Just when i thought everything was settled, I find myself in a major muddle! I'm back at work now after a few months of maternity leave, and I have to say that they have been really nice to me as far as working family friendly hours, and occasionally working from home goes. We live close to my work, and quality of life is good - effort expended on house to make it comfortable, nearby childcare, local schools seem okay, all very easy.
But despite the very practical benefits of my current job, I'm not happy with work. i used to be, certainly before my maternity leave, but things just don't seem right at the moment. We have a new line manager who has a remarkable ability to wind people up. Some of my closest friends / colleagues have left in the last year or so, we're a bit understaffed, but also with the threat of redundancies and altered working patterns ahead. Obviously I need to put this in the context of comments above, but it is starting to wear me down.
I have various options. I like the kind of work that I do, jobs are not easy to come by at the moment, and option A, putting up and shutting up is certainly feasible. Option B: I could try to negotiate part-time working, which would make work a less significant part of my life and probably make me worry less about the internal politics. But I wonder if reducing hours might be seen as = reducing commitment and put me in the firing line for, well, firing, if the cuts do come. [I know legally it shouldn't, but even so...].
Plan C involves a more dramatic change. A really attractive looking job has been advertised by another employer. I have the kind of skills and background that they are looking for (no guarantee that others don't as well though!), it would be a rung up the ladder, slightly better pay, and probably more security, as well as getting me out of the current environment. The trouble is, the job is not near enough to where we live that we could keep up the family life that we now have. Clearly we could move house, but DP is not keen. He worries about whether we could sell at the moment, whether we could find anything comparable at the other end, and whether we could sort out childcare, schools etc that would work as well as they do at the moment. I see his point of view. At the end of the day it is 'just' a job, and family and home life are important. But we managed to make our current set-up work from an implausible start. I don't see why we couldn't do it again. Am I being really selfish to even think about it? I'm not sure that he understands how I feel, despite my best efforts. Is my position just mad?! Anyone else gone through the same kind of thought process?