I just finished watching Moneyball. Great film. Here’s a scruples question, based on the ending:
Let’s assume that the owner of a competing company recruits you. He wants you to move across country for a new—and more prestigious—job—for about 60 times your current salary. Assume also that you are passionate for your current job, for your current company, and for the game-changing process you’ve begun to put in place at your current organization. Assume also that you have a ten year old daughter who lives nearby, with her mom.
Do you take the offer?
I have two girls. They’re nine and seven. When I saw the movie, I at first thought Billy Beane was nuts to pass up the offer. I thought, “Twelve million bucks buys a lot of plane tickets!”
Then I thought more about it. (I had nothing else to do, I was stuck on a plane.) I began to appreciate the other sides to the decision. How this would be the second time he’d be leaving his daughter behind (the first being the divorce). How grabbing the money would’ve undone the work he’d put into changing baseball by perpetuating the idea that money buys wins. All his work… and people would’ve questioned it. And that little girl who clearly loved her dad—would she be better off seeing him win big financially, or having him safe and close?
A buttload of cash on the one hand; the responsibilities of fatherhood and romantic notions about baseball on the other. No right answers here… no judgment… just wondering: what would you have done?
Jason Seiden is CEO of Ajax Workforce Marketing. Ajax amplifies brands by aligning employees' online messaging.
I'm Jason. I run a brand agency with a specialization in workforce marketing.
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Stay.
People who win the lottery are almost always broke shortly thereafter.
Money is fleeting – but romantic stories last forever.
There is a song in Spanish that says: “It’s said that distance leads to forgetting and separation…” I believe this to be true.That job away from his daughter may mean more money but the priceless affection and trust of his daughter may be in grave jeopardy. An ultimate question would be: “Does he really need the job change? Would it still allow for a close relationship with his daughter?
I’m going to go the other direction… I’d probably take it. Of course, my children live with me and so they’d go with me… My children are the product of divorced parents. We’ve addressed this situation a few times over the years where one or the other of us may potentially need to move for various reasons. Yes, the situation is less than ideal (though, so is divorce); but, here’s the thing: we live in a connected world.
The more we thought about it, the more we realized that the distance had the potential to FORCE more purposeful communication to continue to foster the relationship: skype calls, FaceTime, phone conversations, email correspondence, social platform interaction… all of these things would become more prevalent in the relationship out of need to stay connected with the children. These are all things that rarely happen with their Father now – so, in essence, it’d be an INCREASE in the time spent together.
When you go out in the world and move away from your parents; think about the time you spend when you come back to visit them.. it’s of a higher quality than when you ‘hung at home’ before you left, right? You miss them; so you focus more on visiting with them, making memories, etc.. Same concept applies here with our children.
Is it optimal? No. But, for the parent that has the committed purpose/intent of maintaining a close relationship – proximity to the child is no longer the primary factor. Not in today’s world.
I don’t see it as a scruples question – it is incredibly individual. So easy to judge from the outside, based on our personal opinions – but I guess each person has to follow their gut. My husband’s parents forced him to relocate for their jobs just before his senior year in high school. I have always thought that was cruel. But the rest of the story was – they had to do it to keep their jobs (long-time IBMers) and if he had been a better behaved high schooler they would probably have let him stay behind for his final year. Actually he has done a great job keeping in touch with his original hometown and still goes to their high school reunions.
I lived this scenario. My parents divorced. My mother was offered a lucrative job across the country. The job included flight benefits, so the assumption was we would visit my father all the time. The reality of the situation was, we did not. As we grew older, our social lives increased as did our homework, school activities,etc. Although the opportunity was there to go see him, life commitments didn’t allow it. If he lived in the next town, we could have seen him no problem in our spare time. Unfortunately, it did not work out that way.
Jason,
thought provoking post. Let me answer it from this context. I did it. I moved 9 hours away from my 13 & 15 year old daughters. I’m doing a job I Love, working with people I Love, living with the woman I Love. I get back every 2-3 weeks to see the girls; almost on the same visitation schedule I had before…
Except the problem is I’m not “there”. I cannot swing by to see my 15 year old get her braces taken off. Or stop into see my 13 year old’s School Concert. If there is an emergency or even if someone just needs a ride; I’m not a possibility.
Having 60x the money would only make that marginally better, Because I could fly instead of driving. It does not alleviate the “not there” though.
This is the only “fly in the ointment” for me. I’m otherwise loving my life. In darker moments I simply hope they love me and forgive me for not being “there” enough…
So, no, for just 60x income? So not worth it…
– @Josepf
Nick—easy to say… tough to do when actually faced with the situation!
Mia—and an English saying: “Distance makes the heart grow fonder… or farther.” The interesting thing in the movie is that the job represents professional validation… so it’s not black and white…
Crystal—turns out, research shows that the quality of those tech-enabled conversations really depends on the person… intimacy is not the same thru a screen…
Sarah—The nice thing about parenthood is, you’re free to make good on all the decisions your parents made that you didn’t like… and then make a whole new set of mistakes that are all your own…
Kate, Joseph—Thanks you for sharing your stories… much appreciated!
Uh-oh… bad news for tech advocates:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/25/tech/social-media/multitasking-kids/index.html?hpt=hp_bn6