Background - Part 2

So, here I am, 22 years old, just finished college and a world of possibilities...

Well, I am beginning to realize that my new salary is going to be eaten up quick! Rent (which I had already been paying on my own - but now there are less people in the same house) is going up, car payment, insurance, work clothes (suits and ties) and all the fun I am now supposed to have that I am out of school and actually have some money to my name.

Oh yeah and I forgot about student loan payments. Now you do get a bit of a break (6 months) but that doesn't seem like much. I think the payments started out in the $200 range.

Well work is pretty easy, too easy in fact. I pretty much have the technical work that I am doing mastered. I find a system to make it go much quicker than it was planned to go and used my spare time to look for a new job and plan a strategy to get one or make a move within the company I already work for.

Couple of meetings with my immediate boss, who worked for a Big 6 firm for many years and left when, according to him, it was either join the partnership or here is the door. Looks promising, I think he knows where I am coming from and truly wants to help me get where I want to go.

Couple of meetings with the big boss and he is basically evading and trying to stall the works. OK its time to put the external job search into high gear.

2 interviews at 2 different Big 5 firms ( there was a merger shortly after I finished school). One is a referral from a person that used to work at my current company and basically wanted the same things I did (and to move to NYC) and the other is one I started working on while still in school. One would require me working in mostly Northern VA - which I thought would be OK because I would also be travelling alot. The other was based in Baltimore.

Long story short I get an offer from both but the one in Baltimore is for a partner that I met and liked. The other firm the partner was pretty harsh with me and only discussed things with me from a very suspsicious and combative stance.

I take the new job and quit my first job. No one is too upset or surprised!

One funny part is that of all the people that had resigned and left my project since I had been working there (a little over 1 year) all were allowed (asked) to leave immediately but were paid for their notice period. I was asked to stay until the last day.