Job indecision.

Calculon1982

His Folks,

I suffer terrible indecisiveness when it comes to moving jobs.

I have a junior management job in the civil service about 45 min commute from home costing about 40 a week in petrol.

I have been offered an entry level role with a local council across the road from my house taking my service with me.

So effectively a 40 quid a week saving on petrol with no loss of salary and ni commute. I will however be destroying any real career prospects and at 35 I only earn 29k I have fallen very far behind all my friends who work in financial services etc. I feel I would like the move but an entry level role at 35 makes me feel like I have completely fallen short on what my career goals are.

Should I just forget about seniority and make my work /lifestyle balance better or stay where I am, which i don't really like, and focus in career?

Thoughts?

thefa

It really comes down to what you want in life which can be a really difficult question to answer. Like we all can say to be happy, have a good career, good work/life balance, etc but you have framed them in a kind of mutually exclusive way due to your current options. Your reference to falling behind the pay rates of your friends in the private sector has an element of keeping up with the Joneses which kind of makes me question whether your career goals are your number one goals in any case.

If you stay in your current job your are staying in a job you don't like in the hope that it provides quicker/better progression opportunities so in a way you're forgoing potential happiness for potential financial/status rewards. Also at 45 mins each way, you must be spending about 350 hours/15 days a year commuting and about €1,900.

On the other hand, you talk about this new role like it's a huge setback yet you are going in at the same pay for, what you make sound like, an easier job. I'm not well up in progression in your particular role in this local council but you probably have at least 25/30 years to go before retirement so surely there will be possibilities for advancement. A question would be do you see yourself being happier in this role?

Apologies if I have come across as blunt as I am sure that it is a difficult situation to be in with.

Tenigate

Don't compare yourself to other people. It causes unhappiness. No need to tell your friends how much you earn either.

Purely from a financial viewpoint, get your spreadsheet out. Both positions have salary scales, and both have opportunities for promotion. At the minimum, work out your 5 year cashflow situation based on no promotions, but factoring in motoring costs. I reckon your current job is a better shout, financially.

Last "thought". "What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?".. not being glib but salary isn't everything. Depending on your life goals you may need a good salary, but the pursuit of a good salary should not be a means to an end. You don't like your current job. That's a good reason to consider leaving it, but I just wonder is your new job going to be so different.. isn't it just going to be another bureaucratic bore, but with fewer prospects and a shorter commute?

Mellor

Sacrificing any career prospects for the sake of €1,900 a year seems a bit short sighted. You could recoup that in a single years performance review.

Calculon1982

Thanks for the advice folks it's definitely helping.

I have until Friday to decide.

I am trying to focus on what would make me happy and that would be to make the move but I worked so long to make it to my current grade it seems insane to just walk away.

nkav86

Calculon1982 wrote:

I am trying to focus on what would make me happy and that would be to make the move but I worked so long to make it to my current grade it seems insane to just walk away.

Can I just say, you've worked hard for so long to get to your position and yet you still aren't happy. I don't mean that to be rude, I'm just saying, if you continued where you are and got higher up would you be any happier then? Or would you have spent yet more time and still not gotten the benefit? If this new position, despite the set back, would make you more happy and give you a better work/life balance, then you should strongly consider it. Just my thoughts!

seamus

Don't discount the intangibles in the council role - fixed hours, long holidays, generous pension scheme, job security, etc etc.

Even if your mates eventually make four times your salary, in their 40s and 50s they would kill to have a job where they finish at five and don't have to think about work again until Monday.

One thing you're also doing is limiting your "career progression" scope to what others are willing to give you. That is, your view of career progression is that you work hard somewhere and someone else decides if you're good enough to be promoted. You won't actually get very far if you operate like that.

As a public servant you'll have lots of scope to interact with the public, take on contract work on the side, build a much wider contact list than you can working in the bowels of a large company. And you have other paths you can explore - politics for one - that wouldn't be as available to you in the private sector.

The fixed working hours and generous benefits also give you a lot of scope to take on further education or hobbies - both of which often lead to new opportunities.

Life is not about money. Forget about the 40 quid a week in the commute. Nobody ever died wishing they'd spent more time in the office. Do what you feel will make you happy. Nothing else matters.

granturismo

Calculon1982 wrote: »

....
I suffer terrible indecisiveness when it comes to moving jobs.

I have a junior management job in the civil service ....

... taking my service with me.

... with no loss of salary and ni commute. I will however be destroying any real career prospects and at 35 I only earn 29k I have fallen very far behind all my friends who work in financial services etc. I feel I would like the move but an entry level role at 35 makes me feel like I have completely fallen short on what my career goals are.

So, you've moved jobs before - you must have had a pro and con list when you moved previously and the pro list outweighed the con list - do the same again.

You're moving from a junior management job to an entry level job but you are not taking a loss in salary. Surely, there are more promotion opportunities from an entry level job than a junior management role.

I'd guess your friends have been earning more money than you for a few years so you must have come to terms with this already or you would have moved to the private sector.

optogirl

Think of how you'll feel about it in your old age - you wont wish you spent more time commuting that's for sure.

You cant say for certain that there will be no progresses in the council people do get promoted. The higher up you go in the public services the more pressure you will be under, for some reason there is this bizarre notion that it is a stress free job where people strole in and out.