Culture Clash
Here’s a question: is it better to travel the world – well, the Asia/Pacific region – and make some serious dough, work on a variety of projects (still within my overall skill set) or continue in my present job for another year or two, working at a place where I feel like I’m part of an organisation dedicated to doing good in the world and where I won’t ever have to do more than ride the trains back and forth between the office and home, won’t learn anything new particularly, but where I’ll always have the kind of work-life balance everyone else only ever talks about supporting? I suppose it isn’t just a question of one or the other; there may be another option later, although it still would fall on the opposite side of the sweet ride I’ve got going now. Next week, in addition to pursuing the job that’s come looking, I’ll interview with another outfit, this time for an in-house leadership role, but one where I’d also branch into other business functions as well as taking up more responsibility. But is that what I want? Ambition’s a funny thing, a drive I can’t say I’ve ever much experienced, preferring safer choices over the last twenty years or so. It’s more been the case that loyalty, that company-man entrenchment, has been my mode: everybody treats everybody right. It doesn’t hold up, if it ever did, really, but I’d still preference a permanent position over being a hired gun. At this time of my life, and with the advantages long-term employment provides in Australia – long service leave, for example – and the disadvantages of short- to mid-term – again, long-service is a good example, which is a stay-10-years-or-give-it-up perq. in many cases (5, where I am, at least in that I’d get paid out for it) – doesn’t sticking it out make sense? Plus, I’m in an “industry superannuation” fund program, which traditionally returns higher rates with lower fees towards my retirement, and that’s not nearly so far off as it seems.

The choice may not, in the end, present itself. These things don’t always pan out, as I learned during my 5-month unemployment stint before landing this job, and sometime fall through even after that all-important second interview. But we’ll see.