Job dilemma

[NCObv]

I’d love to get some outside perspective on a dilemma between two job. My contract is coming to a natural end and I’ve been approached about two jobs.

Job A would involve one day a week at site A an hour away from my house 9-5, one day a week at site B ten minutes from my house 9-5, two days a week at site B 9-3 and one day from home. One week every two months I would need to do 9-5 Monday to Friday at site B.

In addition, there is an availability allowance for covering out of hours on a rota basis. The frequency is variable, but would expect to need to be available from home about one weekday evening and overnight every two weeks and one weekend including day time and overnight every couple of months. We always end up getting called and having to attend on a Saturday when it’s our turn to cover. Weekday evenings/nights and Sundays are variable, sometimes you may not get called at all, other times you may get called in for several hours. This also limits when you can book annual leave as you can’t book leave when it’s your turn to be available. The post is on an annual contract to start with, with a view that it would become permanent within 1-2 years.

Job B would involve one day a week at site C an hour away from my house 9-5, two days a week at site C 9-2, one day a week at site D ten minutes from my house 9-2, and a day from home. This job has no out of hours component at all (it has been outsourced). This is a permanent post.

I know both departments well, and overall get on well with the people at both. Job A is busier but job B is challenging in other ways. Salary wise, job A is about 5% better.

In terms of my circumstances: I am around 40. I have two children in primary school. Spending time with them is my top priority as I previously missed out on a lot (I previously had serious health problems, now better, and also previously worked extremely long hours). I’m over the moon both these jobs would allow me to potentially be at the school gates for school pick 3-4 days a week.

My heart is telling me to go for job B because having missed out on so much, I’d love to know that I can spend every weekend/evening with my family. But the one thing holding me back is that I would be commiting to commuting an hour each way three days a week for probably the rest of my career. What happens once my kids are off to uni in 10-15 years, and I’m then stuck in the job further from where we live for another 10-15 years? I’ve done long commutes before, I haven’t enjoyed them especially but they are okay (I phone friends and have podcasts/audiobooks etc).

I’m being deliberately vague because the specifics are hugely identifying, but a move from A to B or from B to A in the future would not be posssible and so I can’t say I would just move jobs if needed later on.

Perhaps when I’m 40 or 60 I’ll be delighted that I didn’t commit to a job that involved evenings and weekends! Also it seems ridiculous to deprive my family of what we need in the here and now just because it may inconvenience me in 10-15 years.

My husband has said he will support me in whatever I choose. I think it would be helpful to him if I didn’t do evenings and weekends because he won’t have to solo parent as much, but equally he worries with me driving long distances. So he hasn’t pushed me either way.

Thoughts?!

Job B. You'll finish an hour earlier on your short days so surely that means the afternoon commute is irrelevant? Appreciate two morning commutes are worse, but for the permanent contract and no out of hours I would take that.

Oh, and the day at the closer site is shorter too? Even better!

There's your answer. 5% is not enough for all the on call crap. And Job B is permanent.

Thank you @Zombiezee and @NigelHarmansNewWife its been really helpful to have some perspective. I think at first I was a little heartbroken because professionally job B feels a little like ‘settling’ because job A is considered a bit of a prize in our professional circles, but I think it’s normal for your priorities to change when you have kids. And overall I think I’d regret not spending time with my family more than I’d regret not taking a more prestigious job.

My 8yo overheard me telling my husband that one of the job options does not involve working weekends and he was so excited and I think seeing the joy in his face helped crystallised things for me.

@Longtimelurkerfinallyposts I was interested to hear you felt an extra four hours of commuting per week would be more cumbersome than 6 weekends a year and 26 evenings/overnights a year. I heard on the grapevine that job B may be open to negotiating to alternate between 2 and 3 days on site C and so it would be alternating an extra 2 or 4 commuting hours per week. I’d love to know what the tipping point of ‘how much extra commuting in prepared to do to avoid evenings, nights, and weekends’. I guess in a sense this is my dilemma.