Need to decide btw new job offer/old job by Monday - WWYD?

[arses]

Long story. I am on maternity leave, due back in December.

Work in the NHS in a contract comissioned by an external agency which is fixed term temporary but has been rolling in the trust for 13 years. It was always renewed easily but in the last year or two there have been more intensive negotiation about terms and the working conditions have changed somewhat.. the contract has been renewed for another year and we would expect it to continue beyond this probably - but no guarantees. High risk of redeployment - but not redundancy - next July.

While the contract was being renegotiated, I applied for a post in a different trust that is pretty much identical to my own and was successful at interview. However, this post is permanent and full-time and the only pattern of flexible working they will accept is term time only.

So, I can stay where I am in a 'bit' of a fixed term job (.5 term time only), have an easy first year back at work working with colleagues I know and get on with, have my baby son in excellent childcare adjacent to my work place, a shorter commute and more time to do my MSc..

or..

I can take a leap to a permanent post but will need to work five days a week, much further from my home.

It seems an impossible decision to me. There's no real career benefit (CV wise) to either.. except that it might be somewhat easier to put more energy into the MSc if not working full-time and that might be a springboard to a better position..

but..

with the vast and sweeping changes in the NHS and in the public sector in general, it may be very foolhardy to expect another job to materialise if this fixed term temporary post ends.

I am so torn. I have made lists and lists of pros and cons and there's no clear solution.. my dh and my wider family similarly feel stumped and say it's my decision.. (which it is, of course!).

Would greatly appreciate any thoughts from MNers.

This is very difficult, because the fixed term job sounds like a good arrangement for you personally.

But you are right about the vast and sweeping changes coming for the public sector.

At the moment the various much-vaunted cuts-to-come are being debated in Whitehall - including between the DH/NHS and Treasury, prior to being announced in the autumn, Sept/Oct time. The spending allocations set at this time could well be in place until the country has paid off a wedge of the current deficit/worn the hair shirt for long enough ie instead of a 3-year CSR, a 4-5 year CSR.

A recruitment freeze is already in place across central Govt. Contracts with external businesses (like your agency) are either being dropped at the break clause, or alternatively moves may be afoot to retender/re-procure at a different price.

When the crunch really hits it will be those in permanent jobs who are most protected ie they will either keep their jobs or will be eligible for some form of redundancy.

Trusts are a little way removed from central Govt I know - but I think, to help you make your decision, you may as well assume that the same strictures will apply there.

At some point it will be time for Trusts to make decisions about cuts - these bigger cuts to come, not just the salami-slicing that has happened to date.

It may be that at this point you have accepted the permanent job and started work. And it may be at this point there is some wiggle room for you here eg 'you wanna cut ... well, me and Mrs X can move to a job share to save you making a redundancy' or if the scope of the work is cut 'I am happy to go to 0.5 time'.

There are no guarantees here of course - but I would say on balance it's quite likely your temp post will be terminated, leaving you floating on a sea of jobseekers, and that it takes a bit of time for organisations to work out how to cut permanent posts (they have to cut temps first) and there may be some room for consultation re what form you could stay on in (if they decided to axe your own permanent post).

None of this helps you with the difficult decision about leaving your baby - but what I would say is what everyone on here would say I think, which is that for the permanent job to work you need to be really happy with your childcare arrangements.

Good luck with your decision!

Thanks for this reply mrsbaldwin. What you are saying makes a lot of sense to me.

I know the permanent job is safer. My trust is about to become an integrated care organisation with restructuring beginning in April so perhaps I am being a tad optimistic with July.. my head knows that the permanent job is the sensible option, but my heart just wants to stick my head in the sand and run with my fixed term option. I think I am in denial about the prospect of potentially losing my job in such a short timeframe, though?

My other option is that there is scope for me to do private work. I am appropriately qualified and colleagues who have taken this path have (at the moment, at least) ample work and I have good contacts. I hadn't really intended to go the private route personally but my field of work is very 'niche specialist' and also in an area ripe for cuts - so perhaps something I should consider.

I feel faced with: full-time working I don't want, setting up privately and establishing myself ahead of the mass cuts or outright denial wait-and-see.

Why does my heart still say 'denial/wait-and-see'? How do I get around this?

What would the impact be on your family if you were out of work, arses? How long could you cope without having to make seriously traumatic changes? I think that's the key question. For me, to be out of work for any length of time would be utterly disasterous for us as a family- we'd lose the roof over our heads and finding another one cheap enough to accommodate us would be so difficult that we'd probably need to move to a completely different area of the country. So in your boots I personally would go for the permanent post for all the very thoughtful and sensible reasons mrsbaldwin has set out.

However, I have fairly recently returned to work after maternity leave to a public sector role that allows flexible working, is not too ridiculously far from home, with our childcare pretty close by and I TOTALLY value the lessening of day to day stress that the practicalities of this arrangement brings. It has made going back to work much much easier than it might have been. So if you as a family could absorb the loss of your income for a realistic period of time without being financially crippled I would return to your old work and keep your fingers crossed. Things may not be so bad- outsourcing is apparently set to boom as the public sector is squeezed and, while I think that is a very bad thing politically, it may benefit you! I suppose all this depends to an extent how secure your husband's job is/what other monnies are coming in/how big essential outgoings are as well.

Congrats on being so in demand by the way! Good luck, whatever you decide.

Heart vs head - well, that is a slightly different question.

Autodidact is right - can you survive financially if your current post is deleted (ie does your DH earn enough to pay the bills) and would you be happy as a SAHM or as a freelancer/contractor?

In my house - I am the higher earner and don't want to be a SAHM/want to retain my work 'status', so on a practical level the decision has been quite easy, really (and the shall I/shan't I feelings sublimated into looking for the right childcare). But if MN is anything to go by my own situation is at the black-and-white end of a grey area, IYSWIM.

Hope this helps.

I think we could manage for quite a while on dh's income.. our mortgage is small and while it would entail quite a lot of scrimping and making-do-and-mending, while we have only one baby and our savings to fall back on/options for me to pick up private work to keep us ticking over, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

The work 'status' thing is interesting mrsbaldwin. As an issue, this concerns me far more than the financial side. I feel I have worked very hard for my current position, sacrificing all the usual frivolities in my 20's and keeping my head down.. and though I am finding maternity leave very, very precious and have a strong urge to be around my baby son as much as I can in the early years, I don't know how well I would cope with the SAHM lifestyle/loss of this 'other' identity.

On the other hand, I do have an MSc to complete over the next year and a half and in terms of both future job opportunities/security and/or private work, it is not unimportant as a focus. In my role and at my band, MSc's are expected according to Agenda for Change ruling, but yet many people even senior to me have never obtained them.. putting me at an advantage in restructuring if I complete. So if I did lose my job midway through my MSc, I could spend at least a few months considering myself as a student..

Oh decisions, decisions. I veer between viewing myself as ambitious and career-orientated and as quite the opposite: family first, time with my baby first.

I also wonder if I go for the permanent position will it simply entail lots of tiredness and stress (given I have the MSc on top of it) undertaken simply to avoid the threat of future tiredness and stress if I lose my job.

I will be increasing the amount I save either way, that's for sure!

I find the tiredness worse than the stress ... given that you'd have the stress anyway, baby or no baby, but that previously you wouldn't have been doing a full day's work on a night of broken sleep (potentially - your baby may sleep through by then if it doesn't already). But TBH I've got used to it now.

Saving some money sounds like a good plan!