So I’m at a career crossroad, again.
I have to choose between two (main) job prospects.
- The first choice seems to be a laid back, small company in a smaller city
with a better commute. Here’s the breakdown:- The pay’s the same as the last place I was at, but not as good as my all-time high (which will understandably take a while to reach, again). It’s enough money, but I’d like to actually start getting ahead a bit and stop being so irresponsible w/ my spending. It’s been fun being a man-child for so many years, but I want to start getting things in order.
- The work is more technical, and I’d be working with some
very contemporary technologies (Ruby on Rails, CentOS for servers, my choice of
Mac/Linux workstations. - The work this company does is meaningful in the sense that it’s contributing to humanity and helping the scientific community.
- As a small,
privately-owned company that’s been around a short while, there’s a little bit of
comfort that they’ve got some stability, but there’s still some risk involved. Having chased my passions in the past, I’ve decided that the risk/reward ratio is just not as important to me as it used to be. - I like the city this company’s in. It’s very down to earth, pretty laid back and I’m very familiar with it.
- I’d have to drive to work — there public transportation in this city’s kinda lame. Parking is free, at least. The cost of a week of commuting is about $32, based on current fuel prices.
- This company’s about 1/2 the size of the last one I worked at, which is to say that it’s very small. At the age of 23, I led a bigger division of men on the first ship I was on. Being able to know everyone at a company is a nice work environment.
- As an added bonus, it’s very convenient to pick up a certain special someone ;)
- The second job is in the much bigger city to my south. Let’s see how it compares:
- I’d be working for a contractor at a huge govt agency.
- The position is in charge of the messaging and collaboration teams.
- The pay is really decent.
- The teams are very highly competent.
- The technology they use is something I’m very good at and happen to really like, but it’s not very modern.
- The commute would suck balls, but I’d take the public transportation. $71/week to use public transportation, or $147 ($57 in fuel, and $90 in parking) to drive. Wow, really? Is it that much more to commute? That works out to nearly $4k annually! Yikes. Anyway.
- I’d be getting my foot in the door for some future govt positions, which means higher job security.
- I’d never get to know everyone at the govt job, which is kind of a bummer.
- Way more conservative environment.
- Beauracracy.
- Office politics.
- Union.
- Performance evaluation writing.
- Counseling.
- Blackberry. In addition to having my iPhone. Bleh.
So, that’s the breakdown.
6 Comments
Tony
Hard to say what the best deal would be. I am not sure I would want to be a contractor in a bad economy. It may depend on whether the government program is likely to be cut under a new administration.
If McCain gets elected, you can probably rely on a position that deals with defense or religious persecution (with his VP). If Obama gets in (yes please), I would guess the Health and Human Services type departments would do well. Perhaps Department of Education.
Personally, I like small companies.
Jenna
Let’s talk about what’s really important here…who is this “someone special”? Hmmmm?
Tony
Yeah, you can’t be talking about me. I live a long ways from you.
Dork
Hahahahaha…. thanks for all of the advice and concern (in all areas) :p
The govt position is for an agency that’s going to be around for a long, long time. The position is going to exist forever, too — what I don’t know is whether or not the contracting company will stay in that contract.
I found out today that the smaller-city job is mine, so that’s one confirmed opportunity. I’m just not sure which way to go, yet.
Tony
I now have a similar problem. I have only been at the new job for three months, but I just got a call from a recruiter from Lockheed Martin. I still need to talk to the guy, but LM is a lot closer and IT IS LOCKHEED FREAKING MARTIN. I am a little afraid, however, that I would get there and find myself in a real life Office Space.
Dork
It can happen, but I’ve known a lot of life-long LM federal employees that love it. It seems the company’s at least got it’s stuff together enough to keep employees happy, and that’s kind of a big deal. I’d go talk to the recruiter: there’s no harm in hearing what they have to say. Shorter commute + long term job viability seems pretty compelling.