The transition period

Things are already off to a fast start with Amazon.com. Have had a couple nice conference calls, have reviewed a bunch of documentation, and have had an account set up for me for the product I will own. All that and I don't start work for another week =) I must say, I'm very excited to get on board and contribute. The people I will be working have a great deal of passion and zeal to change the world - I am lucky to be joining them.

While the job appears to get better and better, the move portion of this is getting worse and worse. Amy and I are at our wits end at the number of simple problems that the moving coordinators can't seem to handle... things as simple as having our kids sit next to us on a plane (which the airlines will force you to do anyway). I'm not kidding, they've actually done that. Almost lost our pack and move dates because "oops gee we didn't send the moving company that information," and so on. We didn't even get to take a house hunting trip because they couldn't get one scheduled. Actually, they did get one scheduled... AN ELEVEN HOUR TRIP BETWEEN SOUTH BEND AND SEATTLE. Yeah, that's realistic with a 4 year old and a 3 month old. Argh. Like I said, our wits end. Would have much prefered to handle all the details ourselves and just have Amazon reimburse us. Instead, we are actually spending more time babysitting the process and making people aware of the missing details than we would have if we just handled this ourselves. Argh.

Good news is that we will end up in Seattle someday soon. My boss seems very understanding and seems supportive in this process - he was even kind enough to put us in touch with a realtor. And I will have a great job, live in a great school district, have a great way of life, and give my two sons a great environment. I truly am thankful to have our current problems - I realize some are not as fortunate to have "problems" we are facing. Still, it is very trying, and it hurts worse when I see Amy getting upset over the ordeal. She is supportive and excited, but needs some transition time, and needs more than the 3.5 weeks we've given ourselves (I keep telling her there's shopping in Seattle but that doesn't seem to help).