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Comment by santoriv | Hacker News Reader

I can’t read the whole article but are they telling a bunch of people to move to Bentonville or Sunnyvale?

From the article:

>Walmart will pay for workers in those locations to transfer to other primary offices, such as San Bruno, Calif., or the company’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. The company hopes to relocate most of the workers, and some will be allowed to become full-time remote workers, a spokeswoman said. Those who leave will be given severance pay, she said.

Arkansas....LMAO!!! They have to be joking.

It looks like they had 17 techhubs worldwide, and are closing 3 in the US. The remaining US ones are Atlanta GA, Bentonville AR, Charlotte SC, Dallas TX, Hoboken NJ, Reston VA, San Bruno CA and Seattle WA.

Given they just opened new locations in Atlanta and Seattle last year, this sounds more like Austin and Portland are getting too expensive (and aren't as essential of a labor market as SV), so they can save money by focusing on other locations.

Source: https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2022/03/15/walmart-gl...

The weird part to me is that in a company this large, you're going to mostly spend your days on zoom calls anyway.

I know which one I’d take

I assume you're being droll but to me (not a Walmart person) it seems like Bentonville would be better professionally since it's company HQ, and very much a company town? My completely unfounded theory is that it's generally a more savvy career move for your boss to see your face IRL? The thought is that if two candidates are equal, the one that actually shows up in the office is just going to be more likely to get the nod.

Setting aside the dubious merits of Arkansas (and yes I've been to Bentonville), why would a technology person move to where he'll never rise up that high in the greater organization? I think the answer to your question, is to recognize that you shouldn't put yourself into such a position.

Because internal promotions are so rare these days in tech. You have a much better chance at getting a promotion by getting another offer from a different company.

If you plan on being a Walmart lifer, sure. But what about your next job if that isn’t true?

Better to be central to where the majority of companies and candidates are, where your ex-colleagues, parents of your children’s friends, and casual acquaintances (proverbial bowling league) all are part of a broader and accessible network for future job prospects.

It also keeps you culturally (professionally) more similar to your next job’s culture.

I know someone who had a non-technical corporate management role in Bentonville. The company basically decided to eliminate the group and he needed to move somewhere else to even job hunt because there sure wasn't anything else locally.

You've never been to Arkansas... There is much more to factor in. If you have a family, it's literally one of the worst places to live/work. The median pay is under 30K, and it's almost dead last in health care and education. There are about 45 other states where you would be better off.

To add to the above poster:

https://www.kark.com/news/state-news/report-ranks-arkansas-a...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Based on a recent report, Arkansas ranked next to the bottom on good states for millennials to live in.

In a recent report by Scholaroo, all 50 states were ranked from best to worst states to live in as a millennial. Study ranks Arkansas school districts on equity, ranks state #2 in US

Each state was judged on multiple metrics, from affordability and safety to their political and social environments.

With two exceptions, Arkansas ranked near or at the bottom of all the metrics with an overall ranking of 47.

At its highest, Arkansas ranked 13th on affordability of living and 25th in employment. Otherwise, it was mostly rock bottom.

Arkansas ranked 42nd on its political/social environment and 49th in quality of life.

At the absolute worst, Arkansas ranked 50th health-wise.

===================================

I would have to be offered a truly absurd amount of compensation (as a W2) to live and work in a Walmart office in Bentonville, AR.

I don't have kids but if I did there is no way in hell that I would want them attending any AR public school system.

I'd have them calculate the post income tax cost of a daily plane ticket to and from Arkansas for my commute, plus the cost of all other transportation and meals, add that to 150% of my current salary, and then we can talk about whether the job opportunity makes sense.

Might also want to add in morbidity/mortality costs from the extra solar radiation.

My lumber dealer gets his cedar cants from Arkansas, so that would probably cut out more than half of my lumber costs and save me around $600 per year currently, but if my CoL dropped so significantly, I could probably retire to furniture making a lot sooner too.

Are the Bentonville schools bad? I was there last year and it felt like Schaumburg or Rosemont, IL. It had all the trappings of a white collar suburb.

I have been to Arkansas as a tourist and loved it. But ngl, your answer and all the others set me straight.

Walmart and the Waltons dump gobs of money on Northwest Arkansas. It doesn’t make much sense to compare it to the rest of the state. Bentonville is a pretty nice place to raise a family. Public museums, schools, parks, bike trails, all really nice.

Traffic getting kind of nuts though.

What else is in Bentonville? Seems pretty risky, you’d basically be dependent on working at Walmart forever if there’s nothing else around.

Literally nothing. It's just chain restaurants and vendor offices servicing Walmart (but not in the way they service their own vendors :)

> Bentonville [is] very much a company town

Living in a town dominated by the company I work for sounds like my own personal version of hell.

Phenomenal mountain biking and corporate HQ? Sign me up for Bentonville.

Ironically, that’s what I meant. I left it intentionally ambiguous but Bentonville is lovely. The Bay is dystopian.

Northwest Arkansas, while a boring little meth-riddled area, has housing that can actually be purchased by people like us.

The also have Chuy’s and now a Torchy’s, so there’s that.

Have you been to northwestern Arkansas? It is beautiful and has some word class mountain biking.... And some eye popping prices on real estate.

Prices are already highly speculative in that region and this move by Walmart will further fuel speculators who think will try to squeeze a quick buck flipping or renting to a new wave of captive out of town techies.

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