u/blythecricket

I’m currently struggling between choosing my career and financial future over work-life balance and relationships. Has anyone else chosen work-life balance over their career and taken a pay-cut? Was it worth it? Or is sacrificing the next 5 years worth it for the long-term financial security?

I have habitually chosen my career over relationships. My career is travel intensive, so I’ve never lived in any one place longer than a couple years, and it’s made it difficult to form long-lasting relationships, romantic or otherwise. For most of my twenties, I eschewed romantic relationships because of career focus, debt, and constant transience. There have been long stretches where I didn’t even maintain a permanent residence, including most of the last four years.

It’s been lucrative for me. I’ve paid off all my debt, and I have a decent financial cushion now. I’m also in middle management for large-scale projects now, but I’m finding I have very little appetite for it anymore.

I forced myself to establish a home base this year because I realized how important having a physical home would be for my mental and social health. I also had the opportunity to work from home for several months before my next project started, and it gave me a taste of work-life balance I haven’t had in a very, very long time.

The next project started a little over a month ago, and now I’m out of town 5-6 days a week working 12 hours a day. This will be going for the next 2-3 years. And I hate it. I rationalized with myself that I would be in the field for another 5 years, which would allow me to buy a house and build up a significant financial cushion. Best case scenario, I’d be able to coast until early retirement.

But, I hate it. It doesn’t help that the entire project is a toxic circus only a month in, but honestly, it is never not a toxic circus. Every project has been the same song, different verse, and I often feel caught in an insanity loop at the mercy of other people’s dumb, avoidable decisions. I’m a woman in construction. I get daily doses of casual misogyny, and sometimes outright crude or cruel disrespect. Things are so tense at work right now with this rocky start that being the only onsite woman at the lead level, unfortunately, I’m the punching bag for the other male construction managers’ frustrations and anger. Again, par for the course, and though I push back and match the energy, I’m just tired of dealing with their emotional immaturity, especially when it’s getting in the way of me doing my job.

Though it would be a major career building opportunity, I feel like I won’t have the stamina or tolerance to see it through. Maybe I’ve reached an age (34) where I’m just tired of putting up with the same BS over and over again. And that I’m sacrificing the remainder of my good, healthy years for money and my career. Having those few months to see what it could be like, building a home, getting involved with my community, volunteering and hobbies, I now dread the 4 hour drive back to the job site. During those months working from home, I was still dealing with the BS, but it felt manageable. I also wasn’t an island, away from home, and working so many hours that I couldn’t recover.

None of my usual self-care methods are working to get me through the week. I get back to my trailer at the end of the day, shove food in my mouth, and go straight to sleep. I’m not knitting or running or doing yoga. I’m skipping meals. My hair is falling out. I don’t want to talk to anyone, and on the weekends when I’d usually pick up a volunteer shift or try for a day trip somewhere, I don’t have anything left in the tank. I’m in therapy, and we talk about methods to deal with this, but even my therapist has pointed out there are signs of abusive tactics with the construction managers. Not sustainable long term.

I’m currently interviewing elsewhere, and I have a second interview with a state agency tomorrow, but if I leave this position, it will be a significant pay cut. The chances of me being able to buy a home with a reasonable mortgage in the next few years will be nudging zero. Given the precarity of the job and housing market right now, I’m concerned with pivoting.

But I want to have community. I want to have friends who aren’t coworkers. I want to have a home and hobbies and a life.

TL;DR. Career-focused and traveling for most of 20s into mid-30s, promise of long-term financial security if I bear down and work hard the next five years, but unsure if it’s worth it and desire work-life balance and friendship/community.

I’m middle management for a large scale utility project right now, and I’m on the verge of quitting. I know if I do, the company will struggle significantly to find a replacement, and right now, it’s just me on site for my department. Normally, there would be at least three of us, but my employers have been dragging their heels on hiring, and they’ve just hired someone very inexperienced and green who doesn’t start for another month.

I saw this coming a mile away. This has happened to me before with other companies, where I stepped down and was replaced by four people. I brought up my concerns with my direct managers several times in the last five months. I have explained that I intend to do the best I can, but that some things will eventually fall through the cracks, and I need help. They have downplayed my concerns each time.

The thing is, the project is finally about to get off the ground fully with more crews showing up in the next couple weeks, and I’m already drowning. I’m also being given tasks that are outside my department because other project managers don’t understand my work load. They’ve leveraged me into these tasks by promising to help me with other tasks of mine that I normally would have an entire subcontractor helping me with, other tasks that have been falling through the cracks because it’s just me on site right now. However, their tasks end up being much larger lifts than mine, and I’m given poor instructions, incorrect timelines, and shoddy equipment to complete their tasks. In the meantime, more and more of my responsibilities fall by the wayside, and I feel increasingly behind while my direct managers continue to pile more tasks on top. I feel beset on all sides, despite me pushing back, and I’m just about ready to say f*** it.

It doesn’t help that the other project managers dismiss my questions, aren’t available, and are overall disrespectful on a number of occasions. They expect 110% from me, including quick and accurate answers to all their questions, reading their minds, and having tasks completed with a snap of their fingers, but they have no accountability themselves. I’ve been outright thrown under the bus in front of crews about not finishing something they thought I was supposed to do, when I was spending five hours doing something else by myself that normally takes a crew as well as completing all my inspections and reporting and not getting home until almost midnight.

I’ve been in the construction industry for more than 8 years; I’m a woman. I generally hate it most of the time, mostly because I find the majority of men in construction to be emotionally immature, vindictive, and disrespectful. It doesn’t matter what I do, whether I’m doing something well or anticipating their needs ahead of time, it doesn’t result in better treatment or respect.

I do find meaning in my own work, for sure; I understand its value. Honestly, I wanted to get out of this a couple years ago after I paid off all my debt and go back for a PhD, but with the current political climate and large scale cuts to academic funding, I figured it would be best to stay put for a few more years and build a bigger nest egg.

Today was the last straw for me. I’ve been struggling to get everything done and being met with nothing but contempt and disrespect by the project managers. My direct managers are understanding but overall unhelpful. I have the urge to just quit, partially because I know how much it will inconvenience the project managers that have been especially unkind. Finding a replacement as we’re about to go full bore will be a monumental migraine.

I keep thinking that this just isn’t worth it, bending over backwards for men who look down on me, disrespect me, condescend me. And knowing it’s only going to get worse as the work continues to pile up in the coming weeks. Having the additional help in a month won’t make much of a dent because I will have to also devote time to training them, and more and more work will get put on the back burner.

I’m getting to a point where I just want to let things fail and let everyone get in trouble. It’s feels antithetical to the type of person I am; I don’t like letting my team down, and I relish finishing tasks to the best of my ability and producing quality work. I like being useful and helpful but not at the expense of my dignity. So, I guess I’m asking, should I quit or should I let things fail first? I’m afraid of getting fired after I just got a significant merit raise, but I’m reaching a point where I realize it doesn’t matter if I keep busting my a** to finish things because there just aren’t enough hours in the day. It is becoming physically impossible to get everything done. I’m leaning towards letting things fail, and hopefully it is the kick in the pants that my department managers and the project managers need to realize I cannot do the work of three people plus an entire subcontractor crew as well as additional construction tasks outside my department.

Any advice is appreciated.