Choose Wisely…

Indiana Jones fans know this phrase by heart as Indy had to choose the ‘cup of life’ from an array of cups in the movie ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’. A great movie with a great cast. The phrase is currently top-of-mind as sometimes in life you’re given certain opportunities of which it’s not 100% sure upfront that it’s a good one. So I thought i’d write a blog to help me think about it. So what are my choices?

A new house

Currently in the Netherlands, and pretty much all over the world, prices of the housemarket is really high (and too high in my view). And although we just renovated our house (which we’ve had for 15 years) the last year we already had that feeling that we wanted something else. Something a bit more out of town, stand-alone house, own parkingspaces. So we had a 5 year plan……. However, when you start looking for something, the chances are that you’re going to find something.

And we did, a really nice house, quiet neighbourhood, with a bigger garden, stand-alone, own parkingspaces, etc… The price was not bad, and we had to consider that we will sell our house for way more than we’ve paid for. The conudrum that we face has to do with our kids. If we buy the house, it means moving half-way through the year to a new town and environment. Anyone with kids knows moving is already a burden, let alone half way a school year. So we really struggled with the choice to make an offer.

What we did in the end is ask for a later date so our kids could finish the year. We got a voice-mail from the realtor saying they would not accept the offer as-is, but were open to negotiate. Unfortunatly the realtor got sick so it’s now up in the air as to what they expect. We can’t afford more that the asking price so it’s now a waiting game. And dependent on the answer we again have to choose if we want to move forward.

A new job

I recently starting looking around seeing what kind of companies and jobs are out there which are interesting for me, mostely product owner/manager roles. I’ve worked at the biggest e-commerce company in the Netherlands and Belgiums as an architect and product manager/owner. And right away I found a few interesting ones. But I also found that >11 years working at my current company, especially as an architect, made me very expensive as a product owner/manager.

Last weeks i’ve been in contact, and basically applying for a job, with a company which is really cool and vibrant, with a small number of people (+/- 50 compared to 3000) in an e-commerce environment and a few familair faces. It sounds like a great opportunity. But then I got the offer, which basically comes down to a salary gap of 400€ a month, and less pension. Now it’s still a good salary and opportunity to grow, they have ‘unlimited’ vacation days, a really nice central office and 50/50 office/home work.

So what do you do? My current job is not bad and I can see myself staying there for a while but am I really happy there? Or is the corona pandemic causing me the ‘flee’ and make a poor decision too fast? Or is it a great oppotunity i disquise. Especially when we also have the new house possibly to look forward to much with also a higher mortgage.

Conclusion (or not)

I really have no idea, and i wish these 2 big choise wouldn’t come at the same time and have such an influence on eachother, but I have to choose soon. The new job won’t wait forever but we also probably won’t get a definitive answer really soon regarding the new house. And even if we did, it’s really hard to estimate what the new montly expenses will be. So it’s a ‘gut’-feeling vs a pragmatic/safe choise.

I am leaning towards taking the job although my salary will be quite less. However, I see opportunities in a small company growing rapidly, including salary. And I know salary isn’t everything, but when you also have a family, it weighs heavily. I’ll update this blog when choises have been made 🙂