Soldato
Aberdeen.
lols
lols
A fork in the road, two very different prospects`
- Thread starter oulton
- Start date
Soldato
Number 2 for 4/5 years then find something more like number 1
Soldato
Option 1 west Cumbria is beautiful and not a dump at all unless you choose to live in the nasty bits! Money can't buy you back the time with your family and pressure will put you in an early grave. Kick back in the country side with your wife and kids and enjoy life.
Soldato
Soldato
I value work life balance, I have never chased money, I will never earn a huge amount.
Time with my family means the most to me, I get enough money to live pretty happily and that is enough for me.
So for me it would definitely be 1, it depends on your personal priorities.
Time with my family means the most to me, I get enough money to live pretty happily and that is enough for me.
So for me it would definitely be 1, it depends on your personal priorities.
Soldato
sounds like both pay really well. put priorties first. do you enjoy working under pressure more than you do enjoy seeing your family? take the first job, enjoy seeing your family and the world and the good income it provides. the only disadvantage over the second job is the location for your wife. that's the only reason i'd take the second role if it just was not suited for her at all.
Soldato
I wouldn't call Workington, Whitehaven, Barrow etc. "Beautiful"
None of which you need to actually live in
West Cumbria is stunning some of the towns are a bit rubbish, the OP has a choice between quality of life and money and I'd always choose quality of life 11 hour days suck, pressure and stress suck. Work to live!
Soldato
Money can buy you back time with your family. It's just at a different point in life. If you're prepared to make sacrifices earlier in liife, work your gonads off and perhaps even defer starting a family a bit, then you can develop a sufficient financial backstop that later on in life, you can afford to work a lot less, or even retire early.
Given 30 year, or longer, mortgates the odds are that by the time you save for a deposit, then get a mortgage, youngsters today adopting a 'work to live' strategy will still, be paying off their mortgage by 60, even 70, and pension dates are receding ever further away.
Or, you go the high-dedication, high-stress route early, and make enough to retire, or semi-retire, at 40 or 45. So if you deferred kids to mid 30s, by the time they're 10 or so, you're either just working whatever hours you want, or not working at all and have much more time with the kids, to travel, attend school functions, just be there, instead of doing a 9-5 job until you're 70 just to keep a roof over your head.
Money is certainly not the solution to all problems, but having enough of it to not be a slave to it just to earn enough to get through the month certainly solves some. It's a trade-off, early years versus later years.
The same applies to the early grave point. Do the stressful bits early on when best anle to cope and you have a less stressful time lster. You just need to know when to back off, or stop.
Sadly earning big comes with hard work unless you are lucky. What is important to you now and when is that likely to change and what will change it? Are you at an age and position where you can take a risk, are you willing to do so? If you chose an option and it's the wrong one, what does this mean, can you easily change/fix that? Do you have support at home, do they understand the choices and do they have a preference?
Only you can answer this one as these decisions come down to personal circumstance and motivations. I have no idea how old you are or what you judge as successful, but perfect world in 10 years, what would good look like to you and which job will help you get there first, if at all?
Long hours are not stress, they are just long hours. Ill children is stress, cancer in you or a loved one is stress, long hours are just long hours. A part time job can be stressful, hours don't add stress in a job that you enjoy. What if you earned 300K after 12 months, could that help a few people on here destress their lives?
All about perspective and why, to my point above, it's not a decision you/me/anyone can really help with. Over to you OP, what do you want?
The job I have been in up to now has been extremely unsatisfying for the most part but quite lucrative. I worked myself up into a kind of 'fixxer' status and in the end I was being given impossible jobs to work on with no hope of resolving. The two lads coming into the team had a bit of a panic when I did the knowledge transfer with them last week which was nice
But I have had it up to my neck with the place, and would much rather work hard in a well defined job spec and enjoy my life outside of the job. I'm early thirties so the prospect of being a director by 35 is very appealing and I am prepared to squirrel away for a few years to get that.I just can't imagine our family in Whitehaven or Workington...
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Totally agree. I am assuming that the two options presented to the OP are both very well paid. The point I am making is that if I had the choice of say a well paid job which enabled me to tick all the boxes such as pension, kids education, help kids with mortgage etc, versus a very very well paid job that enabled me to do all that plus more such as new car every 6 months, multiple holidays yada yada, then it would be the first job with more time off.
When it comes to money I think many people find enough is never enough as their expenditure rises proportionately with their income meaning they inevitably become trapped in the rat race.
As long as you have enough to live easily comfortably, provide for you family, and be happy, then why take any additional downsides of work, such as 11hr days (unless the job makes you happy).
Possibly should have merged to the GD thread as it was busier...
I did read the opening post as implying that option 1 was well-paid, but option 2 had significantly better prospects. But then I also misread the 'non' bit in non-equity director.
I'd also very much agree that there's a temptation to live to just beyond your means, whatever your means are. Fighting that takes restraint and will-power.
The degree to which pay, and more importantly, the future track, vary determines the degree of ongoing stress I'd be prepared to put up with, and yes, it'd have to be significant enough to justify the cost in stress and family time.
There's two discussions going on here, one about Oulton's specific options and another about the work to live or live to work choice. Both are a question of degrees.
I woke up this morning thinking about it and I am starting to lean towards the Cumbria job as I don't think I want to be spending that much time away from my family week in week out. Also looking at the contract if I was to work the the same hours in job one I would be accrueing a shed load of time off.