3 Months Into My New Job: An Update

This week marked 3 months at my new job! I’d love to say that the time has flown, but it hasn’t really…

Today I’m sharing how things have been going, and what I’m learning about my financial independence (FI) journey along the way.

Regular readers of my blog may remember that I recently switched jobs.

It was a decision I didn’t make lightly. In fact, a year ago, I would have told you that I intended to stay at my last company forever. I really thought they were it, that I’d be happy there until I was ready to downshift to part-time work.

But, as so often happens (I don’t know why I’m ever surprised), things changed.

I was put on a new team with a new boss, and things weren’t the same. My work environment got way more toxic.

Then, I didn’t get the raise I had been promised. Then, there were lay-offs. Then, we were doing “so well” as a company that they started hiring like crazy again (but of course, still no raises…)

The red flags piled up and up until it became crystal clear to me that I needed to move on.

But I didn’t want to move on to just any job. Recruiters are everywhere these days in my industry, and it would have been easy enough to quickly land a job. But I didn’t want that. I wanted to be intentional about finding a new job.

I knew a lot more about the industry at this stage than I had when I took my last job. I knew the questions I could ask during interviews to try to find a good fit for me. And I was ready to be picky, especially since despite the red flags, things weren’t completely dire in my current working situation. The outlook just looked bad. I wanted to get out, but I wasn’t in any big rush to get out.

So, I started looking to see what else was out there. After talking to multiple companies, I found one I was confident enough in, that I thought would be a good fit.

And so, even though part-time work is my ultimate goal, I decided to give another full-time role a try.

So, how’s it going?

For starters, the benefits have been reason enough for me to be content with switching jobs. I have a higher base salary and more time off, 2 of the most important aspects of a job (to me) on my slow FI journey.

An as-of-yet unrealized benefit is the career growth opportunities, in the way I want my career to grow. A promotion is possible for me at a level I’m looking for (content development only, no management), which would come with an even higher salary. Again, we’ll have to wait and see if this actually happens, but it would be a huge benefit compared with my last company, where there were no career growth opportunities available to me that didn’t include management (which is something I know I don’t want). And since I’m interested in eventually negotiating part-time work, a higher salary would help with the decrease in salary, since I haven’t reached full FIRE yet (in its most basic form, 25x your yearly expenses).

A perk I didn’t know about before joining the company, what are called “summer hours”, have been interesting. I would definitely put them in the benefit category. They are slightly difficult to get used to, but basically how they work is that from Memorial Day to Labor Day (in the US), you can work an extra 45 minutes for 4 days of the week to get a half day on any 5th day of the week. I have very much enjoyed having Friday afternoons (my choice) off this summer, even though it meant longer work days Monday-Thursday. I even took my half day as a Thursday one week because the weather was supposed to be crappy Friday and there was an outdoor market in my town. But part of me feels like I’m finally getting used to the schedule, and now summer hours are about to go away. We’ll see if I miss them when they’re gone (part of me is looking forward to going back to the straight 9-5 that I’ve been used to for the past few years).

And so far, even though it’s only been 3 months, my workload has been completely manageable. This was one of my biggest fears of switching jobs. My biggest worry was the potential for giving up my good workload, my low stress level, by switching jobs. So far, so good on that front.

But aside from these benefits, the new job has simply not been what I hoped.

To be clear, I definitely don’t regret switching jobs. As I listed above, this job overall and on paper is way better than my previous position.

But for one, I don’t enjoy the type of work I do on my account as much as my previous account. In other words, the science I am writing about on a daily basis is not as exciting to me at my current job. However, this is (hopefully) an aspect that can change. Once I get through the 6-month mark, if I’m still not happy with the content I’m working on, I can talk to my manager about working on other accounts. This was something they told me was possible during my interviews that I hope turns out to be true. If not, this would be a huge factor in my ability to stay there long term.

My second and major disappointment at my current job is the culture (or lack thereof) at the company.

As much as I love working remotely, I haven’t yet been able to find that sweet spot of a job that pays well, isn’t toxic, and has a good culture. For me, the culture is about good people (meaning people reach out, people talk, people have conversations about things other than work) and good offerings (lunch and learns, professional development opportunities, social gatherings. I actually enjoy that type of thing). I thought I asked all the right questions during my interview with my new company, and maybe it just depends on the team, but it is no where near what I hoped for. There’s really no team atmosphere. It’s an “everyone for themselves” type of scene, which I didn’t expect.

I’m an outgoing, social person, and I have tried all my extrovert tricks to no avail. Basically, I miss having work friends.

I’ve learned that the culture of remote work in my industry is all over the place (maybe it’s like this everywhere??) I have now worked for 4 companies in my post-academia, pro-corporate life, in this new industry where I feel really good at the work I do. And yet the companies that have had the best culture have either not paid enough or have been so toxic and horrible for my anxiety. On the other hand, the companies where my workload and stress level have been closer to perfect, the culture has been abysmal or non-existent. I think by switching jobs, I was really hoping to find that “perfect” remote situation that ticks all the boxes.

I really thought I might have found it when I was interviewing for this new job.

But alas, it isn’t so.

I think I am finally ready to admit, to say out loud, that there is no perfect, or even close to perfect, company.

In other words, I think my overall lack of enthusiasm at my new job is more existential. I’m realizing that I can’t get everything I want at a W2 job. I really thought I could make it happen (I have so much determination, after all), and yet I keep striking out.

I’m realizing that I will not be fulfilled from an industry job.

What this means for my FI journey

Because of this realization, for the first time, I’m starting to think that part-time work won’t be enough. It won’t give me the time and freedom, the flexibility, I am craving, which I always knew and was ok with. I thought I could make that part work. But not being able to find a company where I’m even a little bit excited about going to work every day was something I didn’t expect.

And with my new job, shifting to part-time work wouldn’t even give me that much more time. One of the main reasons part-time work was so appealing to me was to get to keep my benefits, both health and otherwise. At my previous company, you could go down to 24 working hours and still receive benefits. Three 8-hour days a week felt very doable to me, especially working on a topic I enjoy with a team that works well together. 

But at my new company, the lowest you can go is 80% to keep benefits, which for me would be working four 8-hour days. I’m starting to think that won’t be enough “part-time” for me. Especially when that work is on a topic I’m not that excited about, with a team that is dysfunctional, at a company with a mediocre (at best) culture.

Plus, after doing my 3-week, job-switch sabbatical, I learned (or remembered, really) that I enjoy the freedom to design my own schedule each day. It can be challenging, but I like the challenge, and I am generally good at self-motivating. And I’m starting to realize that this might not be possible without freelancing.

Part-time work used to tip the scale for me when I thought about freelancing vs part-time. Now, I feel the opposite. A few things have changed. For starters, I know I don’t want to go back and work part-time for my previous company (where the 3-day work week felt doable). For all the reasons I stated above, I have no desire to work for that company again.

But also, I no longer feel so tied to the idea of keeping benefits. Because I’m feeling so strongly about being able to have freedom to make my own schedule, paying for my own health insurance and contributing to retirement accounts on my own with no match seems like a worth-it expense.

The other big piece that had been holding me back from going part-time was feeling like I needed to increase my income first, and/or get a promotion, so that my part-time salary would be larger and better able to support me and Mr. Dink. But this no longer matters if I go freelance. With freelancing, I set my rates (or in some cases the company sets it for you), and in my industry, it doesn’t matter what my official title is. What matters is my years of experience. A medical writer is a medical writer, and when you freelance, what matters more is your years of service in the field and not what your title was when you left a company. So I could stay at my current company and get a promotion before going to freelance, but if I want to just turn around and start freelancing, what would the promotion even be for?

Closing thoughts

Despite what seems like all this back-and-forth and uncertainty in this post, these past 3+ months have been a wonderful learning experience. Between realizing that my last job wasn’t what I thought, to experimenting by creating a 3-week sabbatical, to trying out a new job after months of searching for the “right fit”, I’ve gained valuable knowledge about what is next for me.

But who knows, plans change all the time!

Sometimes it feel daunting to think about what’s next, what will make me most happy, how to live my best life now. But in those times of doubt and overwhelm, I just remind myself of my goals. And that everything is an experiment. I can always try something else. What matters is being intentional with our lives, while staying true to ourselves and our values, and the rest will fall into place.

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What do you think? Have you ever worked part-time or freelanced? If so, which did you like better? How’s work going for you these days? I’d love to hear from you!