I'm retired now, but when you are in the rat race, what decisions you have to make. There is a tropical storm, soon to be a hurricane, headed for Beaumont. It brings to mind events of 2005. In 2005, I had already spent a year as manager of a high rise complex. Hurricane Rita smashed into Beaumont, and among other things, heavily damaged an oil refinery. I was approached and asked to head up the asset protection team at the refinery. It would mean, at least a month, of living outside, in the heat and humidity, eating MRE's and battling insects. The catch, was, to go there I had to hand off my managerial job to someone else (and someone else was salivating, waiting to pounce at the opportunity), but doing the job in Beaumont would mean promotion once the refinery was back up and running.
I had worked my whole life for a corner office on the 14th floor. Giving that up, living outside in harsh conditions, for an ambiguous promotion...just didn't feel right. A onetime rival of mine accepted the Beaumont offer. Once the refinery was back up, his promotion was to chief of operations for the port of Houston. He ended up making 12k more per year than I was making. Also, had I gone to Beaumont and subsequently to Channelview, would mean giving up my luxury apartment, something else I had wanted my whole life, or making a 150 mile commute every work day. Since hurricanes scare the daylights out of me I am glad I stayed where I was.