My awesome timing

I can't be faulted for my timing. My first job out of college was with IBT in Boston. Less than two years after I left for Japan, IBT was acquired by State Street and there were massive layoffs. I worked at NOVA in Japan until January 2007, right when management stopped getting regular paychecks. About a year later, the company was bankrupt and a bunch of Americans, Brits, Canadians, and Aussies were stranded in Japan without work. It was enough of a problem that Qantas Airlines agreed to reduce the cost of tickets home for stranded Australian nationals. My timing seems to have saved me once again. Three months after leaving Fidelity, I just found out that my group has been moved out of Boston to Smithfield, RI. A severance package is being offered to anyone who leaves, as well as a retention package to anyone who agrees to stay for at least 6 months, but it must be a hard decision for my friends who have been there a while. I think this is pretty common for Fidelity to do. It's been moving people from downtown Boston to Merrimack, NH and Smithfield, RI for a while now. The cost of staying in Boston is too high, and I think this is a way for Fidelity to shake out the older employees, who now make twice what the new hires do.

So, if you lived in the metro area like I do, here's how your life would have changed. I used to wake up at 6:30 to shower and eat breakfast. I'd leave the house by 7:30, take the Red Line to South Station, transfer to the Silver Line, get off at the WTC, and be at my desk before 8:20. We just bought a car, but that was because my new job pays more and I could afford to cover the car and the wedding. I would have needed a car to get to work, but I probably would have cruised used car lots instead of buying a brand new one. The drive from Davis to Fidelity's Smithfield office is 57 miles, most of which would be on the 95. I have no idea what outbound traffic looks like on the 95 at rush hour, but I think it's fair to say that my commute would have gotten longer. I feel like I really dodged a bullet here. I got in touch with old co-workers on Friday and they don't know what to do. A lot of them live on the North Shore and take public transit in. Man. My good luck is tempered by how badly I feel for everyone else.


Fidelity recently closed its Framingham office, and I think everyone there was either moved back to Boston (unlikely) or to one of the Boston satellite sites. That would have been an even harder move. I once heard a story from a co-worker that a group was moved out of Boston to North Carolina. Some employees, eager to keep their jobs, moved to North Carolina. A year or two later, those people who had moved were laid off. What a world.