that sucks man! Sorry to hear that. I know how geeked you were about that job.
Oh, it's not bad (yet). Like I said, this is a huge "first time in the US" project and everyone is traveling trying to wrap it up and learn about it. I've been told that the travel will be 25% or less overall, which isn't terrible (not great but not terrible).
Once this job is done, I'll be in the office for the better part of 2 months (jury duty during June! ) so it should get better as for the "initial" travel.
The main point I was making is that employers are in the drivers seat right now and are getting more and more from their employees while paying less and fewer benefits.
I'm actually still pretty "geeked" about the job and it's interesting stuff....just a little much travel (but that's just because I came in at a high intensity time). The funny thing is that I was scheduled to be in Idaho on a 2.9 million dollar project the next two weeks and the other engineer with me was scheduled to go on vacation, leaving me to put on the final runoff show by myself, lol. They finally realized that it's not the best thing to leave the "new guy" there alone with corporate executives trying to run off a full sized automated warehouse, lol. I now have others that will be with me!
Are there jobs that pay great and only work from 8 to 5? Sure....but employers are in control for now and they seem to be demanding more and more. The new norm is "I'm happy to have a job" and employers know that...and take advantage of it fully.