If you can prove that one (or more) of your grandparents' parents were Irish you can get an Irish passport So, otherwise it a'int necessarily so..

QuoteOriginally posted by: AnthisAre you sure?At least in EU, a US citizen must pass the same or almost the same processes as any other immigrant from non EU or EEA country.That's right. Also, it is asymmetric. It is easier for a US citizen to live in the EU than the other way around.

I chose Microsoft and I am deeply depressed about the decision. I hate the job I cannot believe how stupid I am, I am doomed for life. Desperately looking for a way out, I am definitely not the engineering type. Chaotic and incredibly stupid.

QuoteOriginally posted by: ChaoticI chose Microsoft and I am deeply depressed about the decision. I hate the job I cannot believe how stupid I am, I am doomed for life. Desperately looking for a way out, I am definitely not the engineering type. Chaotic and incredibly stupid.What was your PhD about? You can always join an MFE and shift to finance...else you can shift jobs and move to the bay area

QuoteOriginally posted by: ChaoticI chose Microsoft and I am deeply depressed about the decision. I hate the job I cannot believe how stupid I am, I am doomed for life. Desperately looking for a way out, I am definitely not the engineering type. Chaotic and incredibly stupid. hey, appreciate what you have... free softdrinks, free snacks, a campus lifestyle, good cafeteria... and you get to live in affordable green seattle with all that great crab food!

QuoteOriginally posted by: ChaoticI chose Microsoft and I am deeply depressed about the decision. I hate the job I cannot believe how stupid I am, I am doomed for life. Desperately looking for a way out, I am definitely not the engineering type. Chaotic and incredibly stupid.What makes you think that you would have been very happy about joining the I Bank.Remember there are several aspects to a job other than liking it-like your location, your pay packet,brand,future opportunities created etc. I am quite sure that you are not as foolish as you think.You took that decision after thinking long and hard, it can't be that stupid.

One bit of math finance is to look at a portfolio where you made the correct decision in every possible trade. Such trading strategies typically make 10-20% per day.Life is like that.I turned down an MS job which would have made me millions, part of my logic was that MS share price could not continue rising at past rates.I was wrong.If you let this shit take over your thought processes you enter a self destructive spiral, and you might as well die or become a creationist.So yet again, I will take the line of using finance techniques to guide your career decisions, even if the decision is to leave finance.Start with finding a cap to your misery. You're employed, and at a firm that many admire, and hate is also a kind of respect.As I said when you first asked, I said that hardcore C++ at MS worth real money to Banks, and there is an OK market in C# (but not VB.NET).So the short term local goal is to get yourself doing as much C++ as possible.also it would not hurt to phone the people you turned down, see if the options are still open, or if they have something for you. Unpleasant to do, and not a great chance of success but you'd be a fool not to try.You also ought to look at education. You could do the CQF whilst still working, but I'd also point out that MFE programmes are signalling to me that applications are down significantly, so your chances of getting to a good one are about as high as they ever will be.There exist quant-like roles at MS though, and again it would not hurt to see if you could get to them.I don't mean the insides of Excel, but analysing the vast amount of data their Internet operations get from their sites which need turning into actionable knowledge.But do your job well.Don't fall into the hole of thinking that you are too good for your job. That may start off being true, but the idea soon makes it untrue.MS is not a golden land of opportunity, but it's easily better than most other employers in the economy as a whole in terms of giving you a chance to do cool and/or lucrative stuff.Even if I'm wrong about this, it does not matter, remember model neutrality ?Whatever your model of the opportunities at MS, they are the ones you have, and you have to exploit them to the limit, else 5 years from now you'll be burned out andf no only unemployed but also unemployable.I guess you've not done any survival training ?The big lesson is not which woodland animals you can eat, or how to make wet leaves burn, but the discipline of knowing deep in yourself that it is you that is responsible for the outcome, and that if you give up you are lost. You can see a rock, or you can lift it and eat the woodlice you find there (taste a bit like prawns). You see no edible fauna ? Fine, go lift another rock, there is no option to save the game and go bank and do it differently next time.

QuoteOriginally posted by: ChaoticI chose Microsoft and I am deeply depressed about the decision. I hate the job I cannot believe how stupid I am, I am doomed for life. Desperately looking for a way out, I am definitely not the engineering type. Chaotic and incredibly stupid.You are not doomed for life. Maybe doomed for the next six months. If you don't like your current situation, change it. Even if changing your situation completely causes things to blow up, you'll at least know what happened if you went down the other path.

Go where you will have the opportunity to do something you are good at. Being offered by Microsoft makes it sound like you are a good coder. But being offered to do anything at that salary makes it sound like you are bad at whatever it is. But what do I know. If you are 22 and this is your first job, $100,000 might be pretty solid.I am just saying if you are not a uniquely good computer programmer, then stay away from Microsoft. Only you know if this is true. I decided myself many years ago, when I was living in Silicon Valley, that I was not a uniquely good computer programmer and so I decided I did not want to compete to be mediocre. Go somewhere where you will be more exposed to different activities, and different phases of business and marketing, to find your niche.Who wants to run in a pack where he will be the laggard and get no respect?

farmer,first of all, kudos on the new profile pic. Second the OP mentioned in prior posts that he had finished a PhD, had a family, and was reluctant to take them all back to the third world. A man who is upset because he took the only choice he head, is a man who is cursing his bad luck... Yes the luck was bad, but there was also the 99% chance that you could have been worse off. Best advice to the OP, write your life and visions of success off now... and then, you can enjoy the ride, wherever it may take you!

QuoteOriginally posted by: farmerI am just saying if you are not a uniquely good computer programmer, then stay away from Microsoft.Microsoft like any large company has their mix of programmers. Some of the programmers at Microsoft are really good. Some aren't.QuoteWho wants to run in a pack where he will be the laggard and get no respect?I do. I'm just not going to learn anything unless I surround myself with people that are better than me. I've been in situations where I've been the smartest person in the room, and I've found that to be incredibly depressing. It's a really bad thing to look around and think to yourself "well it doesn't get any better than this, does it?" The cool thing is that there is no lack of things I'm totally incompetent at to keep me busy. At some point I'll get bored of finance, and take up something like being a pastry chef or drag racing or directing horror movies.

QuoteOriginally posted by: ChaoticI chose Microsoft and I am deeply depressed about the decision. I hate the job I cannot believe how stupid I am, I am doomed for life. Desperately looking for a way out, I am definitely not the engineering type. Chaotic and incredibly stupid.If you have kids and wife you have to include them in your decision bcoz they are the most important assets you have. Grow Up! There is nothing stupid taking the less risky ms offer. You can still heading for challenging projects at ms that might be useful for lateron.

I really appreciate your replies, I need to regain my focus and optimism again. I have only one kid and I know how important security can be in this economy. I also have to admit that the company is very friendly and accommodating, I received royal treatment all the way and the work hours are also great 9 a.m. - 6 p.m., it is flexible. My main problem is that my education in physics is not really an advantage here, the last 10 years I spent studying the subject seem to be wasted, unless I do something else later on. Without a doubt, here we can live a much better life, it is my pride that causing the problems.I tried to contact the people I turned down and it seems that the job is gone, there is no way back right now. I will try to switch into survival mode and concentrate on what is best for my family and hope that future brings better prospects. I was also thinking about contacting someone at Microsoft research, however, the research topics they usually work on are only remotely connected to what I used to do.

QuoteOriginally posted by: ChaoticI know how important security can be in this economy. My main problem is that my education in physics is not really an advantage here, the last 10 years I spent studying the subject seem to be wastedWhat "advantages" did you tell your wife physics would bring after 10 years?QuoteOriginally posted by: ChaoticI tried to contact the people I turned downI hope you sent them an email telling them to go fuck themselves. What good did they ever do you?QuoteOriginally posted by: Chaoticconcentrate on what is best for my familySo then it is back to the physics books?

Farmer I really appreciate your brutal honesty life sucks I know, particularly when someone chooses physics. Actually, there are good jobs in physics, but most of them are not open to internationals. Many of my american classmates got one of these jobs with decent salaries ~90k (Lincoln Lab. etc.), good life-work balance, benefits and interesting work. They do not have to live on postdoc salaries for 3-8 years. I did not send anyone to hell, particularly not the group I got this offer from. They could have cursed me rightfully, but they did not.