Working on: Finished burning music for class tomorrow
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All About Doug tonight.

Well, I have permission to finally share the news. Doug will be transitioning into a new job asap. The "big boss" he works for is starting up a second company. Still automotive, just different materials. Well, Doug was surprised (dare I say blindsided?) by a verbal job offer with the new company last week, and was presented with the written offer today. We discussed, and he will accept.

He is very excited about it. It gets him out of management, which he currently is somewhat frustrated with, and back into design engineering, which he was wanting to get back into. He's happiest with the challenges there - being presented with a problem and designing a way to solve it, working with customers, rather than managing. At least for now. This job will also draw on his background in quality and a little bit of chem engineering, which is what his degree is in. So he's looking forward to the new challenges.

His current department will be restructured, which is something he was wanting to recommend anyway. Offer was good - beyond salary, which I won't discuss here, all benefits will stay the same. Insurance, 401K, vacation/sick time, even tuition reimbursement. The only sad part is he qualified for 1 week more of vacation next year (putting him at 4 weeks!); but that will be put off a year at the new company. Ah, well.

He will continue his Masters degree. I am making the familial sacrifice of halting my quest for the Masters so we can use the tuition for Doug to either double up classes, or put toward Roman's bills.

As for travel? Not too bad. One of the other guys hired with Doug wants to do a lot of the traveling and sales aspect, so there's the possibility of 1-2 trips to Germany per year (where the "parent company" of the new machinery is) and a yearly trip to Vegas for some meeting/convention. Here's to hoping in the future for Germany in the summer, and Vegas when I can take personal days!