My wife works for a window manufacturer/installation company, local to the Ohio/PA area. She’s the supervisor for a (boo, hiss) telemarketing room, with all the headaches that entails. The pay is good, and the benefits are important to us, both being in need of long-term health care for conditions. She’s due to be vested next year, which makes her a part-owner of the business and means long-term dividends and stock options, along with a good retirement package. She has to drive 60 miles to work every day, taking up 3 hours a day travel time across the lovely PA roads.
In our town, everyone knows everyone, it’s that kind of place. One family has several businesses open, including an Italian restaurant, a grocery store, and a pizzeria. They like to hire people thay know, rather than advertise for someone to move here and work.
My wife’s son works for Mr. X in the restaurant, and he told Mr. X about the situation. Mr. X has needed a manager for the pizzeria for some time, and wants to talk with my wife to offer her the job. We don’t know the details, but we’re sure that he won’t offer the amount of money she makes now, if you include the benefits. She would only have to drive for three minutes- it’s just a brisk walk from home to the pizza shop. The hours may be the same, relatively- more hours at work in the shop as a manager, where she is 8-5 at the window place, but the travel time adds more to the day’s length.
So, should we keep everything as is, or make the change? I’m looking for what I may be missing in my arguments, and what factors I’m not considering. At home, we know that she would be around more if she took the pizza shop job. Since we don’t know how much money is involved, I want to consider everything else first.
There’s no way to know until she talks to the owner and he lays out the whole package. On the face of it though, it looks from a rough estimate that you could save about $2600 per year in gasoline costs (assumptions: 20 mpg, gas at $2/gallon, 100 mile/day differential). That doesn’t include tires, oil, and wear and tear on the vehicle.
It’s always worth talking to someone about an opportunity.
In February we uprooted ourselves (and the kids) to move from rural Virginia to rural Ohio.
In VA we were both driving 3+ hours per day in commute. Now Lady Chance telecommutes and I drive 5 minutes. It’s a good thing. I went backwards on salary to do it. Sort of a quality-of-life thing.
Note, though, that I stayed in my field. Your wife would be changing fields. Also, there’s no benefits issue with us and Lady Chance still makes her DC salary.
All in all it can be a difficult choice. If that vesting and benefits are worth it (and the drive isn’t killing her like it was us) then I’d stick with that one.
Will the quality of her and your life go up enough by this change in commute and schedule to be worth the trades?
Do you have the insurance that would cover these long term health needs, and are you both likely to stay covered under it short of catastrophic problems for you?
You only get one life. Spending three hours/day commuting is a pretty horrible way to spend a significant fraction of it, especially if your wife doesn’t love the job she’s commuting for. Barring a significant deal-breaker like inadequate health coverage for your medical conditions or a salary which is too low for you to live comfortably on, I would personally strongly consider taking the new job even if it pays less in the long run, as long as it is equally interesting to your wife as her current one.
I hate commuting. I literally sit in the car and count how many minutes I’m closer to death. Time is the most valuable thing there is, and wasting it drives me nuts.
But that’s my opinion; I’m not sure how your wife feels about it.
There’s another thing to consider though, and that’s the future opportunities when you hold a role. Managing a restaurant is no doubt a great job, but it will come across as a step down on a resume if she decides she wants to get another corporate job down the road.
Is there a third option? Just because this job is available at the restaurant doesn’t mean you have to choose one option or the other. Perhaps this new opportunity can spur her into looking around for a better job that’s closer.
I would try to answer the following questions to help decide:
How much do you and your wife need the retirement package she would get if she became vested? If you are counting on it for retirement, are you both young enough to make it up?
Does your wife enjoy her current job even with all it’s headaches? Will she equally enjoy the offered job? A job that is not at all enjoyable might not be worth having no commute.
Would the new job offer enough health coverage?
Is the new company secure? Or is it a risk?
I would not like to commute either. We have both been very fortunate to always live close to our work. I would certainly consider getting out of a long commute but I think you are wise to try to figure out the whole picture.
These two questions especially are ones that I have as well. Particularly the security of the new company. Restaurants aren’t known as being especially stable. Also, she’s so close to being vested.
But with that said, commuting is terrible and I personally would take a pay cut just so I wouldn’t have to deal with it—if the new job was stable and otherwise good.
On the flip side…could you move closer to her job? Somewhere between the two? Sounds like you’re pretty well situated as is, but look at all options. My personal feeling is that the restaurant business is way way way too iffy, involves long hours and changing schedules, and little opportunity for advancement.
So unless it’s a field she’s been dying to get into, or she’s dying to get out of her current situation, seems to me like it’s “grass is always greener”. Especially that close to vesting.
Then again, I would never have lasted long enough in a job with a 3 hour commute to even be close to vesting.
Thanks for all the thoughtful replies so far. I showed this thread to her, and she appreciates the help in sorting things out.
To clarify a few points further:
Yes, the health coverage is most important. I’m diabetic, as I have posted many times, and she uses a CPAP for sleep apnea.
She is knowleggeable about the field, she used to be the manager at Burger King and later Wendy’s. Mr. X knows both of us from our consignment store, let alone the fact that they also know each other from high school.
She has room for advancement now, and she’s on good terms with upper management. (She made a series of collection calls that brought in serious money that was not being pursued properly.) There is not much room to advance at the pizza shop from manager.
The pizzeria is established, has been running for maybe 20 years. It’s one of two in town. It’s take out and delivery only, no seating room.
The present job has headaches enough- let alone the commute- that she is seriosly considering this. Mr. X stated to her that “since you drive so far, I’m sure you’re making good money, and I’d like a chance to match it.” We have to wait for the meeting on Saturday at this point.
We hope that her next step will be ownership of a business. We tried once and the time and place weren’t right, and we got through all that. She’s not concerned with how it would look on her resume because she doesn’t plan to go anywhere else in the dead field of telemarketing.
I found this thought on the other side of the room, under the discarded bag the the box of thoughts came in -
can you take that job? Then once she’s vested and/or able to take retirement or early retirement, she moves into the job/ownership?
And in the interim, rent out your current home and temporarily move closer for her for a while? Or buy a second home half way, then use that as rental property when you move back to your original home.
I realise that I am spending your money quite freely here - just a thought.
Also, look at self-insurance to continue benefits as you wean off of the company’s benefits - avoid a gap on those pre-existing conditions.
The office I used to work at was 55 miles away. All highway. I really didn’t mind it and I could make it to work in about an hour.
Then the office moved and it was only 42 miles away and I was surprised at how much more time I had being just a few miles closer to home.
Then a position opened at the office closest to my home and I got it. 8 mile commute.
I can’t believe what a difference not having a huge commute was for me and I really didn’t mind the original 55 mile commute. Now I can go home at lunch if I need to. Even in heavy traffic I’m only about 20 minutes away. Huge difference.
I never thought just driving less would make me feel so much happier but it did. Yes, huge quality of life difference and I really thought it wouldn’t make that much difference. I was very surprised.
She has the offer because of her qualifications. I’m quite different, I don’t have the intensity that she does that allows her to succeed in those areas. I do computer troubleshooting, and one business we’re looking into (long before this offer came up) is opening a pizzeria/Internet cafe/game arcade.
We don’t have a lot of money, partly due to the difficulties from our previous business. I’m working on a coherent business plan to show a possible investor, waiting for the conditions to be right (namely a little more research.) We’re stuck here because we own this house outright and just pay the taxes, no mortgage. (It’s not a real valuable property, however- when I first got here there was mine runoff water pouring through a path cut into the foundation.) So we need to watch our money carefully, as far as big decisions go.
It sounds like if she keeps the current job you and your wife know exactly what you can expect, tomorrow and in the long term, and it sounds like a decent deal. The pizza shop is basically an unknown. Is there any way she could take a leave of absence from the current job to work in the shop? If it works out, she stays there, and if it doesn’t she goes back to the current place.
Also, is there any public transportation between your home and the wife’s job? I know someone who is happy to commute by express bus two hours each way every day. She works on her laptop, she answers e-mail, she reads and generally does stuff that she would have to do somewhere else.