Need Your Thoughts

Work maybe 12-15 a week and make $75K in low-stress job v. work 40+ hours a week and make $120-$140K in high-stress job. Benefits and commute the same. What say you?

First option. I’m single with no children and no desire for a massive house. $75K would allow me to live comfortably. And with so much time freed up not being at work, I can travel, take up hobbies, or just lay about watching Netflix and eat a whole pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

I would only take the second option if it was a dream job I REALLY love, but even then, my laziness might win out.

------------------------------------------------------------
"Why children take so long to grow? They eat and drink like pig and give nothing back. Must find way to accelerate process..."
- Dr. Yi Suchong, Bioshock

"Society does not need more children; but it does need more loved children. Quite literally, we cannot afford unloved children - but we pay heavily for them every day. There should not be the slightest communal concern when a woman elects to destroy the life of her thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo. But all society should rise up in alarm when it hears that a baby that is not wanted is about to be born."
- Garrett Hardin

"I feel like there's a message involved here somehow, but then I couldn't stop laughing at all the plotholes, like the part when North Korea has food."
- Youtube commentor referring to a North Korean cartoon.

"Reality is a bitch when it slowly crawls out of your vagina and shits in your lap."
- Reddit comment

"Bitch wants a baby, so we're gonna fuck now. #bareback"
- Cambion

Oh whatever. Abortion doctors are crimestoppers."
- Miss Hannigan

First option for me. No amount of money can make up for lost health, and stress can affect eating habits, sleep, blood pressure, etc. Plus I have observed that when people are time-poor, they end up spending more money to compensate: ready-made meals, expensive hobbies, costly relaxation. The only thing I would consider is if working part-time would be a huge career disadvantage in the long-term, but that need not be the case for a CF person, because some of that free time could be put into learning, instead of dead-end activities like child-rearing.

If you are on track with saving for retirement (not knowing your age and the number of years you plan on working,) my vote is option one as well.

So much for the theory that we are all career-obsessed and money-grubbing!

I would go with option #1 unless there is a really compelling reason not to.

I agree, option one. You can always make more money. You can't make more time.

I just quit a high stress job w/ higher salary. I would pick the first one. I physically and mentally feel so much better since I quit.

I'd like to know where one can find a low stress job where you work 12-15 hours a week and make $75k per year with benefits because I would retire immediately and start doing that.

If only choosing between jobs were that cut and dried. About four years ago I was making $90k, working 40 hours a week and I was bored silly. My company re-organized and one entire department had nothing to do. After a couple years of that I got really bored and frustrated. Being bored, under-utilized and put out to pasture was harder to take than I thought and I had to leave because it was getting to me. Enter my current job with a 30% raise and more hours, but it was in a topic that interested me, great mission and a known boss. I also knew it would be my last job with the company and I wanted to up my pension calculation, which is based on one's high three salary.

About a year after I took the job, the known boss exited, to be replaced by a new, extremely ineffective/absent boss. Two major reorganizations later and I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum with more damn work than i'll ever be able to accomplish and personnel challenges/deadwood. Upper management has no idea what I'm doing....my boss wanders in every now and then and tells me "great job!" but won't allow me to fill vacancies. I'm at the end of my career and positioning myself for post employment. With the liberal use of sick leave I can survive another year.

Back to topic, the only thing I would question is how stable the $75k a year job is? Could the job go away? Is personal fulfillment important to you? How many more years do you have to work?

I just wrote, "I've sometimes taken a job with more stress because the topic or experience interested me and I could leverage it to a better job."

But yanno, that isn't true. I have only left jobs when I felt they were intolerable and there was a reason to leave.

Option 1 would be fine with me.