Skip to main content

Home Owner

We were out to lunch and one person in our group knew some folks at an other table that also had just the number of open seats we needed. So we joined them and I found myself seated next to a software developer whose just under seven years at his first and only job after college. We got chatting and I learned that he had recently become a homeowner and he was proud to share how expensive the home was and how close it was to his office. 

To be able to pay for that house, he had to absolutely keep the job he had. From his description of what he did, he is a commodity full stack developer undistinguishable from the legions of others just like him. He had lucked into a very good gig and thanks to the humungous mortgage was extremely motivated to keep his paycheck. He had made the conscious decision to get into a team in his company where the work was predictable and uncomplicated.

 Instead of worrying about being viable as a professional for a very long time, he focused on home buying as a priority, it was a point of pride for him and I had learned that fact about him in the first five minutes of our acquaintance. It made sense how he might see it as a very significant milestone when his generation has been struggling disproportionately with buying a home. I know some other folks who are around the same age as this guy and have yet to pull the trigger - not because they don't want to but because they are not able to make the same trade-offs. 

They want mobility and the ability to jump on opportunities when they present themselves - for professional growth or money or both. They would not stay with the same company for seven years trying to save for a home. If this guy had infact made the right bets he could be sitting in this forgotten corner of a very large company doing the most mundane, undemanding work every day with no big risk or reward. He would have a ten minute commute to work and live in a home that was his pride and joy. Who is to say that is not a great achievement for someone with his skills in this day and age. 


Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t...
111 comments
Read more

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques...
6 comments
Read more

Cheese Making

I never fail to remind J that there is a time and place for everything. It is possibly the line she will remember me by when I am dead and gone given how frequently she hears it. Instead of having her breakfast she will break into a song and dance number from High School Musical well past eight on Monday morning. She will insist that I watch and applaud the performance instead of screaming at her to finish her milk and cereal. Her sense of occasion is seriously lacking but then so is mine. Consider for example, a person walks into the grocery store with the express purpose of buying detergent because they are fresh out of it and laundry is only half way done. However instead of heading straight for detergent, they wander over to the natural foods aisle and go berserk upon finding goat milk on sale for a dollar a gallon. They at once proceed to stock pile so they can turn it to huge quantities home-made feta cheese. That person would be me. It would not concern me in the least that I ha...
5 comments
Read more