$30,000

One week ago, I was 100 percent sure Sarah, Maggie, Desmond and I were moving to Toledo, Ohio. One week ago, I was imagining that I was working my last days at the Patriot Ledger and at Stephen Anthony’s. One week ago, Sarah and I had practically already moved in our minds, looking up housing and figuring out what our new lives would be like.

We would live within an hour of my parents, who could provide the family support system we’ve been missing in Boston (Sarah and I could finally go out one night without the kids!) We would live within an hour of my brother and his kids, who I hadn’t seen on a consistent basis in 12 years. We would live within an hour of my grandparents, who I miss dearly. Two hours from my friends in Frankenmuth, who I’ve lost touch with in recent years. Two hours from my cousins and their families. Two hours from Columbus. Two hours from Sandusky. Four hours from Chicago.

I was there, man, mentally in every way possible.

Then Monday gave way to Tuesday, and Boston is once again where we call home.

On Sept. 2 and 3, I had an incredible interview with the Toledo Free Press. I use the term interview loosely because I didn’t actually do much talking with anybody there; they instead assigned me two days of work similar to what I would be doing as the small weekly’s managing editor. Either way, though, I was told at the end of my two days that the job was mine, all they had to do was figure out how much salary they could offer me. The offer, I was told, would come either the next day or after the weekend.

That was Sept. 3. When the offer didn’t come the next day; I didn’t think anything of it. When it didn’t come the following Wednesday, Sept. 9, I wrote the editor-in-chief asking what was up. He told me to hang tight, they were going to finalize soon. That following Friday, the 11th, apparently the editor-in-chief and the publisher had an hour-long conversation about me, and they told me the offer was coming the following Monday. But then the offer didn’t come that Monday, or the following Monday either. The whole time, though, the editor-in-chief assured me that the job was mine, and they were trying to finalize an appropriate figure. He did tell me it would be well worth my while.

Sarah, who was anxious to know the direction of our future lives, got antzier with each day; I grew more impatient. Not wanting to have to pay rent for the entire month of October when we were ready to move at the end of September, we gave our landlord 30 days notice on Sept. 11. He started showing the house to potential tenants within three days. Sarah and I were giant balls of stress, checking my e-mail every hour.

Then it came, relief — for a moment — on Tuesday, Sept. 22. The Toledo Free Press was happy to offer me the job of managing editor, becoming their top staff writer, the No. 2 decision-maker in the editorial department.

I was chasing Maggie up the stairs when we got the e-mail offer. Sarah read it to me as I tried to contain my excitement: $30,000 a year with full health benefits for my entire family. The job of managing editor. Decision-making. Copy editing. Prestige. Top writer. Leading contributor. The person who would write the featured article every week.

As Sarah read aloud my new duties and responsibilities, the excitement drained out of me. It drained life out of me. All positive feelings I had toward the Toledo Free Press evaporated.

$30,000 per year, working 50 hours per week.

$30,000.

50 hours.

$30,000.

Doing the math, that works out to $11.50 per hour, or less than the shift manager makes at McDonald’s. To top it off, I had to contribute $160 monthly toward my health insurance premiums, not to mention covering 20 percent of all my health care costs. Sarah would have to work at least 35 hours per week just so our family could break even.

I couldn’t believe it. All that talk from the editor-in-chief how important the position was, and how I was the best interview candidate he’d had. All that talk from the publisher about how his newspaper would really benefit from having a journalist of my calibre. And $30,000 is what they came up with. I didn’t sink in until that moment on the stairs, even though the editor-in-chief told me previously he was struggling to get me $32,000 per year.

Right now, I bust my butt working two jobs nearly 80 hours per week, and it sucks. Waiting tables and being the low man on the totem pole at a mid-sized regional paper south of Boston is not good for my self-esteem. Still, we’re making something like $45,000 a year, so the idea of taking a 30-percent pay cut to move a third of the way across the country (and have my  health insurance costs increase from zero to $550 monthly) was more than disheartening. And this was the only full-time journalism position I’d been offered since March.

After my interview with the Toledo Free Press, I did have some qualms about the paper (mostly about the editor-in-chief) but they were far overshadowed by my zeal for the job, the company’s can-do attitude and the idea of living somewhere near family. If they had offered me $30,000 the day after my interview, I would have accepted without thinking. But that three-week waiting period between the interview and the offer just highlighted all the problems I had with the paper, and it all came crashing down when I heard $30,000 per year.

What irked me the most is that I told them from the beginning I was looking for $35,000-$40,000, and they said it was doable. I even said (and this was my downfall) I was excited about the job and could consider taking less than $35,000 depending on the benefits package, as long as it came with a raise and bonus plan. Still, $30,000 is a long way from $35,000, especially with two kids.

Because it was so low, Sarah thought they were lowballing us, and that I should make a counter-offer. My friend who put me up for the job said the same thing. I consulted my Dad (as I usually do in such matters), and he said $30,000 was way too low to be raising a family in Northwest Ohio. So, I made a counteroffer, saying I was turning the job down at $30,000 but would accept it at $35,000.

Apparently, they weren’t lowballing us. The editor-in-chief wrote me back the next morning, thanking me for taking the time and understanding my need for higher pay; but he didn’t offer anything more. When I wrote back asking why the offer was so low when they said all along that they could meet my needs, he replied saying I was being disrespectful. This guy – who strung me along for more than a month, made me drive out to Toledo on my own dime for the interview, spent the better part of my two-day interview completely ignoring me, and then at the end said he wished he gotten to do more interviewing — was calling me disrespectful. At that point, I wouldn’t have worked with that man for $50,000 a year.

So, we forge onward in Boston.

The next day, Sarah found an affordable three bedroom in Charlestown (the Boston neighborhood where I want to live the most!), and I thought now that the door had closed, the window was opening. Unfortunately, it didn’t pan out, and we’re still in Marlborough. Having been burned twice by out-of-state newspapers, we’re at a loss over what to do. Our landlord has promised to build a fenced-in yard for the dogs and the kids if we sign another year lease, and we’re considering it, not wanting to deal with the hassle of moving. We’re also thinking about moving closer to Boston, hoping our urban dreams are still there to be salvaged.

I also applied to a job opening at The News-Press in Fort Myers (the evil competition to the Naples Daily News when I worked there not long ago). The News-Press seems anxious to interview me, and I’m curious about what they have to say. Sarah — while trying to play it cool — is overwhelmed by the possibility of moving back to the area where she grew up, although she’s cautious, too, because she knows how happy I was to leave Southwest Florida back in 2008.

I have no idea where we are going from here. I have no idea if what we’re currently doing is working out. I’m just waiting right now.

The Plates

After more than a year living in Massachusetts, I feel no more than a Bostonian than I did before we moved here.  This is expected, though, as I never felt like a resident of Sandusky until after I moved away, and didn’t feel like part of Bonita Springs until I was there more than a year. Still, these feelings of being an outsider are more fevered in Boston, which has an incredible culture and population I want to be a part of, yet I can’t quite seem to break into the scene in a meaningful way.

Don’t get me wrong, I love living near the city. It’s great to be able to visit every once in awhile, but I still feel more like a tourist and less like a resident every time we go into Boston. Even though I now work in Quincy — a city five miles away from Boston Proper — my job at the Patriot Ledger only fuels my feelings of being an outsider, since I’m basically the runt of the newsroom who garners little respect despite any skills I may show.

Today, though, those feelings dwindled.

Today, I put Massachusetts license plates on our van.

It may sound silly, but nothing labels you as an outsider more than driving around a state in a car with plates from another state. This is insanely true in Massachusetts where some police departments have task forces to hunt down in-state residents who drive cars with out-of-state plates (they want your taxes and fees!). In many ways, we were shunning Boston the same way I felt it was shunning us. We didn’t want to accept the rules and costs associated with living here, so we defiantly drove around with outsider plates. By finally submitting today, I felt more like a Massachusetts resident than I had in the entire year previous.

Then, later today, a small token pushed me a little closer to feeling less like an outsider. Maggie’s favorite Australian band, The Wiggles, is playing a concert in Worcester, about 20 minutes from our house. Sarah and I agreed we had to get her tickets, to see her beloved Murray, Jeff, Anthony and Sam. Up until this point, Sarah and I have avoided taking part in any scheduled events in Massachusetts: no concerts, no government gatherings, no trick-or-treating, no sports game, nothing a Massachusetts native would typically do with some money and free time. Whenever we went outside our home, it was always to parks and restaurants and museums, but nothing too far from the tourist trade. (The exception, of course, is the one Red Sox game, but I don’t count that since we only got tickets through Sarah’s mom, and going to a Sox game is something tourists typically do). The reason for this shunning of scheduled events was a lack of money; lack of time; or lack of somebody to watch the kids, although we really could have made it happen if we wanted to. With today’s realization of The Wiggles, I feel a lot less like we are just renting some space in Massachusetts.

While today made me feel more like a Massachusetts resident than any day before it, I’m certainly not any closer to feeling like a Bostonian. I still live in freaking-far Marlborough, and the moves today also made me feel more tied to distant suburbia than a city resident. Sarah and I could change this situation if we really wanted by moving much closer to the city and engaging more in its urban landscape; but we still fail to shift out of neutral on that one, even though our one-year lease expired at the end of August.

So, as we sit here becoming more like Massachusetts residents every day and on the verge of engaging the city of Boston we so love, we also are on the verge of giving it all up. I interviewed for a managing editor job in Toledo last week and was offered the job flat out. The only thing that has kept me from celebrating and immediately planning a move was I haven’t received the formal offer with salary and benefits just yet, even though I expect to receive it by the end of this week.

I guess it’s just funny. I’m sure we could tough it out for awhile in Boston and eventually find a situation that is satisfactory to everybody, and we could start down that path if we so choose. But the idea living in Toledo near family; in a good-sized, reasonably priced house with room for the kids and the dogs; spending 2-3 whole days at home with my kids; and working at a job that offers me a great deal of respect is all just so tempting. As long as the salary and benefits package offers my family a comfortable life in Northwest Ohio (haven’t lived there in 15 years), I’m going to take it.

Thus ending The Great Boston Experiment.