At least coffee #76, or Why people don't want to move for work today

1 month ago
17

The question often arises as to why people don't want to move for work. If you already have a support network in your current place of residence, i.e., a dentist, pediatrician, and general practitioner, if you have a school and kindergarten for your children within reach, and on top of that you have a mortgage on your current home, it will be difficult to leave and embark on an uncertain journey. Somewhere where you will have difficulty finding everything you already have here. Moreover, there may be work for you, but will there be work for your partner? And what will the housing situation be like? Expensive rent or a new mortgage?
All those who did not live at that time and draw information from dubious sources will tell you how impossible it was to find such things at that time, when they did not live there. The opposite is true. Sure, it had its pitfalls. You could get a company apartment, but you had to commit to working for that company for a certain period of time. But all healthcare was available locally, and there was a school and a kindergarten, including a nursery class, nearby. And it was no problem to get your children in. Alternatively, you could get a cooperative apartment under similar conditions. You paid a basic share and the rest was paid off in the same way as a mortgage. Only at significantly different prices. The rent for the apartment or the share payment were amounts that you didn't even notice. Unlike today's prices. In addition, the company contributed to the basic share, under the same conditions as for renting a company apartment.
I can already hear the know-it-alls shouting that these apartments were only for prominent figures and communists. But again, that's not the case. Anyone the company needed could be a prominent figure, regardless of their opinions or party membership. I can prove my own situation here. We wanted to live somewhere, so we looked to see who was looking for a construction engineer. It was a state farm in the Český Krumlov region. An apartment ready to move into in a relatively new apartment building, immediate employment for both of us, a school, a kindergarten in the area, and a health center as well. No one cared that I was the son of a father with a bad reputation. I was simply a construction engineer, and as such, I was accepted.
Life went on, and I was restless. So I changed jobs and started working as an investment technician at the local branch of a Prague company. Shortly thereafter, my wife followed me. Of course, the farm eventually demanded that we leave the apartment. But even though the court ruled against us, we had time until we found new housing. I was already working at OSP in Český Krumlov at the time, and it looked like the company would find me an apartment. Right there in Krumlov. But in the meantime, the construction of cooperative apartments for that branch was completed, and my dear wife was among the lucky ones who got one. So she became a cooperative owner. The company provided the down payment, of course, and we paid the rest to the cooperative, just like the rent for the company apartment.
It so happened that I was promoted to a better position within the company, but to the second headquarters, in Kaplice. And the result was another move. And, of course, the company offered me an apartment. Unfortunately, it was still under construction. At that time, this housing estate was somehow being pushed to the background and construction was dragging on. The company secured a place for my wife as well, but everything turned out differently, my mission failed, I left and couldn't take advantage of the offer. Maybe everything would have turned out differently if the apartment had been completed on time, but there's no point in playing the "what if" game.
We considered moving several more times, and everywhere we went, we were offered housing. But most of the time, these were apartments under construction, so the temporary housing was just a substitute. And we didn't want that.
Life continued to play games with me and decided that I would return to where I actually came from. So I inherited my grandmother's house. But it was a new era and there was no one to help me financially. That's why the entire renovation, i.e., modernization and expansion, was entirely on my own. Financially and in terms of labor.
So what about those apartments and the possibility of moving? Anyone who wanted to move could do so and had all the necessary facilities at their disposal.

Loading comments...