While Murph's comment a few days ago seemed premature at the time, he just seems to be ahead of the curve than the rest of us.
I found out yesterday that the only realistic possibility for me to not lose my job due to the lack of business in Des Moines is the possible promotion into a job in Atlanta. While this job in Atlanta hasn't been fully approved yet, I also found out yesterday that the hiring manager and his boss (2 and 3 management levels above where I am) agreed that it would be good to have me fly to Atlanta for a formal interview with the hiring manager and the other person in the same role that I would be applying for.
So that is encouraging, especially since this hasn't been advertised or posted internally or externally and I know that the hiring manager wants to avoid posting the position if at all possible.
So I fly down Monday afternoon, have dinner with the hiring manager that night, have the formal interview on Tuesday from 10:30 am - noon with him, and 11:00 am - noon this position's counterpart for the region would join us. Then lunch with them. After that I don't know if anything else will happen or not, but I've got a standing invitation for dinner with some people that we know that moved north of Atlanta about 14 months ago from here. Then I have Wednesday morning to look around the area a little more and then fly back around 4:00 pm.
I am glad that I am going to be there for 2 nights to help me check out the area, and while this looks very hopeful, it still hasn't been approved to even hire anyone into this position, and I don't have the job yet.
So this is similar to Sean's (StPatGuy's) situation where he is having to move from Rancho Cucamonga, California to Phoenix, Arizona. His move is about 5 hours straight east, and mine would be 15 hours southeast, but anything past an hour or two really impacts your ability to get back to visit family and friends regularly.
