Last night during a conversation with Jen it was sort of decided that I need to get a social Work job regardless. I have taken steps to put my family before my career recently in that I soon start a job I don’t really want in order to ensure my family don’t suffer. I find this fact a little depressing as anyone would and Jen doesn’t want that for me.

My amazingly supportive wifel (which as everybody knows is a woman’s title in the year before she gets married, a man is wusband), who put up with me not having any money while at Uni and then continued doing so after I graduated, suggested that I start looking further afield for jobs.

This could mean one of three things as far as I can tell.

1/ big ass commute – Some of the jobs I’m looking at would involve a very large commute by my reckoning around a 150-200 mile round trip. I would more than likely need a car while at work Which means unless I leave my car somewhere in the area I’ll be working (an insurance nightmare) I cannot use public transport. Doesn’t sound very appealing to me as I will surely be tired and cranky all the time as a result of prolonged hours on the road. Not to mention the ridiculously early mornings combined with not getting home till kids are in bed. The petrol cost isn’t really factoring on this decision as I would rather earn call centre wages after travelling costs doing something I’m passionate about, enjoy doing and spent 4 years getting qualified to do than work in a call centre. I am not doing down call centre workers, I’ve done it myself. It’s more the wasted qualification aspect I’m getting at.

2/ live away from home through the week – reeeeeeally hate the idea of this prospect. I do not want to be away from my family and as I’ve pointed out my family come first for me. However Jen says that we would cope, she is prepared to essentially become a single parent in order for me to do the job I want to do (I am ridiculously lucky to have this woman in my life). I would hate being away from the kids and I would hate knowing that Jen was on her own looking after them and that I could do little to help her. The cost aspect of this would depend heavily on where I got a job but again I refer you back to my comments on cost regarding transportation in option 1.

3/ The whole family moves – this solves the issues in 1 & 2 but creates a whole bag of its own issues. We have only just moved into a house that was essentially built for us (not quite but almost) and as a result are in a stupidly fortunate position due to not having a mortgage. To move would change this plus we would be moving out of our beautiful new house into rented accommodation before possibly looking to buy in the area we move to. Then there’s Ruby, she’s about to start school in September so it could mean uprooting her out of school shortly after starting. We would still have to come back home at weekends so Ruby could see her dad meaning traveling a lot at weekends effectively making our weekends shorter and way less enjoyable.

It’s a great big sloppy mess potentially which is why I haven’t looked previously but it may be my only way forward in My chosen profession. Of course this may all be redundant as job opportunities are liable to be as scarce and have as many people applying for them as they do locally, but I have to try.

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