Decisions, Decisions (Jobs)

Off Topic
1

Ok, I have a little dilema that I want to get some T-man perspective on…

I’ve just been offered a new job, in the same field I’m in now but with a significant salary increase. Sounds like a great gig right? Well, there’s one problem, it’s going to be a hike to get there everyday. The job will take me about 60 miles from home for the first 6 months, if not longer.

So driving there everyday is going to definitely impact my entire life. I’ve got a girlfriend, a dog, and all my friends are local. So, I’ve built a lot of my life where I’m at now. I took the position I’m in now mainly because of it’s location. I really don’t want a decision like this to destroy my relationship with my girl either, she’s really great, and I’ll probably end up marrying her.

I know, some of you may be thinking, “sounds like a no brainer”. But I’ve done this sort of thing before and it really takes away from everything in your personal life.

So, I am here asking “the guys” for some advise. I’m sure many of you may have had a similar situation and I’d like to know how you delt with it. This could be the oportunity I’ve been working so hard to find, but is it worth the risks?

2

Ain’t the whole point of earning money to increase the quality of your life?

You just have to decide which one will increase it more… extra cash or time spent with people you love and doing things you enjoy. Of course you might also want to think of the kinda future you want and how this affects it.

3

Is the pay increase worth the 2+ hours of your life everyday, not to mention the cost of gas, wear and tear on your car, car insurance…???

If the new job is really that good, move! If your gf is worth it she will wait for you or move with you.

4

As the others have said, you have to figure out how much it will impact your life and whether or not that’s worth it to you. BUT, if it’s only for 6 months and then the situation will get better, and you’ll still have that bigger paycheck and all, then I’d say taking it is a no-brainer.

If your girlfriend can’t understand that you’re going to have to bust a little extra ass and have to rough it a bit for a mere 6 months in order to get to a better place in your career (and 6 months is nothing in the grand scheme of things) then she ain’t the one for you anyway.

5

[quote]dswithers wrote:
Is the pay increase worth the 2+ hours of your life everyday, not to mention the cost of gas, wear and tear on your car, car insurance…???

If the new job is really that good, move! If your gf is worth it she will wait for you or move with you.[/quote]

List your priorities. Do you work to live or live to work? As for the gf… you know, you can always move closer to a well paying job - with her - gasp! I know. Living with a girl. The horror of it all.

Shake off that moss and move, man! It’s not like you’re moving to Afghanistan. More like 40 miles away. Sheesh, that isn’t even really moving away - just moving house.

6

What feild are you in?

Not to often but I have seen something like this, run your situation by a manager or any higher up that you are closer to than he runs it by someone higher, ending up with an incentive to keep you there if you are worth it.

far shot but you never know.

7

How long is your commute now?

8

Is the commute that terrible? I mean, yeah it sucks to drive a hour to and from work every day, but it’s not like you are moving across the country. I guess I don’t know your situation but I fail to see the logic behind losing the GF and your other friends over a longer trip to work.

Does the pay increase more than compensate for the added expenses of the commute to you and your car?

If I were you, I would go for it. The commute is temporary, and if you plan on staying with this company, turning it down may not look too good on your part either.

9

[quote]analog_kid wrote:
Is the commute that terrible? I mean, yeah it sucks to drive a hour to and from work every day, [/quote]

How long is your daily commute? How long have you been commuting?

10

[quote]kroby wrote:
Shake off that moss and move, man! It’s not like you’re moving to Afghanistan. More like 40 miles away. Sheesh, that isn’t even really moving away - just moving house.[/quote]

He is in California. If you had any clue, you would realize how ignorant and unworldly your statement is.

Talk to someone on the West Side. Ask them how different they think Lancaster or even The Valley is. What? You don’t know what I’m talking about? Of course not.

Unless you have lived or commuted in California, you have no business giving advice.

11

Where are you? Will you be commuting with traffic or doing a “reverse commute”? Even in the best situation, you will be on the road for 2 hours a day. Imagine leaving your house an hour early, and returning home and hour later.

As for the raise… How much more on gas will you spend? How much sooner will you car break down? How much greater are the odds that you will get into a serious car accident?

Do the math. Calculate your after-tax income after the pay raise. Then see how much that will translate into each paycheck. Even a decent raise like five grand, after taxes, is not very much once you factor in the costs associated with commuting.

If you’re talking a $25,000 raise, that’s a different story.

12

Much of the question revolves around how long the commute takes not the miles. I’ve lived 40-45 miles away from my jobs for 27 years and have managed to be date a girl for 2 yrs and be married to her for married for 23 of those years and raise 2 sons to 16 and 19 yrs old. My commute only takes 45 minutes so it’s not that big of a deal.

Please provide more details.

13

[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
analog_kid wrote:
Is the commute that terrible? I mean, yeah it sucks to drive a hour to and from work every day,

How long is your daily commute? How long have you been commuting?[/quote]

First job is about 30 mins each way, second job is like 7. I enjoy driving, call me crazy. I don’t think I could function if I didn’t have that time in the morning cruising the back roads, listening to music and sipping coffee.

I can see breaking a few traffic laws coming home on Friday however.

14

[quote]analog_kid wrote:
CaliforniaLaw wrote:
analog_kid wrote:
Is the commute that terrible? I mean, yeah it sucks to drive a hour to and from work every day,

How long is your daily commute? How long have you been commuting?

First job is about 30 mins each way, second job is like 7. I enjoy driving, call me crazy. I don’t think I could function if I didn’t have that time in the morning cruising the back roads, listening to music and sipping coffee.

I can see breaking a few traffic laws coming home on Friday however.

[/quote]

Yea, I know what you mean. I commute at least 1 hour each way, and sometimes 5-8 hours (I have to travel often), and listening to my satellite radio is something I look forward to now.

OP, If those couple of hours are really that important, and can’t be made up by sacrificing TV or computer time, then only you can decide if it’s worth it or not.

What if your job suddenly acquired more work, and asked employees to stay a couple hours late each day for a while, with overtime?

That’s almost the same scenario; both are a couple more hours away from home, for more money.

I am personally looking to leave my job because since I transfered to NM from NY, my travel increased to a minimum of 1 week per month, to a possibility of 2 weeks per month, and that’s too long away from my family.

15

[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
kroby wrote:
Shake off that moss and move, man! It’s not like you’re moving to Afghanistan. More like 40 miles away. Sheesh, that isn’t even really moving away - just moving house.

He is in California. If you had any clue, you would realize how ignorant and unworldly your statement is.

Talk to someone on the West Side. Ask them how different they think Lancaster or even The Valley is. What? You don’t know what I’m talking about? Of course not.

Unless you have lived or commuted in California, you have no business giving advice.[/quote]

I’m not even from California, I dont usually agree with CLaw, but here I do.

My immediate impression was to say “dude, no big deal, take the job, I’ve commuted for longer than that!” Then I started to remember how much I hated my commute. I used to commute about 1:15, 1:30 each way. Out of the house by 6:50, home by about 7. And on work out nights? Forget, it, I had to unwind for a half hour, scurry off to the gym to make it there by 8 be done by 9 hopefully, and then it was always tough to settle down enough to sleep. Oh yeah, and sleep - it isn’t just the extra time out of the house, waking up at 6 you can go to bed at 11 having gotten stuff done and getting crap sleep, or go to bed early at 9 and feel like a social hermit.

I dont even like my job right now, but I am hoping that my next job will still have the sweet, sweet 15 minute commute this one has.

Tough call man, how much is the extra cash? how stressful will hte commute be re:traffic? I dont know which is worse man, a train commute where yo udont have to think but you need to make sure youre on someone ELSES schedule and as though you’re beeing hered around like cattle, or a car commute where you leave when youre ready, not when the trains about to pull out the station but youre battling gridlock. real tough call

16

If it were me, i’d pack up and move closer to the new, higher paying job.

If your relationship with your girl is really as serious as marriage, she should be supportive right?

and if your friends are real friends they will still be there for you too, maybe just less frequently. but, there are always new people in new towns to befriend.

what if you just moved 15-30 minutes closer? you would have a short commute to work and wouldn’t be all that far from your current neighborhood either.

17

[quote]analog_kid wrote:
CaliforniaLaw wrote:
analog_kid wrote:
Is the commute that terrible? I mean, yeah it sucks to drive a hour to and from work every day,

How long is your daily commute? How long have you been commuting?

First job is about 30 mins each way, second job is like 7. I enjoy driving, call me crazy. I don’t think I could function if I didn’t have that time in the morning cruising the back roads, listening to music and sipping coffee.

I can see breaking a few traffic laws coming home on Friday however.

[/quote]

30 minutes isn’t a commute. it’s a typical, short jaunt through traffic in any respectably sized city. An entrance ramp and an exit ramp three exits up followed by four traffic lights plus the time spent searching for a parking space will take 30 minutes no problem. And you wouldn’t have even traveled 5 miles. Milk a cow for me will you?

18

[quote]texasguy wrote:
30 minutes isn’t a commute. it’s a typical, short jaunt through traffic in any respectably sized city. An entrance ramp and an exit ramp three exits up followed by four traffic lights plus the time spent searching for a parking space will take 30 minutes no problem. And you wouldn’t have even traveled 5 miles. Milk a cow for me will you?[/quote]

Gotta agree with you here. I wonder how many of these posters live or have lived in a major metropolitan area?

Many people do not understand what a commute really is. Unless you’ve sat at an office planning your exit strategy around traffic patterns (and hoping there wasn’t an accident that will set you back a couple of hours), you just don’t get what a commute really is.

19

[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
texasguy wrote:
30 minutes isn’t a commute. it’s a typical, short jaunt through traffic in any respectably sized city. An entrance ramp and an exit ramp three exits up followed by four traffic lights plus the time spent searching for a parking space will take 30 minutes no problem. And you wouldn’t have even traveled 5 miles. Milk a cow for me will you?

Gotta agree with you here. I wonder how many of these posters live or have lived in a major metropolitan area?

Many people do not understand what a commute really is. Unless you’ve sat at an office planning your exit strategy around traffic patterns (and hoping there wasn’t an accident that will set you back a couple of hours), you just don’t get what a commute really is.

[/quote]

You ever commute from Newport News, VA to Chesapeake, VA, through Norfolk, when most of the Aircraft Carriers are in port?

California’s not the only place where traffic is bad. LA might have the worst (or might not, I don’t know, I’ve only lived in 7 different large cities), but that doesn’t mean nobody else can give advice about commuting.

20

[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
Where are you? Will you be commuting with traffic or doing a “reverse commute”? Even in the best situation, you will be on the road for 2 hours a day. Imagine leaving your house an hour early, and returning home and hour later.

As for the raise… How much more on gas will you spend? How much sooner will you car break down? How much greater are the odds that you will get into a serious car accident?

Do the math. Calculate your after-tax income after the pay raise. Then see how much that will translate into each paycheck. Even a decent raise like five grand, after taxes, is not very much once you factor in the costs associated with commuting.

If you’re talking a $25,000 raise, that’s a different story.[/quote]

Thanks for the input. Right now I “commute” about 20 mins (about 10 miles) to Anaheim. The new job would put me in Relands for 6 months or more. That isn’t an easy drive either way but I think technically it’s opposite the main traffic. You’re probably right cause it’s about 1.5 - 2hrs a trip.

I wish it was 25k, but it is good. I’m looking at a clean 11k a year jump. Which is pretty damn good and I bleive would be worth it after the extra costs of everything. I still need to do some math on it. If it was any lower, like you said 5k or something I wouldn’t even be considering it.

The main posistive factor bsides the cash is the opporunity they presented after the dreaded 6 (or so) months of commuting; which is a very large project, much closer to home, in Orange. Pretty close to where I’m working now.

So, the more I think about it, the more I realize that I should probably take the offer and just sweat out the first 6 months.