Nine To Five: Special to The Globe and Mail, Published Sunday, September 6, 2015
THE QUESTION
A few months ago, I relocated from [one part of the country to another]. My company paid for the move because most of my team members were in the other location. It was my decision to move. However, now that I’m here, I want to move back. I’m miserable (high property taxes, no social life, corporate office environment, the climate ). My immediate manager also moved here and wants to move back as well.
Our director is a “by-the-books” kind of guy. He will ask us to repay the relocation funds and use our personal funds to move back. I don’t have an issue with this, but I need to come up with valid business reasons for moving again. I’m concerned it will look like I don’t make sound decisions. I can’t go in and state that I’m just miserable living here. But being miserable isn’t going to make me a very productive employee either. Do you have any suggestions?
THE ANSWER
Companies are in the business of making money, bottom line. If your energy and production output is higher in Location A than in Location B, and two of you want to move back, management might not be overjoyed for the disturbance, but maybe they won’t care either. Can you make the case you will give the company higher returns in Location A?
It is interesting to note that all the reasons you don’t like Location B are factors that would have been very evident before you chose to move. Ergo, are you sure you can’t acclimatize, reframe and stick it out for at least a year? Everyone is entitled to change their mind about life decisions, so being concerned about being an unsound decision maker might be a bit exaggerated. Not being flexible, creative, open-minded, tenacious and resilient might be a red flag and a cause for concern though.
Colleen Clarke
Career Specialist and Corporate Trainer
Author of Networking How To Build Relationships That Count and How To Get a Job and Keep It
