Job A or Job B?

[waverly]

I am writing it out here to dump out of my brain, feel free to comment.  We had decided to stay in our current location (Job A), but the job (Job B) is DH's dream job and why he went to business school, and I want to give it all the consideration, especially since it is closer by 4 hours to both of our families. 

DH's current job- Job A
He just switched to a 8-5 type job in the city, nice commute by train, home by 6.  Lower salary than consulting, not a lot of travel.  Business data type firm, experience in marketing and market research which he doesn't have.  No need for me to find a new job.  No need for us to move, sell house, different schools for kids.  My job is very stable.  I just took on another department, and am having fun with it and will get a salary bump of 10K in July. His job is nice, not exciting, not terrible.  Boss seems nice.  It's only been 2 weeks, so honeymoon phase.  Way less stress than consulting.  Job A seems stable with lots of people being there a long time. 

DH's prospective job- Job B
Dream job and why he went to business school before the real estate market crashed (starting thinking about this career path in 05, started MBA in 07, crash in 08).  Major developer.  Matched salary +relocation of current job.  Closer to family.  No public transportation, driving commute of 1 hour 10 minutes one way for ideal location, 2 hours a day.  Several suburbs are closer to downtown 35 minutes one way, but farther from family sort of negating family help with childcare or to come to games/ concerts.  Nothing is really super close to them- still an hour away. I am guessing he wouldn't be home until 7pm in the evenings which is kind of like what's the point if he misses the start of all the activities. Not sure how stable the job is, and if he or they decide to move on the market is different there, not as easy for him to find jobs, very industry specific with just 1 industry representing the majority of jobs. 

Finding a place to live would be a struggle, moving, selling our house, switching schools.  I would have to quit my job.  I could be a SAHM for the summer and then start looking casually.  Job market for my job in either location is competitive and not a lot of jobs, this job took me 5 months to get, so looking at maybe a 6 month job search and then I don't know what kind of job I would get. My mom helps my sister with childcare, and she is not good with sharing, so probably no help there.  MIL still works (and just injured herself so FIL is taking care of her), so family would probably not help with childcare.  That being said if I am not working we wouldn't have to pay for summer camps and aftercare, but would need care eventually when/ if I go back to work.  Oddly, housing doesn't seem to be cheaper, but other cost of living items are slightly cheaper.  Eating out here is $50-$60 for a family of 4 for dinner, would be $35-$40 there type thing.  Winters are harsher.  We had 1 snow day and 2 cold days, my sister had 9 snow and cold days this winter.  

Our school district houses the coop for our area for deaf and hard of hearing.  I am sure there are services but probably not as good in new location (maybe no hearing itinerant teacher, maybe no free audiology like we have now- just not sure).  DS won't see other kids wearing hearing aids which is important to me and him.  

Obviously, I am again wanting to stay here since it is just straight up easier and doesn't take away my job. The plus of being closer to family is my only true pro.  Oh and being off work for a little while, but I don't know what happens after that. It is short reward for ? future.  I would still have my pension, but couldn't add to it anymore, and it would be less than if I stayed here the whole time obviously.

I have good friends here that are probably better than any friends in the new location.  However, since we have an existing support network it certainly makes things easier.  We moved from NYC back home 12 years ago, and it went pretty smooth social support wise.  We had other issues with his grad school and the economy, but it was much better than NYC for us. Definitely a lot more cons on this job, but is it worth it to be closer to family and more of a support network?  How much support will they actually give?  Is the family drama worth it lol- we can escape a lot of it where we are now.  I am not friends with a lot of people in our current town, but I know a lot of people and it is a nice friendly town.  

I don't have all the info to do a benefits comparison.  

[waverly]

I don’t know if this is helpful or not but we’ve talked about moving back the last 10 years and think we might eventually have to move back to care for our parents as they get older.

[mommyatty]

Job A. Easily. I’m not good with uncertainty, and the idea of putting all your eggs in one basket and then not knowing if that basket is even stable just isn’t okay.

[ilovelucyvv]

Job A but you have to figure out how to spin it so that your H won’t feel like the opportunity of fulfilling his dream is crushed, or at least as much.

[waverly]

I’m also not good with uncertainty and yes if something happens with that job my fear is we would have to move again maybe even back to the area we are in now only we don’t have our house anymore.

He said he had a good conversation with the CIO today but she did make a red flag comment about the CEO. Basically they are not as big, and I fear not as professionally run.

DH knows that job A is the better choice for the family in many ways, but I’ll think of ways he can fulfill other dreams here maybe with us having my additional income and as childcare keeps getting lower.

[shakinros]

Job A, no question.

Job B is closed to family, but not close enough for them to help or attend anything unless you live somewhere that your H’s commute is so long that he can’t attend anything or help? I don’t see the point, sorry to say.

[rere]

Unless I had a strong, burning desire to move back home, Job A seems like the best choice.

[mommyatty]

And as someone who would literally chew off her own leg to NOT have my mother in law “help” with the kids anymore, being close to family is utterly and completely overrated.

[xctsclrx]

Job A.

His new job would have to match your salary and his combined to make it worth it to me.

I had a similar issue when my H tried to move us for an active duty job. But it is the better choice to for our family to stay where we are.

Good luck!

[mustardseed2007]

Job a and keep looking for the dream job in a better place.

[2chatter]

It sounds like Job B is dream industry, not dream job. Could you make a list of actual dream jobs and have DH work toward that? Here, it would be valuation and M&A (probably for REITs) leading to a commercial appraisal “retirement job”. That’s not even close to the out of state opportunities DH wanted to consider - including a brief “let’s move to NY, you can commute into the City, too”. Getting him focused on the actual ideal has avoided so many pointless applications and discussions. So so so many. So many. It used to make me crazy.

[waverly]

Apr 24, 2019 21:33:55 GMT -5 2chatter said:

It sounds like Job B is dream industry, not dream job. Could you make a list of actual dream jobs and have DH work toward that? Here, it would be valuation and M&A (probably for REITs) leading to a commercial appraisal “retirement job”. That’s not even close to the out of state opportunities DH wanted to consider - including a brief “let’s move to NY, you can commute into the City, too”. Getting him focused on the actual ideal has avoided so many pointless applications and discussions. So so so many. So many. It used to make me crazy.

REITs would be of interest. He’s done M&A and didn’t really care too much for it. In his dream career, I think it’s almoat too specific/ narrow and not a lot of companies, so it’s not worked out for him. And that could be an indicator too that maybe it’s not the right path to be in a narrow smaller industry (like I am) because it’s not as much opportunity to move jobs.

He has said he could see himself at job A for 2 years, and he is literally always applying somewhere. Applying for jobs is his obsession.

[covergirl82]

I would lean toward Job A as well - it sounds like the positives outweigh the negatives for the whole family for Job A.

Re: family helping and proximity... I will say that my parents live around 45 minutes away, and they are still able to help (they come down on Fridays, but will also come down to help with sick kid if DH and I both have to go in to work). But I will say my parents are the "happy to help" kind and are actually helpful, so I like to be somewhat close to them. (MIL lives 10 minutes away, but I have to be desperate to call her for "help.")

[waverly]

Apr 25, 2019 5:48:30 GMT -5 covergirl82 said:

I would lean toward Job A as well - it sounds like the positives outweigh the negatives for the whole family for Job A.

Re: family helping and proximity... I will say that my parents live around 45 minutes away, and they are still able to help (they come down on Fridays, but will also come down to help with sick kid if DH and I both have to go in to work). But I will say my parents are the "happy to help" kind and are actually helpful, so I like to be somewhat close to them. (MIL lives 10 minutes away, but I have to be desperate to call her for "help.")

Thanks. I think both sides are happy to help. BUT since my mom has been babysitting my nephews for 7 years now and my sister pays her (nominally) my guess is she won’t actually help me at all because everything will be scheduled for my sister. When I asked last time she said oh BIL is traveling for work, OK DH has traveled for work for 10 years...so not sure why we are working around BIL traveling for 1 week. She is an hour from sister and stays the night there often.

MIL and FIL are nice people but MIL is still working and FIL has gotten to be not quite as interested as when the kids were younger. Maybe it was a novelty thing or maybe they were in better health- it’s hard to say. We would still see everyone more than we do now.

[2chatter]

Narrow is good! If you can get him on board with only considering relocation for narrow. And a solid company. With appropriate comp. It took DH six years to flip from consulting to private corporate work with higher pay. It really was waiting for the right opportunity. I told him not to tell me about postings that didn’t ring the money bell (we agreed to a 20% cut but he wanted a raise, ego). It helped because he wasn’t wasting time - his or mine - chasing things realistically he would never take.

Can you bank six months salary for you? That would ease the transition and buy you more time. Reduce the budget now to see how it goes. Is DH taking this job and moving alone and living with family, returning for weekends, at all appealing? It’s essentially a consulting schedule, especially if he drives home Thursday and WFH on Friday or stays Sunday night and WFH Monday, then drives to work Tuesday morning (I commuted Austin to Dallas - 3.5 hours - for a year because I spent weekends in Austin and worked in Dallas).

When DD was little we moved from downtown to my parents’ suburb because my mom was essentially commuting to help with DD. When DS was little we moved to a suburb over an hour away (1-2 hours with traffic, but not far) and the rate at which we saw my parents dropped dramatically as they didn’t make the drive, my Dad died, Mom would drive alone but not often - maybe monthly. With sports and activities and work it was hard to spend 3-4 hours to drive down there on a weekend.

[waverly]

I think the job fits all that pretty solid, but growing pains, good comp. the sticking point is my salary and job prospects and the hassle of moving. It would be much easier if this city had transportation, and we could just find an area near a train, but public transit was always impossible there historically. And the suburbs closest to downtown require driving through the city for our family to get to us- it’s just not an easy drive.

He doesn’t seem interested in living with his parents and being away from us that much. It was an option to trial it, but he can’t trial it with job A and he can’t trial it with his consulting gig since he just took 2 weeks off to trial job A. The timing is not working out. I agree if he truly wanted the job then living with his parents during the week would make the most sense.

We had been aggressively saving but taxes wiped out some of that progress. It’s hard to put my heart into all the effort of moving if it’s my second choice.

[ECB]

Apr 24, 2019 20:59:29 GMT -5 mustardseed2007 said:

Job a and keep looking for the dream job in a better place.

This is where I'm at.  

And I'd be VERY careful about moving based on "family involvement".  You obviously know your family, I don't.  But i've seen MANY people make decisions based on assuming family would help (or even be "more involved", like going to games) and were very shocked when that didn't happen.  It's easy to talk to talk, but walking the walk is entirely different. 

But back to the job - I also think that a "dream job" where EVERYTHING ELSE isn't a dream isn't really all that much of a dream job.  There is more at play here than JUST the job. And obviously your DH needs to factor that in.

[traveltheworld]

Coming in for a slightly different perspective - we moved cities 2 years ago for my dream job - also very narrow field with very few jobs that would have qualified. At the time we accepted the offer, we weren't sure what DH could find. My increased pay would have made up for roughly 40% of his lost salary. We were really lucky in that his old employer wanted him to stay and worked out a WFH situation for him and he has to only go back to our old city 5 days a month.

We've been happy with the move. Though every job has its issues, having my dream job has greatly improved my overall life satisfaction; and like I said, due to the narrow nature of what I was looking for, these type of job openings just don't open up that often so we took the plunge. We moved in 5 weeks - it really wasn't that bad. We kept our old house and lived in a furnished rental for a few months until we were settled.

Oh it also helped that my bonuses have turned out better than expected so I'm at a point where the increased comp would have now fully made up for DH's lost salary.

All that is to say - if it's truly his dream job, I'd give it more consideration. But he needs to have done the research on the company and the position thoroughly.

[traveltheworld]

Oh and think about long term career - would this lead to something that he could do for the rest of his career? In my case, it was a resounding yes.

[phdmomma]

Weighing in on the transportation side. So, if your parents aren't going to help, why not live in the city and closer to DH's potential new job, so that he wouldn't have to commute as every day? When we were in Chicago my commute was 2 hours each way every day and it has hellish. Soccer games and what not aren't an everyday thing, and family, if they are not your regular carers, can drive farther for that if they want to come. MIL drives an hour randomly to pop in and see us fairly frequently. A hour away is nice in that they could visit without much hassle. At the same time, I don't see a point of living super close to them if they aren't going to help you with the day to day, might as well make DH's commute way shorter so that he can spend more time with all of your every day. I would suggest seriously considering the job. DH moved for my job 4 years ago and now he works from home for his old company, which isn't perfect, but was worth it for us from an overall perspective. I also now only have a 15 minute walk to my office.

[k3am]

All of these arguments are from your perspective (as I'd expect them to be), but if the decision is made more strongly by one party, one of you is going to be unhappy. Has YH been putting together a list on his side? Does he have a pro/con list? If he wants to upend your entire family, he has to consider more than "I want this job." If he's not willing to put in the effort to find enough compelling points to try to get you on board, he doesn't really want to make a move.

[waverly]

Apr 25, 2019 10:42:59 GMT -5 k3am said:

All of these arguments are from your perspective (as I'd expect them to be), but if the decision is made more strongly by one party, one of you is going to be unhappy. Has YH been putting together a list on his side? Does he have a pro/con list? If he wants to upend your entire family, he has to consider more than "I want this job." If he's not willing to put in the effort to find enough compelling points to try to get you on board, he doesn't really want to make a move.

He has a pro con list in his head not sure if it’s on paper. He has said if we didn’t have kids he would push hard for it, but he doesn’t seem to be fighting super hard to upend the kids. He has spoken with his potential boss more yesterday and said it was a good conversation. She did say that the CEO was difficult to work with which was a red flag to me since she is trying to persuade someone to take s job and move, so it must be not super great.

I told him if he thought he would be there 5- 10 years ish then I would consider it more because then we wouldn’t have to move the kids again, but he didn’t seem positive of being there that long. He doesn’t seem to tend to view jobs as long term. His longest was 6 years. I’ve been at my job 10. Glassdoor reviews are not great for Job B. I didn’t look before but interesting...

[ECB]

Apr 25, 2019 11:15:09 GMT -5 waverly said:

I would consider it more because then we wouldn’t have to move the kids again, but he didn’t seem positive of being there that long. He doesn’t seem to tend to view jobs as long term. His longest was 6 years. I’ve been at my job 10.

I didn't address it earlier, but your statement about how he's always applying for jobs was a red flag too.  Yes, there is an argument that maybe if he really found his DREAM job, he would stop looking.  But if it's something he really does ALL the time - I wouldn't have confidence in that. 

I would have a real problem uprooting my life for something he doesn't view as long term. Now, of course, that's the old school in me talking too.  I realize that people these days don't necessarily stay in careers 20+ years anymore.  "Job hopping" is kind of the norm.

But - you have kids, you and your kids have a life.  There is so much more to consider here - which it does at least sound like he's doing! 

[mrspez07]

Job A.
Also, developer jobs are boom/bust and we’re past the 1/2 way mark on this boom cycle. I’d stay put. You also write more doubts about job B.

[waverly]

Update: He officially turned down Job B today. He said he felt sad, but he also felt that it was the right decision for us.