New job offer, worried about impact to family

LegacyUser

Howdy all, going unreg'd for this. Have a job offer in the last few days, very interesting role and something I could see myself being very motivated to work at (which I can't really say about my current job anymore).

Only hesitation is that job is in the city centre and I'm looking at about an hour's commute each day whether I drive or take the bus. Now I know people will think I'm mad (hence the user name!) but I am concerned because at the moment I work very close to where I live (about 15 mins drive) and I'm worried that I won't get to spend as much time with my kids if I take this new job.

The upside is that the extra salary (about an extra €13k gross a year, with the potential for another maybe €10k in bonus money) would allow us to save for my kids later education in life, might allow us to move to a better area closer to town etc but trying to make the right decision is really stressing me out.

So I'd be interested to hear from anyone who changed jobs and how did you manage to balance family commitments with extra hours commuting, did you regret your decision afterwards?

The only other factor is that in my current job there are people being made redundant at the moment and I think that could be me in 6-12 months to.

stargazer 68

Op how old are your children? What times are we looking at including the commute i.e leaving home at 7 and getting back at 7?

LegacyUser

OP - I'm in a slightly similar situation.
My current position requires a drive around the M50, but I have arranged my hours to start early and finish early - thus avoiding traffic. It's still nearly an hour's commute, but I get home early enough to have time with our child.
My new job, starting shortly, is city centre. Seems closer, but I will be relying on public transport and it is still an hour commute. Going by the hours on my contract, I will be getting home a good hour later each day. I'm not that happy with this, but it's more money and we need it so....
My hope - fingers crossed - is that my new company will allow me a bit of leeway in the working hours. I'm really really hoping that I might be able to start even 30 mins earlier, in order to finish 30 mins earlier. Or maybe take a shorter lunch or something. You seem to still be at the stage of negotiating, so would you be able to ask about something like this? Starting/finishing earlier or later? Or maybe facilities for working from home 1 day of the week?
Most companies offer some level of flexibility these days, so I guess the least you can do is ask. If you are looking at redundancies, I do think you seriously need to consider taking the job however.

LegacyUser

Hello it's OP back again, nearly replied using my boards account :-/ Thanks for replies.

Dovies, my kids are 5 1/2 and 11 months. Older girl is going into senior infants in September. She attended creche since she was 11 months old up until she started school last year, which coincided with my wife taking maternity leave for the arrival of our youngest. Youngest will be starting creche in the next two weeks, I'm just taking some holidays at the moment and doing the daddy day care thing until school starts back. If I stay in my current job I will be picking them up from creche at about five every day, give or take 15 mins each way. Currently work from home one day a week. Now it will probably be my wife, coming out from town on the bus, who will be collecting them at about 5:45 each day. Possibility she can leave early to facilitate this, or go on a four day week (she works in the public sector).

metoothree, we should do lunch! ;-) I'm kind of spoiled in that my current commute is only about 15 mins drive each way but job and company is going nowhere and we were just acquired by a competitor who will probably look to reduce headcount by 50% worldwide based on past experiences. I have 8 years service but hanging around to get a redundancy which may only end up being statutory wouldn't be my intention.

I think I'm going to take the new job! Now that I've typed it out I can kind of see that I'd be very foolish to turn it down.

seamus

I guess you're in a tougher position than most. I would say that most people you'll be working with wouldn't even blink at an hour's commute each way. Certainly even getting the bus from the M50 into town, between walking to and from the bus you're looking at the guts of an hour. But you're right to worry about it - I've had to turn down jobs that would involve foreign trips 2/3 times a month simply because of the time it would require away from my family.

Have you any other alternatives? I'm 10km out from the city centre. I'd never dream of driving on a regular basis, and the odd time when I do get the bus it takes 50 minutes on a good day, door to door. But I cycle, and it's 30 minutes, door to door.

Is that an option for you? Even if it's just one or two days at the start, pretty soon you can do it every day and you're saving yourself a lot of time in the morning and evening.

Other things I see people doing are parking their car near the creche with a bike carrier on the back. Drop the kids in the creche, cycle in. Cycle out, pick up the kids, drive home.

LegacyUser

OP, I'm you and your wife Pick up about 5, one day from home at the moment - moving to 5 days and pick up around 6.
I'm just really crossing my fingers and if they can't give a bit on the hours (which aren't bad, it's just the commute is a bit of an issue), then I'm going to have to start looking again I guess
From my point of view, cycling is out of the option. It would be longer than using public transport.
Parenting is tough.

Eoin

So I'd be interested to hear from anyone who changed jobs and how did you manage to balance family commitments with extra hours commuting, did you regret your decision afterwards?

I recently changed jobs, adding over an hour to my day because of the extra commute. Don't regret it at all. We have to be a bit more disciplined doing the creche runs, but an easy commute is not enough reason to go into a job that's not doing it for you, when there's better options out there.

LegacyUser

That's good to hear Eoin.
My feeling was that I could take the easy option of sitting in my old job, earning crap pay, miserable and going nowhere or I could move on, take something that paid more money and take the chance of having to work out new hours or whatever with new employer and maybe enjoy what I do again.
Still questioning am I doing the right thing, but it's good to hear from someone who's managing it.