Time to move on again?

[Bailes1992]

I started an apprenticeship in 2011 and trained as an Electrician and then went on to do a HNC in Building Services Engineering straight afterwards.

About 2 years ago I was taken off the tools and spent 12 months shadowing a project manager, helping out with paperwork, ordering gear from wholesalers and suppliers, liaising with commissioning teams and being there for operatives and clients when he was not. I really enjoyed it however, due to the circumstances the company was under at the time I was never offered a staff contract and I started looking elsewhere.

I took a job in a college as an NVQ assessor supporting apprentice electricians in February. It's a job for life but over the last 6 months I've realised I'm not really interested in what I'm doing. There's no technical aspect to my job and I spend far to much time just filling in paperwork for the Welsh government. The pay isn't great but I can't moan too much as it's what I accepted. My predecessor retired before he actually retired so I've spent 6 months digging myself out of a massive back log which I wasn't warned about and now I'm finally over the hump, I'm quite bored.

Out of the blue yesterday an old boss of mine contacted me (who now works for another company) and invited me down for a chat. I've been offered a job as a junior engineer/project manager with significantly more pay, a company car, fuel card, laptop, works phone etc etc. The job is secure for the foreseeable future but with brexit on the horizon is it worth the risk jumping? Contracting is never considered 'a job for life'.

I'm currently 50/50. I'd enjoy the new job more. My office would be just 5 miles down the road as opposed to 20 miles but my sites will be all over Wales & West. I could sell my Focus, pay off the finance and use the equity to pay off my Wifes' car freeing up another £400/month! BUT I'm mindful contracting is never secure. The extra pay would be nice as I'm currently struggling to save anything and we are planning on moving to a bigger house in 2 years.

Any advice guys?

[trufflehunt]

Put loosely, your first job above sounds like a project co-ordinator. Which you enjoyed.

You've clearly outlined your dissatisfaction with your current job, once you've cleared up someone
else's mess, and now presumably have time to look around and see the job for what it currently is.

The job offer you've received. It carries a title of junior project manager. It looks a little like someone being
paid quite well to do a lot of legwork. Is it really learning about project management , or...?

If it sounds like work you would enjoy, and would learn new useful things, presumably about project management,
but you're concerned that it would be like a contract..., then I would be tempted to go for it, treat the job in your
mind as a contract, and live with your decision. You would have enjoyed the work, learned new things. And those are
2 great things to carry over into a different employment when something that looks more secure shows up.

PS. In my experience, if you receive government money, you do have to fill out the forms. Whether you're on benefits,
looking for a grant, teaching ( spending more time on bureacracy than actually teaching etc.), administrator etc.

[Welly]

Contracting not a job for life??

It's kept me and everyone my age I know in the HVAC industry going for over 30 years, there's always work available and if not you can easily get work through an agency as a stop gap.

I found project managing MUCH easier when I controlled what was going on rather than working under/alongside someone else with different ways of doing things. It's definitely a young mans game though, it's very busy and there's a lot to learn through your own experiences.

Being older now I look back on how contracting was better back then, I don't enjoy it now I'm afraid as I spend far too much time arse-covering due to the legal ramifications of signing up to increasingly onerous contracts where the client has no risk but you have lots

One thing I do know is once you're in the industry it's easy to switch to other companies and get good promotions. Ultimately I think the best position at the moment is working as a specialist M/E engineer but for one of the Main Contractors like Galifords, Wates, Morgan Sindal, Willmott Dixon....there's loads but that appears to be the best low-risk position to me. They like to have someone who can verify what they're being told by the Subbies is correct etc.

[Bailes1992]

I'm trying not to take the money aspect into any decision making but I thought I would just do the maths.

I've been told my company car would be a Vauxhall Astra. I'm assuming it's going to be a design or energy 1.6CDTi (110ps) but if I have a choice in the matter it'll be an SRi or Elite with a 1.4 Turbo petrol engine and a slushbox.

I did some calculations, assuming I could sell the Focus pay off the finance and pay off the finance on my Wifes polo with the equity I would have an extra £200 a week to do what I want with.

[PeterN]

I don't know if a job for life exists. When I started in the TV trade in the '50s I was told it would be a job for life, well it nearly was, I did 50 years but toward the end the trade was dying and we only kept our heads above water by starting a B&B business.

Many of my contemporaries also nearly had a job for life in other trades but it's a different world now, constantly changing and very few firms can offer that.

My advice would be to find a job you enjoy doing as long as it has reasonable prospects even if it doesn't earn you as much as you could possibly earn elsewhere. You spend a lot of your life working and I would put an enjoyable job above a super well paid one.

Peter

[Welly]

Sound words Peter, I don't enjoy my job now (I used to) but am now spending most of my time worrying about getting into legal wranglings.

Teaching used to be a job for life. Not now.

Banking ditto

Nursing ditto

Council dept. ditto

I guess now we do what's available to us at the time but the 'enjoying' part is important. There's no point earning lots of money if it takes over your whole life.

Sam it sounds like you've done well at the NVQ thing, digging through someone else's paperwork mountain is NOT easy along with your regular work so you're probably quite good at administration and dealing with people.

[Captain Jack]

Do it. If you don't enjoy your current role and you don't make a change, you'll start regretting it.

As others said, there's no such thing as a job for life. My wife is a GP. She has now handed her notice in and is thinking about quitting medicine altogether because of *immense* pressures from patients and NHS as a whole. Thank Jeremy Vunt for that. Money is far from everything - if you don't enjoy the role (and is actually making you ill), it doesn't even come into the equation.

[Welly]

My wife is a GP. She has now handed her notice in and is thinking about quitting medicine

I don't know how GP's do it these days. If people looked after themselves better and exercised a bit they wouldn't need the GP so much must be mega frustrating

Not to mention people who self-medicate or think they know everything because they've googled the illness, and then the lonely old people who just want a chat, and all you get is 5 minutes to do it all

I don't know what the NHS are doing to GP's but I guess it's all demanding MUCH MORE with nothing in return.

[Captain Jack]

You hit the nail on the head there, Welly... That's exactly what it's like. People moan at how "useless" GPs are but I see it from the other side of the service counter and it's not pretty.

People are major alpha holes.

[PeterN]

We are fortunate with our doctor in Lyme Regis, never have much trouble making an appointment and the service is very good - except when they forget to pass blood test results on the the hospital. I sadly am at an age where although I'm still pretty fit I have spent more time than I would like to in hospitals lately.

The story in other parts of the west country is not so good though, there was a practise in Plymouth on the news the other night, supposed to be 'new and exemplary' but half the doctors have left and the others have handed back their contract and it's virtually impossible to get an appointment.

Peter

[Bailes1992]

Doctors by me are pretty good. Problem is they don't do advance bookings, you have to phone and phone and phone at 8.30am for a morning appointment and again at 12pm for an afternoon appointment. If you don't get through by 8.35am or 12.05pm you won't get an appointment.

Decided I'm going to take the job. It's something I will enjoy far more and it's where I was heading before I left my first company back early this year. I just hope I get some sort of decision making when it comes to picking the company car. Would like an Astra Elite Nav 1.4 Turbo (150ps) Auto but suspect they'll throw me in a Design Ecoflex.

[PeterN]

Hope it goes well for you. I don't live in the world of company cars, my boss (me) could never afford one, in fact I have never had a new car.

My personal doctor is not very easy to get hold of but the practice nurses can do a lot of the doctors work and they are relatively easy to get an appointment with.

Peter

[trufflehunt]

A doctor, a social acquaintance, told me that the reason she left the
profession was the pressure on her to always be correct in diagnoses.

When I was a kid, I suffered from lots of allergies, and a skin condition, eczema.
When hydrocortisone was discovered it became the cure-all for eczema.
Doctors dished it out freely. Until some years down the line, it was discovered that a major side effect was that
new skin when formed, was very thin. And when the people stop using the stuff, the eczema
returned, fiercer than before.

Similarly, in the 1980's, doctors dished out valium , temazepam, lorazepam, all the 'zepams...., like sweeties.

Here we are now...., the pressure on patients over 60 years old , to take statins.

Speaking with doctors can be like having a conversation, if you could call it that, with a rep for the drug companies.

With the nurses at a practice, it's possible to have a more nuanced interaction.

I'm not greatly into self medication, and do respect professional expertise. But I certainly no longer view doctors
as some kind of gods.