Why I Took Another Full-Time Job When Part-Time Work Is My Goal

I live in Vermont, and one of the state’s famous sayings is “if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes.” What this saying has at its core is that things change. Things change ALL. THE. TIME. The sooner we can wrap our heads around that, the sooner we can accept it and move on. Things always change, and so we must adapt.

I shared in the early days of this blog how part-time work is my ultimate goal. And don’t get me wrong, it absolutely still is. But things have also changed since I wrote that blog post.

I had hoped that the last company where I worked would be the place I would stay for a long time. I thought I had found a company and a role that was perfectly aligned with my career goals and aspirations. I hoped that I would eventually negotiate part-time work with this company, when I was financially ready for part-time work.

So why did I just quit my job at this company for another full-time role at a different company?

Well, there are 2 main reasons.

First, I would really like to hit Flamingo FI before going down to part-time work, and I’m not there yet. Flamingo FI*, coined by the blogger of Money Flamingo, is one of the milestones on the way to full FI (financial independence). In most simplest terms, FI is the point at which you have 25x your yearly expenses saved and invested, and thus work becomes optional. As flamingos often stand on one leg, the term Flamingo FI (half your full FI number) was born.

Many people have heard of Coast FI, which is reaching the point of having enough saved in investments that it will grow, without adding any more, to your full FI number by traditional retirement age. This is a fabulous, potentially life-changing milestone that causes many to shift gears on the path to FI. I have reached Coast FI, meaning I could technically go down to part-time work now as long as I could cover my expenses.

However, being a bit more of a risk-averse person, I prefer the cushion that Flamingo FI affords me.

For starters, I don’t want to wait until traditional retirement age for the possibility of no longer working full time. So, Flamingo FI gets you closer to your full FI number before taking your foot off the gas.

Also, I’ve always been a saver, and I’ve always been frugal. So I like that Flamingo FI will give me a greater nest egg than I would have with Coast FI before taking my foot off the gas. I think having a bigger chunk of money saved will be nice peace of mind/will help keep me sane when I’m no longer funneling money into those accounts.

So there you have reason one for me deciding to take another full-time job: I’m just not ready to take the leap financially. And this leads me to the second reason: my current position no longer seemed like a viable long-term option. The company where I was working no longer appeared to be the place I’d want to stay long-term and eventually go part time with.

The job seemed like the perfect situation until it wasn’t. So what happened?

My boss and team structure changed

I’ve seen a lot of articles going around LinkedIn lately stating that the boss/employee relationship is a top factor of employee happiness. I also saw a post recently from a colleague who expressed that the team she worked with was the #1 reason she loves going to work every day.

For the first year and a half I spent at my most recent job, the one I just left, I had the same boss and was on the same team. We worked well together and had a great team dynamic. I was perfectly content. In fact, during this whole process of finding another job, when I was doubting myself like crazy, Mr. Dink reminded me that I said to him one time, “I don’t know if I’d be so happy here if I wasn’t working with this team.”

I know at this point in my life that there is no perfect job, but I was on a mission to make my job perfect enough for me. And when I was on that previous team, I felt pretty good about that mission. There were plenty of cons (what job doesn’t have cons?), but I knew based on experience that there’d be cons every place that I worked. Besides, at the time, the pros outweighed the cons.

But that all changed right around the beginning of this year when I switched bosses and teams.

First of all, I had worked with this new boss in another capacity basically since I started at the company, and I didn’t respect her as a person. I tried to put that prior knowledge aside and be open to getting to know her as a boss. We actually got along pretty well personally, almost better than how I got along with my previous boss. But this new boss was much inferior as a manager. My team dynamic changed completely. No one talked to each other. Communication was abysmal. The atmosphere was cold. All of a sudden, it was starting to feel like the cons were outweighing the pros.

Other red flags, particularly when it came to money

If you’re somewhere along your FI journey like me, we can’t deny it: Money is an important part of our journey. The more money we make, the more we can save toward our financial goals, and ultimately achieve FI.

But I strongly believe there is a balance. For me, I choose not to make certain sacrifices to my personal life to make more money. In my industry, there is a certain career progression that almost everyone seems to take. As you gain more experience, you get promoted up the ladder, and you begin to take on additional responsibilities: both management of colleagues and leadership on client accounts. I learned early on in this particular career industry that I didn’t want either of those things. I wanted to stay a writer, and producer of content.

So I worked to find a company that would accept me for who I am, for the role I wanted. I was honest about this desire in the interview process, and the company where I landed was supportive. My workload was quite good, and my work-related stress was minimal. I was still able to get regular raises. And they were even willing to consider a promotion although it went against the grain of the “traditional path.” This was important since I wanted to continue to increase my income and save until I was financially ready to shift to part-time work.

Over time though, it started to become crystal clear that this wouldn’t be so easy at that company.

First, they lied to me for almost a year about a raise that simply never came.

When I finally did get a raise during the next cycle, it was not at all what they had promised. When I expressed my disappointment and tried to negotiate, I was told no but that we could revisit in 6 months.

Then there were layoffs. More red flags.

Then all of a sudden we were doing “so well” as a company that they started hiring again. Still no raises, however.

As the red flags continued to pile up, I started seriously considering other opportunities…

A new opportunity arose

Even though there were many aspects of my job that caused me to consider switching companies, my actual role was perfect for me. Even though I hadn’t found the company I could stay at forever like I thought, I had found a role I really enjoyed. Because of that, and because I wasn’t desperate to find a new job (my current job was “just fine”), I could be extremely picky in my search for a new opportunity.

In fact, I spoke with a number of recruiters and companies over the course of several months before I even found a role I would consider.

I highly recommend giving recruiters the time of day (if you have time to give and if you’re lucky enough to get contacted by them). Even if you don’t want the role or aren’t looking for a new job, it can be incredibly valuable to speak with recruiters in your industry every now and again. They will give you an idea of the market rate for your position (which can help you with internal negotiations when it comes to raise time or external negotiations if you decide to hop into the job market). They also have insight about the status of your industry at the time (for example, whether hiring is booming or not). Plus, I find it simply fascinating to learn more about how recruiters fit into certain industries.**

In addition to working with recruiters, I also recommend keeping an eye out for companies you respect and admire, following them on LinkedIn, and even requesting to connect with employees at that company.

I had noticed that a certain company in my industry always seemed to be posting about their employees’ long work anniversaries, their company social activities, and the volunteer work being done by their employees. These are all things I value in a company I choose to work for.

I then also saw that this company had a non-management track for medical writers like me, who aren’t interested in the traditional path of management and leading client accounts! This was very attractive to me and sounded like something I wanted to know more about. So whenever they posted about new hires into this role I was interested in, I would check out the new hires’ LinkedIn profiles, and request to connect if it seemed like they had a similar work background to me (always sending a personal message along with my connection request, of course).

It just so happened that one of these connections, whom I had spoken with and knew was also on a similar non-management path to me and had agreed to keep me posted on how things were going at that company, reached out to me and said that the company was hiring, and he could give me a referral link if I wanted to.

The rest, as they say, is history.

This is the company I am switching to.

During the entire interview process, I was able to be completely honest about what I wanted in my role, and I was satisfied with all the answers I was getting to my questions.

With the job switch, I will get a higher base salary, better time off, and the potential to grow into a role that would be much higher paying while also being what I wanted (non-management).

I don’t necessarily know how my workload will be at this new company compared to where I was, so switching jobs is still a risk in that regard. But switching jobs is always a risk. And I asked as many specific questions about work-life balance and workload as I could to make me feel better about taking that risk.

In summary, the cons started to outweigh the pros at the company where I was previously. And as that happened, another opportunity presented itself that was still aligned with all my lifestyle goals.

It’s always scary changing jobs (at least for me). Taking a risk on something new when things are “just fine.”

But in true Mrs. Dink fashion, I kept a pros and cons list for each job as I went through the interview process. By the offer stage, the new company won by a landslide. My goals (especially my money goals) were calling, and I needed a change to make them happen. How could I not take the risk? Because as Carol Burnett once said, “Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.”

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We’ll see how it goes. If it doesn’t go well, I adapt. Because I finally have the confidence to do so. I will always adapt. How are you feeling with your current work situation? I’d love to hear from you!

*If you want to hear me talk more about Flamingo FI and other alternative FI strategies on a fun happy-hour-style podcast, check this out!

**If you ever want to chat more about recruiters and hear some of my thoughts on how to go about working with them, email me to [email protected].