Help me decide between job offers, please

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have received two job offers. I want to hear people’s thoughts on what to consider before accepting, as well as which one they think I should accept and why.

What the jobs have in common: cleared positions at a large defense contractor, salary offers are basically identical.

Company 1 concerns: This position is fully on-site and works a 9/80 schedule. 9/80s are typically cited as a benefit, but I don’t see it. I like to work out before work, and have time to walk my dog, cook dinner, and read a bit before bed. It’s hard to find time to do all that even working a standard workday, and I’m concerned that I couldn’t fit it all in with a 9 hour workday. I asked if that schedule was required and they said yes. I’m struggling to discern between how much of my concern is warranted and how much of it is just fear of the unknown.

Company 1 perks:

- The actual work I’d be doing is something I enjoy, but haven’t gotten to do in nearly 5 years.

- This is much closer to home than Company 2. In good traffic, I could be there in 20 minutes.

- I think Company 1 has better benefits, but only slightly.

Company 2 concerns:

- This position was specifically created for me. I was a contractor whose contract was not getting renewed, and at an employee’s recommendation, another hiring manager at the company offered to bring me on full-time. I have been in roles that were created for me before, and have some struggles with that — because they didn’t bring me on with specific tasking in mind, the tasking I get can be more tailored to skills I already have rather than learning new skills, and it can be more of a struggle to figure out where I can help out.

- This is a rough commute. 44 minutes in good traffic with a bottleneck to cross a bridge, typically close to an hour in the evening. It also includes tolls, so if you factor that into my salary I’d be making a few k less … but I’m still in salary negotiations and I may be able to get a few k added to my offer.

Company 2 perks:

- I had a conversation with the hiring manager discussing some of the areas where I’m interested in learning new things/developing new skills, and the sort of work I’d like to do, and we identified some opportunities for where I could help out. This job could potentially give me more autonomy over choosing what I work on.

- While I have not worked for/with this manager, the employee who referred me to him used to work for him. He said the manager was one of the best supervisors he’d ever had.

- This job allows two days of remote work and also allowed you to choose whether to work a 5/40, 9/80, or 4/10 schedule.

So that’s the gist of what I’m deciding between. Thoughts?

2

It sounds like the commute negates the time away from home difference in the 9/80 work schedule. Plus extra day off. I would chart out all the available schedules-plus commute to see the real lifestyle impact before making a decision.

3

What pops out to me is that with the short commutes Job #1 gives you about the same “at home” time as Job #2. A nine hour workday with a 45 minute commute vs an eight hour day with a 104 minute commute is a difference of one minute.

So your dog time and cooking time might be the same in both scenarios.

4

My thinking is this: three days of the week would be ten hours away from home (either 9 hours working and one hour commuting, or 8 hours working and 2 hour commuting). So the key differentiator is: would I rather have three days in office and one day off, or four days working from home? And I would say the four days working from home, because that means three extra days in a two week period where I’m fairly confident I can fit in everything that I want to do. Particularly when it comes to workouts, having four days out of the week (two during the work week and two on the weekend) where you have time to work out is better than three, particularly considering that at Company 1 the three days would all be in a row (Friday, Saturday, Sunday), which is not ideal for strength training and recovery days.

So based on that logic, Company 2 is the right answer. The things that make me hesitate at this point are: (1) Is it really not possible to fit everything into a day that I want to at Company 1? I’ve never tried it. Maybe I could get a quick workout in some days. Maybe if I hired a dog walker a couple days out of the week, or figured out a way to meal prep I could fit it in. But accepting a job offer based on “maybe” is risky. And (2) If I make a decision based on my life outside of work, have I really given proper consideration to how much I would enjoy those actual 10 hours of the day when I would be working/commuting?

5

Three days a week, yes. But not the other two days. Say I worked from home Thursday and Friday at Company 2. On those days, I would have 8 hour days with 0 commute. At company 1, week 1 I’d have a 9 hour day + 40 minute commute Thursday and 8 hour day + 40 minute commute Friday. The second week I’d have 9 hour day + 40 minute commute Thursday and no work Friday.

6

Ahh, yeh. It’s 3 in the morning and my brain ignored the work-from-home factor. Good luck Wind.

7

Only on the days they are going into the office.

Working for company 2 (on a 5/40) means:

  • 1 hour 40 min less time working / commuting 4 days a fortnight (days work at home)
  • Similar time working / commuting 5 days a fortnight (days work in the office)
  • 9 hours 40 min more time working / commuting 1 day a fortnight (not working at company 1)

Not really one we can answer for you it all depends on how much weight YOU but on each of the concerns and perks.

8

I would be quite wary of a position where they are “figuring out” what you are going to do. That sounds like a layoff waiting to happen. How confident are you in the longevity of job #2?

9

Do you know anything about the office cultures of the two jobs? A toxic workplace culture is an absolute nightmare to spend every day in. Conversely, a healthy and positive office culture can make up for many negatives about commuting, schedule, etc.

IMO office culture is probably the most important factor for a job as long as the salary and benefits are acceptable.

10

So let me just say that I worked a 9/80 schedule for years and loved it (I actually preferred 4/10, but that was only ever available 1 year in my career). An extra hour seems onerous when you’re first facing it, but IME it soon becomes trivial. Particularly given a shortish commute I think you would likely adjust to it just fine. How much you’d like it might come down how much you love to work. I never, ever did (was fine with working, but never enjoyed it) so long weekends were gold to me. If you’re one of those mutants who actually enjoys doing your job that may not matter to you much at all :wink:. But that’s different than being apprehensive about the schedule. I don’t think you should be - you may not love it, but I doubt you’d find it crippling.

For me it would likely be #1 in a heartbeat because in addition to never loving my job, I hate oozing through heavy traffic. If your commute were just a long drive in a pleasant countryside that’d be one thing, but it sounds like traffic is part of it so I’d rather commute more days a week on short commutes than commute just a couple of days/wk in miserable ones.

But if you’re not me (for some odd reason) and occasional ugly commutes are perfectly tolerable to you and long weekends aren’t an incentive…I dunno. It almost looks like a coin flip at that point. Good problem to have though. Kudos for having a choice :slightly_smiling_face:.

11

Fairly confident. This is a sole source contract with work planned out for decades, and the program has seen something like 50% employee growth in the last couple years.

12

Having worked flex jobs and no-flex jobs, I’d echo @Tamerlane’s comments about time off two posts up.

IME/IMO the utility of three-day weekends is about 3x the utility of two-day weekends. If you’re the kind of person who does things on weekends. But if every single day of your life day is tied to staying at home walking a dog and visiting a gym, well then longer weekends are useless to you. A day is a day is a day no matter how they’re distributed around the week.

Ditto his comments about traffic. Before retirement I used to commute 47 miles each way. Leaving home at 5am as I mostly did, that took barely 40 minutes at very pleasant = highly extra-legal speeds. Miami is like that. Leaving at 7:30am was a 90+ minute exercise in frustration and rubbernecking at crash after crash after crash all the way in. Miami is like that too. And that’s with a car that can auto-pilot itself just fine in slow traffic.

Good luck whatever you decide and be sure to update us once you decide.

13

I’ve worked at Company 2 as a contractor for the last few years, so definitely very familiar with that office culture — though on a different project team. The culture certainly isn’t toxic, but honestly I feel like big companies kind of feel more sterile and have less personality, so it’s nothing incredible either. Since Company 1 is also big, I imagine it would be similar over there. I have a friend who works at the other office (but different team, again) and she has no complaints. I’m also familiar with Company 1’s reputation: they work on the contract I have spent the last few years working on, my coworker interned there, another coworker has two brothers who work there. It has a good reputation.

14

Thank you. I was hoping to get some feedback like you and LSLGuy are giving. The company I’ve been contracting for offers the 9/80 and 4/10 schedule, and I’ve definitely noticed how most people love it and make the choice to go on one of those compressed schedules … and also how 9/80 schedules are mentioned as a “perk” or “benefit” of the job. It makes me confused about my dislike for the concept.

A couple things worth mentioning: I’ve been doing the commute for several years now (I work 12 hours a week spread over two in-office days, but since I have an “early office” day and a “late office” day I know what kind of traffic to expect). It sounded frighteningly horrible when I first accepted the position (kinda how the 9/80 schedule sounds now). But it’s always less intimidating to keep doing what I’ve been doing than do something new (though it’s 24 hours in office instead of 12, and three days in instead of two, so not EXACTLY the same. And they won’t negotiate on this aspect BTW.)

I do know that when I have to work overtime, I prefer to work a standard hour day and then put in some weekend hours, whereas I know many people would prefer to work until, say, 8 or 9 PM to keep their weekend intact.

I’ve also seen the value in trusting my gut over what other people say is wonderful. I thought I would hate a completely remote job, even though many people specifically look for that perk and refer to it as a “perk” or “benefit.” Sure enough, I hated the 8 months I spent in a fully remote job, and it was specifically because I was not interacting face to face with my coworkers. (Hybrid is great, just not fully remote or the sort of remote work where you only show up for a 1 hour meeting and then go home.)

15

Job #2 sounds like the #1 spot in the next layoff.

I’ve been involved with layoff conversations every 2-3 years for the last 30 years. Jobs that are built around one person’s sills and interests do not rate well in org design.

16

Thanks, that’s good info to know. I’ve never been involved in layoff conversations, so I don’t know much about those decisions except that it’s based on the budget and what positions the contract/customer is calling for.

17

My experience has been in large (10,000 employees minimum) organizations that are not contract dependent (at least not with any single contract being a make-or-break for the company).

Things may be very different in your industry.

But generally org design and then staffing & selection is designing roles first and then finding the best match for those roles.

18

Are you familiar enough with both companies to know what an 8-hour or 9-hour day really means to them? I’ve worked at plenty of places that are “8 hours” but the reality is most people are working 9 or more, and the ones who clock out after 8 aren’t the ones who move up in the organization.

Be sure you compare what people are actually working, not just the official description.

19

I get 5 days/40 hours a week, and I get 4 days/10 hours a day, but what in the world is 9/80?

I’d choose company 2, 4 ten hour days with two of them at home each week. Sure, it’s a longer commute, but you’d only be doing it twice a week.

20

I would lean toward #1 for a few reasons.

  • Your ‘away from home’ time is going to be about the same, as other Dopers have calculated. It’s quite possible, though, that that 45-minute commute to #2 might become a 60- or 75-minute commute in just a few years. Also, the chances of traffic incidents lengthening your commute time are much greater with the longer commute to #2 vs #1 - all it takes is one idiot in a hurry to turn that drive into a two hour rage fest.
  • A job that is created for one person could well be the first to go in the event of cuts.
  • A job that is created for one person may have little to no upward mobility - if you’re irreplaceable, they may not want to promote you out of this bespoke position.

The kicker IMO based on what you’ve shared, though, is this:

That is worth a lot.