Life vs Career question - new job?

lorna1983

lorna1983

lorna1983

Associate
Joined
23 May 2022
Posts
15
Location
Farnborough
Hi,

CURRENT JOB

I work in a public sector role, in a job I like but I'm bored and just not developing at all. I do however have a really great balance of work and life. I WFH whenever I want, the office is soon to move to a location just 25 minute drive from my house, it's quite well paid (for public sector), I work whatever hours I want other than normal work meetings and general things - but I can do what I want really.

Just to add here - I do work hard + have a fair amount of responsibility, I just have a lot of flexibility.

Fitness and training is a passion of mine. The job is great as I can train 6/7/8am easily, also during the day if WFH and no meetings, and also can finish work 3pm if I wanted to fit more stuff in.

But like I say I am bored

POTENTIAL NEW JOB

I have been offered a really decent job but it's in London. Door-to-door it is 1hr15 minutes. That is:

15 minute drive to station
40 minute train to Waterloo
20 minute walk to office

The job does pay more but not huge amounts. I'd probably break even when I take into account travel costs
I can't WFH so I'd be out of the house from 6:30am to about 6pm everyday
Great opportunities which involve travel abroad for work and some really interesting/unique work

LIFE VS CAREER

My mind changes about 100x a day. I love the free time I have, love the flexibility but also like the idea of the job too. It's so hard as I could be giving up a nice, easy, great job (which I am a bit bored with) for a job which I may not like, may cause me to get really sick of travel, etc. and no real way back either.

Has anyone had similar decisions to make?
Anyone balanced the life vs career choice before?
Any pearls of wisdom?

Thank you
 
Oh and also to add - the people I currently work with are excellent. Really nice, supportive, good boss and colleagues. So it's not like I am unhappy - but just not developing like I said and feel very stale.
 
lorna1983 said:
The job does pay more but not huge amounts. I'd probably break even when I take into account travel costs
I can't WFH so I'd be out of the house from 6:30am to about 6pm everyday
Click to expand...

That's a solid no from me. And a 75 minute commute usually means 90 minutes. You'll effectively have a 12 hour day, probably longer. Don't forget that in the private sector extra hours are the norm.
 
Quartz said:
That's a solid no from me. And a 75 minute commute usually means 90 minutes. You'll effectively have a 12 hour day, probably longer. Don't forget that in the private sector extra hours are the norm.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I think I missed saying it but this job is a public sector role too. So hours are fairly standard across most of these types of jobs - and this is civil service so it's not usually known for hardcore long hours

No WFH is a big negative - they say I could but it would be strictly for teams/admin. So I could probably get one day a week at most but don't want to count on that.

I have tried to negotiate a better salary - if agreed then salary would be around £12k more than I am on now - which would include london allowance and special bonus payment for the role which is paid monthly. Obviously this is gross and travel costs/tax would come into play
 
I timed commute today to test it out - it was 1hr 15 minutes from my house to office location. But that was without any delays or issues. It was on a commuter train too just to get an idea of what it's like.

Got a seat easily which was good
 
Crap commute, no extra money by the time that's taken into account and losing work/life balance flexibility. I see little to no gain here ... apart from not being bored. You are better looking for something else imo. Use the time you're bored to do something that doesn't bore you. You've proved you can get another job, just find something better.
 
lorna1983 said:
I timed commute today to test it out - it was 1hr 15 minutes from my house to office location. But that was without any delays or issues. It was on a commuter train too just to get an idea of what it's like.

Got a seat easily which was good
Click to expand...

It’s Monday. Try that train Tue, Wed or Thur and it will be standing room only! Download the South West Trains app and keep an eye on your service reliability. Anorak I know, but no overhead power in those lines so likely to be more reliable than Thameslink.

Warning - commuting makes you aware of all these exciting factors out of neccessity.
 
Train ticket is £4.4k. So that's about £7.5k gross salary consumed with that. Plus the cost of running the car to get the station, potentially parking charges too? £12k seems too small an uplift in salary.
 
HangTime said:
Train ticket is £4.4k. So that's about £7.5k gross salary consumed with that. Plus the cost of running the car to get the station, potentially parking charges too? £12k seems too small an uplift in salary.
Click to expand...

Yea it most definitely is not financially rewarding but that was only part of my decision making - a key part but not everything.

The job is potentially brilliant and really unique, interesting, plus a more senior role. On paper it's a bit more money but obviously travel does cancel some of it out.

I've asked the HR person a few key questions and waiting for a reply. I'm nearing a decision and will probably fully decide next week once I hear back about the answers
 
Traveling abroad for work all the time gets boring and tiring too. It's fun at first but then you realise you miss most social events back in UK. Hardly get to see family/friends. Constantly living in hotels.

For not much salary increase in your situation I would be sticking to the current job. You are very lucky to be able to WFH.
 
It can be interesting for a bit - but I burnt out pretty quickly commuting around London (approx. similar kind of commutes) - especially on a bad day you can add loads to that time. Sometimes you need new horizons though and it might open other doors.
 
lorna1983 said:
Hi,

CURRENT JOB

I work in a public sector role, in a job I like but I'm bored and just not developing at all. I do however have a really great balance of work and life. I WFH whenever I want, the office is soon to move to a location just 25 minute drive from my house, it's quite well paid (for public sector), I work whatever hours I want other than normal work meetings and general things - but I can do what I want really.

Just to add here - I do work hard + have a fair amount of responsibility, I just have a lot of flexibility.

Fitness and training is a passion of mine. The job is great as I can train 6/7/8am easily, also during the day if WFH and no meetings, and also can finish work 3pm if I wanted to fit more stuff in.

But like I say I am bored

POTENTIAL NEW JOB

I have been offered a really decent job but it's in London. Door-to-door it is 1hr15 minutes. That is:

15 minute drive to station
40 minute train to Waterloo
20 minute walk to office

The job does pay more but not huge amounts. I'd probably break even when I take into account travel costs
I can't WFH so I'd be out of the house from 6:30am to about 6pm everyday
Great opportunities which involve travel abroad for work and some really interesting/unique work

LIFE VS CAREER

My mind changes about 100x a day. I love the free time I have, love the flexibility but also like the idea of the job too. It's so hard as I could be giving up a nice, easy, great job (which I am a bit bored with) for a job which I may not like, may cause me to get really sick of travel, etc. and no real way back either.

Has anyone had similar decisions to make?
Anyone balanced the life vs career choice before?
Any pearls of wisdom?

Thank you
Click to expand...
Don't do it.

That commute is bloody awful. I did it for a while. Absolutely soul-crushing, you'll be completely knackered all the time. Your health will suffer.

I would only consider it if the money was much, much better, and even then, I wouldn't. I've earned a lot more money in the past and could go back to that if I wanted to, but I value my free time and health over a few quid.
 
lorna1983 said:
Hi,

CURRENT JOB

I work in a public sector role, in a job I like but I'm bored and just not developing at all. I do however have a really great balance of work and life. I WFH whenever I want, the office is soon to move to a location just 25 minute drive from my house, it's quite well paid (for public sector), I work whatever hours I want other than normal work meetings and general things - but I can do what I want really.

Just to add here - I do work hard + have a fair amount of responsibility, I just have a lot of flexibility.

Fitness and training is a passion of mine. The job is great as I can train 6/7/8am easily, also during the day if WFH and no meetings, and also can finish work 3pm if I wanted to fit more stuff in.

But like I say I am bored

POTENTIAL NEW JOB

I have been offered a really decent job but it's in London. Door-to-door it is 1hr15 minutes. That is:

15 minute drive to station
40 minute train to Waterloo
20 minute walk to office

The job does pay more but not huge amounts. I'd probably break even when I take into account travel costs
I can't WFH so I'd be out of the house from 6:30am to about 6pm everyday
Great opportunities which involve travel abroad for work and some really interesting/unique work

LIFE VS CAREER

My mind changes about 100x a day. I love the free time I have, love the flexibility but also like the idea of the job too. It's so hard as I could be giving up a nice, easy, great job (which I am a bit bored with) for a job which I may not like, may cause me to get really sick of travel, etc. and no real way back either.

Has anyone had similar decisions to make?
Anyone balanced the life vs career choice before?
Any pearls of wisdom?

Thank you
Click to expand...
Do it.

I made a similar post (well, I didn't bother actually). I had a nice cushy role 15 mins away at Aston University, or a role 50-120mins away in Warwick. I took the latter on the basis it gave me an ENORMOUS spring board. My trajectory with Aston University was £40k over 8-10 years. My trajectory now is 10x that.

If you don't mind the early mornings, and you can "make ends meet" so it isn't miserable - do it. Even if it is just for a while.

The last you want to do is wake up in 20 years time and be a boring old fart wearing rubber shoes.
 
I'd never do those hours for a little extra.

Unless you can do it for a short period of time and it allows you more options.

Commuting is horrible. I do not miss it at all.
 
It doesn't help but nobody can answer this for you.

Of some help is where do you want to be or what do you want to be doing in 5, 10, 20 years time, plus just before retirement. Will the current role get you there? Will the new role?

If you're ambitious or get as much from success at work as life then it's unlikely a cushty boring job is worth it either.
 
Probs not worth it for the money (offered now), maybe worth it if you can get significantly more experience/do more interesting things in the new role and/or if that could lead to better pay/promotion in future.

If that's the case and you're bored in your current role then you could just roll the dice and give it a shot for a year or two, don't burn any bridges at your current place/have a good handover and perhaps you could move back or just get yourself a different role if it doesn't work out.

Also unless it's no WFH for security reasons or something then I suspect WFH can/will be relaxed in future, there is just a bit of press about it at the mo so maybe some places (especially the civil service) are cracking down on it. The tories and/or JRM aren't necessarily going to be in power in 2 years' time and attitudes to WFH might evolve still so if you could suck up the extra commute for a bit it might not always be like that.
 
That would be a solid no from me. It would have to be a HUGE pay rise (like, comically huge) to tempt me to lose WFH and have to commute at those hours.

The only reason I'd consider it would be if I desperately needed the extra money to survive, or I was fairly sure I was going to lose my current job.

With the flexibility of your current job, can you not just smash your boring work out the way in half a day, then spend the rest of the day working on something more challenging, even if it's not related to your job?
 
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