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Mine wasn't. Working at home making six figures. Besides sales jobs.. what in govt lets you work at home and make 6 figures... I mean what do you DO that makes that income AT HOME? I get inspecting ports in dangerous situations. Otherwise massively overpaid...
Oh man, I can barely dignify a response to this. But thankfully, IsNull already eloquently did.
But I will say, in the DC area the push is TELEWORK TELEWORK TELEWORK because there is so much traffic and congestion. I currently already work from home 2 times a week. There aren't to many people in the area that don't have some sort of flexible schedule that includes working from home part time. My last department was known in the government sector as the leader in hoteling (which means 100% at home work)- because we were patent examiners and trademark attorneys, all which are on a higher pay scale than a regular GS AND work 100% at home. It's an old, antiquated mindset to think one has to schlep in every day just to show up and say you are there and then work behind a computer all day anyways. My sister moved from DC to NC as a government contractor and worked full time AT HOME and made more money then me. There is no comparison between government pay and contractor pay when you are at a senior level- you lose out the higher you get because unlike the private sector, we cap out.
People that work from any given day out of the week are engaged. You have to be. I work longer hours at home because more is expected of me. There are plenty of meetings I am able to call into and be productive and contribute to. Let's not be ignorant to not realize that the Government works all across the globe, thus (in my particular instance) some of my customers are overseas and in different timezones, thus making it easier to do any type of correspondence and work while being remote.
My wife and I moved from Glover Park (37th tween Calvert and Tunlaw) to Mount Pleasant four years ago and haven't looked back since.
Housing prices don't really compare to DC which is obviously a lot more expensive per square foot in the nicest areas. Same with property tax ... both as primary residences we paid $10k/yr for a 1800 sq/ft townhouse in DC whereas we pay about $5k/yr for a 4300 sq/ft home in MP.
As has been mentioned before the property tax system is similar to Virginia's, where on things like vehicles you pay an annual tax as opposed to a sales tax up front (at least that's my memory of VA). This is very advantageous if one has cars that they rotate often as you only pay for the amount of time you own them as opposed to getting hammered over and over at the start even if you keep a car for a year.
Every day costs like groceries are about the same, restaurants are slightly cheaper here except on the higher end.
Life is a lot easier in general in Charleston, even with ever increasing traffic, and despite the protestations of locals, it nowhere near compares to the traffic of a major city like DC, although there's no doubt we're trending in the wrong direction. If you have the option of choosing the times you commute to work you can easily avoid traffic most of the time.
As a result of the high tourist volume we benefit from having a number and quality of restaurants and cultural/art events that one usually wouldn't expect in a city of this size, so that good. Still, you're not going to have the cultural options of a city like DC, nor the sports teams, nor an international airport ... but that's part of the compromise of moving to a smaller town.
Although there's little doubt that one is in the deep South, Charleston itself has a healthy mix of political views, mostly due to the diversity borne from the universities and all the people moving here from around the country. This makes for a vibrant community where most people tend to respect each others views (when not on the internet) as opposed to other places in the country that might be heavily skewed toward a particular bias and then it just becomes a stagnant insular community. As a DC resident you might remember the liberal City Paper that is long gone from DC, but by all accounts thrives here, so that's a good indication that there is a healthy mix of viewpoints. That said, as you radiate outwards from the peninsula expect this dynamic to dissolve quickly, this isn't a judgment just an observation.
We don't have kids so I can't help on that front. I'm sure I forgot to address some of your questions so don't hesitate to ask. My wife and I have lived in NYC, DC, Miami, and all over Europe, and there's no place we'd currently rather live in than Charleston ... although I do really miss El Pollo Rico and Pho 75.
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PS. Someone mentioned that downtown is a lot like Georgetown. Although very true from a layout and architectural viewpoint, from a practical level it's more akin to living inside Colonial Williamsburg. With only one supermarket, and everything being either hospitality or shopping, it is 99% geared towards tourism and not residence. It is full of tourists all year long, some walking, many on slow horse carriages. There are lovely streets to live in that aren't that overwhelmed by tourism but you have to get in your car and go off the peninsula to do pretty much anything related to daily life other than dining out, clothes shopping, or antiquing. Most areas of Georgetown/Glover Park are a lot more practical to live in. MP is a lot like Arlington in general. Just across the Cooper River bridge is busy very much like Roslyn and then it radiates outward from there. Or you can look at it like across the bridge is like Chevy Chase and again it gets less busy the farther out you go. West Ashley reminds me of Annandale. But these are approximations, you have to spend a little time here to figure out what's what.
We are currently considering a move from NoVA to Charleston which led me to find this thread - those are 2 places we'd miss too - and kabob (though my husband & I differ on our favorites)... Sounds like there are plenty of pros in Charleston to make up for it... ;-)
We are currently considering a move from NoVA to Charleston which led me to find this thread - those are 2 places we'd miss too - and kabob (though my husband & I differ on our favorites)... Sounds like there are plenty of pros in Charleston to make up for it... ;-)
Same here with my husband and myself. We both went to college at Winthrop, but graduated at the worst part of the recession so there were no jobs in SC. We've been in the DC area since 2010.
We managed to find jobs in the government, and now have reached the point where my husband has 100% telework and I have 4 days a week at home. We're both analysts, so it's easy to do from home as long as one of the VPNs work.
Most of our family already lives in SC since my husband grew up there. My office already has several supercommuters coming in once every two weeks to work back to back days in the office from Maine, New York, and Michigan, so it wouldn't be an issue. Since I'm not allowed to have 100% telework, I'd get to at least keep my DC locality pay wherever I live. My husband would have to get the rest of US pay for Charleston, which isn't an issue.
We love the DC area, but it's been hard living so far away from family for so long. We haven't been able to travel much down there since I had to use all of my sick and vacation up for both my maternity leaves over the past few years.
Hi!
I’m so curious to see what you ended up doing as my husband and I currently live in Falls Church VA and are looking to move to the Mt. Pleasant area. I too work the gov’t (DoD) and have for 14 years. I’m not seeing much in terms of opportunity to find another comparable govt position. Where do you work by chance ? Just wanted to see what other gov’t position options there are out in that area. Have you moved? Interested to see how it went if so!
I’m curious as well. Please pardon me, CherylAO, but my native South Carolina sensitivities make me prefer that our area be referred to as down, not out, compared to Northern Virginia, as in down south. I’m not trying to be rude, just funny. I hope I’m not failing miserably. It would be nice to have y’all join us in the Lowcountry.
If you want to be in Charleston and have a federal job your best bet would be telecommuting and biweekly shuttling to a home office.
Charleston has a number of firms that do government contracting but not much of a Federal presence. I doubt you would be able to keep DC pay working from Charleston. I've had a couple of people tell me they will adjust salary by location but I'm not sure how prevalent that is across all the different agencies.
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Curious what you ended up doing!
