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.
 
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.
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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
 
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.
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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
 
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