Posted: 10/7/2014 4:12:16 PM EDT
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Currently employed by .gov as an IT weenie. Day shift, easy work, stable with good benefits. The job is pretty non-technical (mostly policy writing and procurement contracts). I commute about 90 miles one-way to get there. Offered a position as an optical Network Engineer with a major ISP. Third shift. Would be about a 30% pay raise, plus potential for a 10% annual bonus based on company performance. Commute is about 35 miles one-way. The raise would be awesome and it would be REALLY nice to not spend three and a half hours of my day in the car every day, but I have some concerns. I've never worked 3rd shift and not sure how I would adjust to it. Also a little leery of leaving a gov job that is pretty much impossible to get fired from to go work in the private sector. I'm also a bit concerned about my ability to perform the duties of the job - I've always been a LAN guy and my current position involves no networking at all. What say the hive? Should I go for it?
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Currently employed by .gov as an IT weenie. Day shift, easy work, stable with good benefits. The job is pretty non-technical (mostly policy writing and procurement contracts). I commute about 90 miles one-way to get there. Offered a position as an optical Network Engineer with a major ISP. Third shift. Would be about a 30% pay raise, plus potential for a 10% annual bonus based on company performance. Commute is about 35 miles one-way. The raise would be awesome and it would be REALLY nice to not spend three and a half hours of my day in the car every day, but I have some concerns. I've never worked 3rd shift and not sure how I would adjust to it. Also a little leery of leaving a gov job that is pretty much impossible to get fired from to go work in the private sector. I'm also a bit concerned about my ability to perform the duties of the job - I've always been a LAN guy and my current position involves no networking at all. What say the hive? Should I go for it? GO for it. |
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Night shift is awful. Do you have a wife and/or kids? You can pretty much write off your entire week to "work and sleep" if you work nights.
If it's 4 ten hour days or something, it might be worth the trade-off. Personally, nothing is worth working nights unless you have no other alternative. |
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Night shift is awful. Do you have a wife and/or kids? You can pretty much write off your entire week to "work and sleep" if you work nights. If it's 4 ten hour days or something, it might be worth the trade-off. Personally, nothing is worth working nights unless you have no other alternative. |
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Night shift is awful. Do you have a wife and/or kids? You can pretty much write off your entire week to "work and sleep" if you work nights. If it's 4 ten hour days or something, it might be worth the trade-off. Personally, nothing is worth working nights unless you have no other alternative. Driving 3.5 hrs a day would be far far worse than working nights. Honestly I cant understand why anyone would do such a thing period. Either get a job closer, or move closer to work. |
| Make sure you understand whether or not your position could be impacted by the divestiture that would happen as a result of the Comcast/Time Warner deal (should it go through). Charter will be impacted heavily (in a good way) should this deal be approved, but there will be a lot of service area movement. |
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Quoted: Consider the government pay tiers and when you'll be able to retire with a full pension. My decision is further complicated by the fact that I'm a dual-status tech (basically a uniformed member of the NG, but paid as a civilian). Continued service is the NG is a condition of my employment, and I'm not sure my body will support military service long enough to reach retirement.
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Currently employed by .gov as an IT weenie. Day shift, easy work, stable with good benefits. The job is pretty non-technical (mostly policy writing and procurement contracts)...Also a little leery of leaving a gov job that is pretty much impossible to get fired from to go work in the private sector... What say the hive? Should I go for it? Are you friggin' kidding me!?! Keep your familiar job that offers security & benefits and work on shortening your commute. |
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The position is with Charter. Shift would be 5 8's, Sunday-Thursday. 5-8s on Third would suck the big one. I work third, but I do 4x10. I can somewhat adjust to days on my weekends, and even then, I still only feel like I have 2 days off. With 5x8s, you would have to stay on your night sleep schedule. If you have no wife, kids and, well, NO life, it can be done. |
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I am not hating, but how on earth you could consider spending 3.5 hours per day simply sitting in the car is beyond me. I assume you already sit for the majority of your work day. That shit will kill you.
Take the pay raise and the shorter commute and don't look back. Use the extra free time you have not in a car anymore to do physical activity and spend with your family (if possible). Your body will thank you. |
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Quoted: The position is with Charter. Shift would be 5 8's, Sunday-Thursday. However, they are building lots of fiber. LOTS of it. You will be able to get off third shift because there's lots of guys churning through that place right now. Plus, fiber optic skills are going to be good to go for decades to come, it'll be a GREAT skill to have. It's getting to be winter now anyway, so it'll be dark all the fucking time soon so you'll have months to adjust sleep patterns. The only way I would not do that is if you have a family and would have problems from your sleep pattern put on them.
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Possibly. Problem with that course of action is property values in my area. Houses in my neighborhood that are 500 sf bigger than mine have been selling for right around what I paid for mine in 2010. Quoted:
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Can you move closer to the Gov. job? Well you'll take a hit on real estate, but think of what you'd save on time and gas. Think about it your saving yourself about 2 hours and 110 miles per day. I don't know what you drive and what gas prices are like by you, but if that were me in PA with my '99 civic that extra commute would cost me $75+ a week not to mention the 10 hours a week its sucking out of you. Also, if you have a social then 3rd shift will essentially kill it. 
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Quoted: Driving 3.5 hrs a day would be far far worse than working nights. Honestly I cant understand why anyone would do such a thing period. Either get a job closer, or move closer to work. Quoted: Quoted: Night shift is awful. Do you have a wife and/or kids? You can pretty much write off your entire week to "work and sleep" if you work nights. If it's 4 ten hour days or something, it might be worth the trade-off. Personally, nothing is worth working nights unless you have no other alternative. Driving 3.5 hrs a day would be far far worse than working nights. Honestly I cant understand why anyone would do such a thing period. Either get a job closer, or move closer to work. Time to make the 1 and 3/4 hour trip home -- I'll check back on this thread in a couple of hours. Thanks for all the advice. |
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I am not hating, but how on earth you could consider spending 3.5 hours per day simply sitting in the car is beyond me. I assume you already sit for the majority of your work day. That shit will kill you. Take the pay raise and the shorter commute and don't look back. Use the extra free time you have not in a car anymore to do physical activity and spend with your family (if possible). Your body will thank you. |
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Do you have your three years in with the .gov? I spent a number of years with a Tier1 provider, it is a very different world than LANs. It was fun and very stressful. In general it is a stressful job, simply because on typo can take out hundreds of thousands of people. The upside is if they are Charter they are used to it by now.  In that field there are some great engineers and plenty of lousy ones. I built a network for Charter and most of the engineers seemed like decent people, but that was a number of years ago. Since you are working third shift you will probably be splitting your time performing maintenance, upgrades, grooms, etc. I wouldn't expect to not be busy. Unless you are just doing edge support you will learn to love OSPF and perhaps a little BGP. IIRC Charter is a mix of Juniper and Cisco. During the interview ask if they use much Brocade. If they do go work somewhere else. |
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What hours are third shift exactly??
Counting on the gov pension may be a risky bet. A 30% pay raise could be putting a lot towards retirement. I work four 10's with a commute that is basically just over a hour and a half each way and I hate it but for a non educated puke it pays well. I would take the new job and work on getting on a better shift. Life is too short to commute that long everyday. My 4 10's are basically 4 14's but it is a somewhat normal shift with weekends off. Good luck |
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I can relate to this thread. I worked a job I liked for 6 years that was 6 miles from home on a back road. Year ago I moved to a job I'm not crazy about 50 miles away and pretty bad traffic. Then they moved me to 4 to midnight and the traffic isn't nearly as bad but still not crazy about the job. I had to go because they were planning on outsourcing. Morons didn't know I could see their email. What the hell I was only the IT Admin. I could actually see them talking about when to get rid of me after they get the outsourcing company in. This other job came along so I had to grab it. Anyway, if I were you I would move within a mile of the gov job. I'm not crazy about second shift but could never do third shift. It will screw up your life. My commute is 50 miles one way I can't imagine going another 40 on top of that. Every night I drive home at midnight saying to myself this job is just too damn far away. Seems like I'm never going to get home. I keep looking for something closer and days again so I can get back to a normal schedule. Just my 2 cents. Good luck with whatever you choose. |
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How much social life and SO time do you get driving 3.5 hrs a day on top of work ? Quoted:
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I wouldn't if I were you dude. Night shift is tough to live. You will essentially have no social life and you may never see your SO if she has a normal schedule. How much social life and SO time do you get driving 3.5 hrs a day on top of work ? Exactly |
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I wouldn't if I were you dude. Night shift is tough to live. You will essentially have no social life and you may never see your SO if she has a normal schedule. How much social life and SO time do you get driving 3.5 hrs a day on top of work ? Exactly Not sure what your point is ? You're telling him not to take the job as night shift isn't good for his family time, but I think it would be better than spending 20 hrs a week in a car. |
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Currently employed by .gov as an IT weenie. Day shift, easy work, stable with good benefits. The job is pretty non-technical (mostly policy writing and procurement contracts). I commute about 90 miles one-way to get there. Offered a position as an optical Network Engineer with a major ISP. Third shift. Would be about a 30% pay raise, plus potential for a 10% annual bonus based on company performance. Commute is about 35 miles one-way. The raise would be awesome and it would be REALLY nice to not spend three and a half hours of my day in the car every day, but I have some concerns. I've never worked 3rd shift and not sure how I would adjust to it. Also a little leery of leaving a gov job that is pretty much impossible to get fired from to go work in the private sector. I'm also a bit concerned about my ability to perform the duties of the job - I've always been a LAN guy and my current position involves no networking at all. What say the hive? Should I go for it? How far in to the .gov job are you? How close to a pension? What are your options for moving closer to work? |
| Were you actively seeking a new position, or did the offer just pop up out of the blue? If the latter, now that the offer has the little wheels turning in your head, maybe you could look around for something else with better hours and closer to home. Who knows, might find something better than either of the options on the table right now. |
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The position is with Charter. Shift would be 5 8's, Sunday-Thursday. Fuck no! I worked shift for the 1st ten years I was in the Army. Mids will have you all fucked up. You'll lose weight and generally feel like shit all the time. You will never feel rested or know when or how much to eat. When you have an appointment at 10:00 AM after working since 11:00PM the night before, you'll understand. |
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3rd shift sucks dude, even small shit like calling the cable company (see what I did there,) to arrange a service call/dispute a bill is a PIA. Once you get on 3rd, you will NEVER leave it unless you change companies. There are some pluses, the offices are ghost towns so no busy-body manager constantly watching your actions. You say Sunday-Thursday so I assume that means your Sat night will be smoked due to preparing to go to work around midnight; yeah fuck that shit.
As someone said, if married and you have kids spending time will be a challenge. If you FO, invest in some black-out curtains. |
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I have, but I'm still not sure it is worth staying. I am already at the full performance level for my positions, so raises from here on out will only come in the way of step increases. Even a step 10 in my grade pays less than the new job is offering, and it takes 19 years to reach step 10. My decision is further complicated by the fact that I'm a dual-status tech (basically a uniformed member of the NG, but paid as a civilian). Continued service is the NG is a condition of my employment, and I'm not sure my body will support military service long enough to reach retirement. Quoted:
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Consider the government pay tiers and when you'll be able to retire with a full pension. My decision is further complicated by the fact that I'm a dual-status tech (basically a uniformed member of the NG, but paid as a civilian). Continued service is the NG is a condition of my employment, and I'm not sure my body will support military service long enough to reach retirement. When your body gives out can you apply for disability and still keep your current job (assuming you want to stay)? Maybe they couldn't fire a disabled vet. There will be many parachutes when/if the Charter/TWX merger goes thru. |