four days on the road versus long work hours seven days a week

March 8, 2011 7:10 AM

Please help me think through the pros and cons of this job transition

I can move to a new city (a location that my wife doesn’t like at all) to take on a new engagement for my current employer. I would be managing a very large and complex program. It would require an extraordinary amount of high-pressure work. Based on prior experiences with the current employer, I can safely assume that I wont have much quality time for my family for several months (I have also, for a variety of reasons lost my heart/motivation in my current employment. My worry is that this would also impact my quality of delivery in the new role).

This change is not happening out of the blue (although I didn’t know of this specific engagement). I am hoping to get an offer this week from another company. If this materializes, it would give me a significant increase in compensation and a similar role. My family can continue to stay where they currently are. But this job will put me on the road four days a week.

My son is two years old. I have tried very hard to spend my evenings with him, to be there when he wakes up and when he goes to sleep. The second option will provide him with continuity, but take me out of circulation for 3 to 4 nights a week (at least until I find a local project with the new employer which is somewhat possible)

Assuming that I do get an offer, I do need to take a call on this very quickly. What I don’t want to do is go to a new town, meet with a new client and then put in my papers. Landing a reasonably good local job in my time frame is not in the cards.

I would much appreciate getting some perspectives from you. I am inclined to quit – I am personally burnt out on my current job, like the new company and I do think that the extra money would help. But I do know my son would have a very hard time dealing with it (But the hours, the never-ending conference calls from home at all sorts of hours -if I choose option I- would also drive my family crazy).

If you have some opinions/experiences with four-day away from home workweek, I would love to hear about that too.

posted by anonymous to work & money (12 answers total)

People can be very flexible. Even soldiers and sailors who leave their families for years at a time can still make it work. Loving relationships survive. I say, go for it.
posted by grizzled at 7:18 AM on March 8, 2011

My dad used to travel four to five days a week most weeks (sometimes more frequently, sometimes less) and my sisters and I were able to deal with it. He still travels for work now, though less frequently, and my four-year-old brother has adapted to it as well. Kids can get used to most anything. Just make sure to work in skype time/phone time and lots of family time together on the days when you're in town.

To be perfectly honest, I thought most dads traveled for work because mine did. The only thing that ever really bothered me was that my dad missed my birthday a few times when I was a kid because he had an annual meeting that was often scheduled on my birthday. But as much as I didn't like that at the time, it hasn't caused permanent damage. Take the traveling job -- it sounds like the other one would be more unpleasant for everyone AND would keep you from having much time to spend with the kid and wife anyway. I'd rather have a happy person around three or four days a week than a miserable one seven days a week.
posted by Felicity Rilke at 7:33 AM on March 8, 2011

So with the new city, you'd pull your wife and son out of a place where they are happy and to a place your wife doesn't like so you could work a job you do not like and have no time for your family. With the new job, you'd have more money, a job you probably like, and weekends to spend with your son.

My father travelled for work a bit when I was a kid, and I didn't love it, but it didn't ruin my relationship with him (very good) or my mother's (still together). My grandfather travelled a lot for work (though my grandmother knew this when they met) and it also didn't ruin anyone's relationships.

Your son will have less of a hard time -- phone calls are cheap now! there's videoconferencing! -- than he would if his parents were both unhappy, but you were unhappy and busy in the house.
posted by jeather at 7:39 AM on March 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

The moving option stinks and you shouldn't take it unless it's your only option for income and really need it.

The other will be fine. Travelling a lot stinks, but 2 year old adapt well (my husband and I often each miss one night a week of bedtime at least because of work and my 21 month only isn't phased at all). Skyping is a great option, kids at this age seem to understand that that is daddy or mommy in the computer, much more so than on the phone, and is what I used when I was gone for a week for work.

That being said, sounds like you don't like job 2 much more, so I would take that job, but be actively looking for a better job still, and working out a way to decrease your travelling time as much as possible.

Short answer: travelling job, all the way.
posted by katers890 at 7:42 AM on March 8, 2011

When my daughter was 7 months old and my son was 3 1/2 years old, my husband took a job that kept us in our house but had him gone four days per week. It was a difficult adjustment for me, not so much for our kids. If your wife has a really good support system in place where you currently are, take job 2. Otherwise, she'll have to deal with pretty much the same crazy work hours but she'll have to do it where she doesn't have anyone to call for help, and it takes a long time to build up a support system. If we had had to move for his job back then, I would have lost my mind even though having him gone four days a week was difficult. I had friends to help me out and I leaned on them as much as I felt comfortable doing.

The best part about the four days gone, three days at home thing was that when he was home, he was home; no work at all. He was available 24/7 for three full days. That's more than most working parents get on a 9-5 M-F work schedule. If you can swing that, I think the sacrifice is worth it.
posted by cooker girl at 7:55 AM on March 8, 2011

Yeah, option one sounds miserable for both parents, which is horrible for a kid's sense of stability, too. Having dad away on travel a lot as a kid was never great, but we all did fine, and treasured our time together all the more.
posted by ldthomps at 7:58 AM on March 8, 2011

I think if you're burnt out on your current job, dump it if you can. Logic can't answer all questions, emotion plays a big part and has to be harkened to. I've found that once you've made a firm decision, then you act on it and make it work and don't look back. If you're burnt out now, what's going to make it better? For me, that would be the central issue.
posted by fivesavagepalms at 8:21 AM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

The big thing about that traveling job is what you do with the other three days of the week. If you come home exhausted and desperate to quietly unwind without your wife and kids pestering you then it'll be a nightmare for your family. If you come home ready to dive into family life 100% then it'll be fine.

Think about routines that you can do with your two-year-old to make that time away valuable even though you're not there. Like, can you son (with the help of your wife) start a log where they note the important things that happened each day while you were gone, and then the two of you go over it together when you get back? Or can you always manage to phone in the morning at a specific time, or in the evening before his bedtime?
posted by BlahLaLa at 9:40 AM on March 8, 2011

>>I can safely assume that I wont have much quality time for my family for several months

sooo...If I'm reading the above line correctly...you can take a job that spells out you won't be there, abut she gets to keep the location and be around friends. Or you can take a job that, present or not, will prettymuch guarantee you are mentally checked out/unavailable to her, while putting her in a place she doesn't like, removed from her support network.

Option 1 seems like a guaranteed lose for your wife.

Go with Option 2, the travelling job. It's an adjustment, but you'll face it with a better attitude, and so will your spouse. And if I haven't mentioned Baby Anonymous, it's because of this: The #1 determiner of how your bunchkin does with either change is going to be determined by the attitude & state of mind of his primary caretaker --your wife.
posted by Ys at 10:23 AM on March 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

It has been my experience that a move to city you do not like will not turn out well. Cannot say how the travel will affect little anonymous, but I am convinced to this day that the beginning of the end of my marriage was when we moved to a city for work that my then wife was not happy about at all. (Kids adapted very well to new locale. Wife, not so much. Me? I live anywhere.)
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:30 AM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

It doesn't sound like you will be spending a lot of quality time with your family with either job here. And as Ys said, it's a guaranteed loss for your wife if you do option one.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:43 PM on March 8, 2011

My dad did 4 days at work / 3 days at home for most of my life. I never had an issue with it. The nice thing was he had the weekend totally free, so I had plenty of time with him overall. Of course, I don't really remember what I thought about this at a realy young age, but he and I still have a great relationship so it didn't scar me or anhing.
posted by wildcrdj at 1:25 PM on March 8, 2011