Big Changes...Again!

This is an email Seth sent out to some close friends a few weeks ago regarding some big things God was orchestrating in our life.

Vanessa and I made the decision to move our family to Waco a year ago solely for my job. When I was promoted to take over this neighborhood we lived in Round Rock and it didn't make sense for me to commute anymore. My managers promised me that the current phase of Willow Bend and the next phase of Willow Bend would be a 3 year project. They also promised that once Willow Bend was complete that we would start a new neighborhood in Waco that I would also run. So for us with a 3+ year commitment for my career it made the decision to move a no-brainer.

Things had been progressing nicely with DR Horton since I joined them, I had been promoted 4 times in three years, and we really thought my future with this company was bright for the long term as I was climbing the ladder. We were excited for the opportunity, although not so excited about Waco, but we would make the best of it. 

When I started this phase of Willow Bend a year ago it had 75 lots available. As of today I have two lots available. That's no small feat. We're ahead of schedule for this phase to be built out. The problem is that the developer who is supposed to get the next phase ready is behind schedule. For months I've been going to construction meetings weekly at our main office and begging my construction manager, my sales manager, my land development manager, and my division president to get the developer going on the next phase. I've been giving them weekly updates...we have 15 lots left, 10 lots, 7 lots, and now 2 lots. Each time my concerns are not met with any sense of urgency which is extremely frustrating because this is my livelihood. If I don't have any houses to build I don't make any money. The developer was supposed to have the phase V of Willow Bend complete by May 1st 2012 and as today he hasn't even started. This has brought so much unnecessary stress to our lives and its awful because it's nothing we can control. I mean I've done my job, and apparently I've done it so well that I may have worked myself out of a job. 

Three weeks ago my construction manager was out in the neighborhood just checking on a few things. I flagged him down and we talked for about 45 minutes in the middle of the street. I currently have around 20 houses under construction and that should last me about 4 months. I straight asked him "am I going to have a job in 4 months?" He told me not to worry about that to which I replied how could I not since we don't have any lots to sell. Then he tells me that the developer isn't going to have Willow Bend phase V done any time soon and so they'll probably move me to take over a neighborhood in Jarrell TX. Jarrell!! I told him no. In case you don't know where Jarrell is, that would be about 20 minutes North of Georgetown/Round Rock (or just North of where we used to live). The neighborhood in Jarrell is the worst neighborhood in our division. It does less than half of the houses that Willow Bend does. I told him I didn't move my family all the way to Waco from Round Rock for them to turn around a year later and have me commute the opposite direction to Jarrell. I told him it didn't make sense, I mean I would never see my family because of the commute, there would be the huge cost of wear and tear on my vehicle, the lower production numbers of Jarrell would mean lower pay for me and less opportunity to bonus, etc. I told him the only way I am doing that is if they were going to compensate me for all those factors. His response was "We'll cross that bridge when we get there." I shook my head and asked if there were any other options since I didn't feel that that was a good one. He tried to tell me that it would only be temporary but seriously it can take up to a year for a new phase to be completed and approved by the city and the developer hasn't started yet. I mean temporary would be a few weeks or a month, not months or a year. He then said the only other option would be to place me in the other DR Horton neighborhood in Waco and I can split all the houses with the superintendent that runs that neighborhood. I told him I didn't like that either because that is really not fair to that guy, I mean he's gonna hate me if I just show up one day and take 1/2 his houses away, besides the fact that we are good friends. That's making him take a pay cut. That certainly wouldn't work out well. 

So here I am now with nothing but a bad situation in front of me and nothing but horrible options surrounding me. The lack of leadership and foresight from my management team is astounding to me. The fact that they would let Willow Bend get this far without a plan or a fall back option just blows my mind. The fact that they are just going to let it sit here and let the lots run out is crazy. I can not comprehend how or why they haven't sat down with the developer and given him a swift kick in the pants to get him to understand the sense of urgency and that he needs to stop making excuses and get to work on it. I'm really questioning the leadership at the top in ways that I never have in my 4 years here. I began to question what would happen to me. If I tell them no to Jarrell and no to going to the other Waco neighborhood would they just let me go? Certainly they wouldn't pay me to just sit around. I started to think that maybe DR Horton isn't what I thought it was, maybe my bright future here was beginning to dim. Perhaps it was time for me to move on? 

I sat down with Vanessa the weekend after talking to my manager and laid it all out for her. She agreed that Jarrell was an awful solution, even if temporary, and that sharing a neighborhood wouldn't be good either. I think she may have been more frustrated than I was. We had a good three hour conversation about the situation and what to do next. In the end we agreed that it was time for me to start looking elsewhere. I have this 4 month window until Willow Bend will be built out and I'll have no work here. So I'm trying to use this time to see what else I can find. Vanessa said she's willing to go with me wherever, but her heart is in Austin. We loved living in the North Austin/Round Rock/Cedar Park area. Waco is not a big city, and the area of Waco we live in feels (and is) even smaller. I think that from the moment we moved here that Vanessa has been praying that the Lord would somehow get us back to Austin. I'm serious when I say the only thing we like about Waco is our church. Actually we love our church, hands down the best church I've ever been involved with, right now its the only thing Waco has going for it. But if we can't go to Austin then there's always Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston. 

Two weeks ago I started putting out resumes. It's been extremely stressful. I have the type of management team at DR Horton that if you are not with them 100% then you are fired. If any one of the companies I send a resume to calls DR Horton to ask questions about me I will be fired on the spot. I cringe every time my phone rings and it says it is the office or a manager on the ID. I think I had a headache for three straight days when we first started emailing those resumes. I found an opening for a construction superintendent for a builder in Austin but the same day I sent the resume I got a response back that they had already filled it. I've found about 12 or so other openings that I've applied to in the Dallas and San Antonio areas. We scour the internet everyday for new listings. Vanessa checks them all in the morning and I check them when I get home from work in the evening. We've been praying hard for someone to take a chance on me.

Last week I contacted an old friend from Austin, our Realtor that helped us find our house in Cedar Park and our house in Round Rock. I just wanted to contact him and ask him his opinion about what he thought about the Dallas market vs. the San Antonio market since that was where I was finding the most job listings. He asked if we still wanted to come back to Austin and I said yes, but I had only found that one position and it had already been filled. He said he would recommend Dallas over San Antonio but then said "But I'd rather see you where you want to be." He told me he was going to sleep on it and call me the next day. When he called me back he said that he was working his contacts to see what he could find for me in Austin and to give him a few days. He called me back this past Monday and gave me the number for the VP of Construction for Standard Pacific Homes in Austin. He told me that in his experience they pay well, they take care of their employees, and they are in a good situation in Austin as far as buying up land and having future opportunities. He said to call this guy and start a dialogue, but he didn't know if they had anything available. I told him I had applied for a job with Standard Pacific in Dallas and maybe at the very least he could get me a contact for the Dallas hiring manager. 

So I called him Monday. We talked for 45 minutes. It turns out the he does have an opening available for a neighborhood in Cedar Park and that the current superintendent there is transferring to the open position in Dallas. It just so happens that the neighborhood that he needs someone for is two streets away from where we used to live in Cedar Park. He told me he hasn't put the position up on the web site yet as available and that my timing couldn't have been more perfect. He said he'd interviewed two other candidates from old resumes that they had on file but that no one had stood out yet. At the end of our conversation he asked me to send him my resume and asked how soon could I come in for an interview. I have an appointment with him at 10am tomorrow morning and he asked me to meet him in the neighborhood that he has an opening for for the interview. As soon as I told Vanessa she just about jumped through the roof. Like I said earlier, she has been praying for a long time that God would somehow get us back to Austin. 

Friday I also received a call from David Weekly Homes and Grand Homes in Dallas. I'm trying to arrange an interview with Grand because the day they wanted me to come in didn't work with my current schedule so I'm going to talk to them again this week and schedule an interview for another day. The David Weekly interview seems promising, the person from David Weekly Homes contacted me Friday and asked if I could come Monday for an interview. Since I'm already going to be in Austin interviewing with Standard Pacific Homes tomorrow I told her I could not so instead we have arranged for a phone interview tomorrow afternoon. 

So I'm praying for big things. A big opportunity, a big change, some big interviews. I understand that there is still a long way to go in this process, I still have to interview, I still have to be hired. But it is just amazing to me how the Lord provides...an unadvertised position and the guy asked me to come meet him without even seeing my resume, only talking to him on the phone, and two more builders calling me on the same day wanting me to come in to interview. It just seems so perfect and exactly like my God to work like that. We're praying hard that this is His plan and God would show us where He wants us to be. Also praying that God would plant it in one of these hiring manager's hearts to hire me for this job. It's been a crazy few weeks and hopefully the end of this headache is in sight.

Well, Seth went into that interview and knocked it out of the park!  He spent 2 hours with the VP of construction & about 10 days later was officially offered the position.  Seth starts his new position June 1st. We have our house listed for sale and the future has a mix of excitement and uncertainty. We're preparing to have our daddy gone all week long & to temporarily have our family split between Waco & Austin. We're longing for the time we can be moved, settled and back into our normal swing of things. We are so excited to be reunited with some old friends, and beyond sad to leave our church & church family that have made the last year of our lives one of the best.