people. I mean, even my parents do not know or care that I helped make software that optimized call center performance, or software that help people write more secure code, but they know that the hubby makes games.

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