decisions decisions

[unicornduke]

I was offered the job I interviewed for two weeks ago. I got the call on Friday and had a really good conversation with the team manager about the position, the expectations and all the other things. Money range is 48-50k with an expected 8% increase since the union is currently working on that increase. Before increase, it is about 15k more than I make currently. Bumps would be COL increases or if I get a degree. Employees get free degrees if they want

The main concern is the drive. It's 1.5 hours drive to campus, with field work potentially being more than that. But in talking to the team leader, she said that we could work with that, with some days being work from home and some days being in the field with obvious seasonality to it. She also said that we could potentially have me cover the half of the state closer to where I live.

I'm leaning towards taking it, it's a step up in a career (idek if I give a shit about that), a big bump in money and a lot of driving.

I put off making a decision by asking if I could meet the team members that I'd be working more closely with and she agreed that it was a good idea first. It seems like they really want me to work for them and want my experience in small fruit production. It would be a big change though and a lot more time. It is a campus job though, with good benefits and vacation time. The team is small but independent and has decent funding.

Hmmm

Comments

[annofowlshire]

It sounds amazing, but that commute is yikes!

[graydon]

So that's a three hour commute some days. Which is a hell of a lot.

How large a value of "some" is "too many"? Or how many "all five days" weeks in a row?

Because otherwise that's a lot of money and opportunity and plausibly a better team? (Though meeting them first does seem like a plan.)

[oracne]

That sounds excellent except for the commute - meeting the team sounds like a great idea.

[rmc28]

Everything about it sounds great apart from the commute. But if you can find ways to make that more bearable (working at home at least some of the time, listening to interesting things on the commute) I would go for it.

Doing a degree in something you find interesting can be really satisfying, aside from the pay bump prospect, but it's definitely hard work on top of a job, so worth thinking hard about it before diving in. (I did my Open University bachelors degree in six years while working mostly full-time, and it required a lot of disciplined time management.)

[unicornduke]

Probably in the summer it would be 3-5 days commute, in the winter, maybe 1-2 days a week. It's definitely a step up and would be a lot of independent work with some amount of support stuff that I'm already doing. The commute though. It's not a traffic commute, mostly highway driving. I guess, does the money balance the commute? I think it does. I don't have any way to get into this kind of position with the team I'm on right now, I'd need to get a masters and I'm 4 hours away from that campus.

Right now, I drive to a work location that is an hour and fifteen minutes and that's not too bad of a drive. I did that three days last week, and it wasn't the worst.

[unicornduke]

Yeah, I think it'll be commuting 3-5 days a week in the summer and 1-2 in the winter, probably just on some kind of schedule so I don't stop going into campus entirely haha. I drive a lot for work now, so podcasts are good and I've been thinking about getting into audiobooks.

Additional degrees are something I'm on the fence about, if I want to move higher in my current department or in future ones, I'd need a masters. I think it might be better than my bachelors because I could study something I want to study, but I don't know if I care that much. I am very good at time management though.

[unicornduke]

Yeah, things were too busy for the other folks to be there during the interview, I think the meeting will be in the next few weeks at the research farm, so that would be neat.

[unicornduke]

The commute is pretty long! But I drive a lot for work now, and one of the work locations I go to now is an hour and fifteen minutes. I did that three days this week and it wasn't the worst. So who knows.

[graydon]

May meeting the team go excellent well!

[reedrover]

In a cold, calculating way… is that $15k raise an actual raise or would it just cover wear & tear and gas for your longer commute? How much is your time worth?