Good morning,

I'm back again for some 'therapy'. Or, rather, for your opinions, thoughts and possibly experiences. Been here before with a few subjects and you guys were awesomely helpful. So maybe you can give me some outside opinions on this.

Basically, I am currently at a cross roads where I feel I have to choose a direction pretty quickly. And that cross road is in the job field. Where I live, jobs aren't scarce, but they do require certain levels of experience. I am focusing on an office career at this point.

Currently I work as a Receptionist for a large oil pipeline supply company. I do multiple tasks, work unsupervised for the most part and have lots of unique projects I deal with everyday. I enjoy my job immensely, mostly due to the people I work with, my really great bosses and social environment. As well as being able to work at my own speed.

However, this has come at a price. I have to drive 1 hour to work, and 1 hour home from work every day through downtown traffic. I live on the North side. My job is on the South side. And there is only one main road that can take me home. If it's blocked off or an accident, I have no alternative routes. So there are some days when I'm 2-3 hours getting home.

I notice that these 2 hours I'm lacking in the day is putting stress on my home life, simply because I feel like I have no time to myself anymore. I leave for work, work, come home after stupid traffic, clean up and I maybe get an hour every day to do my thing. And most of that is cleaning up after the critters, which is fine.

So here is my dilemma. I feel like I have a few options here, and with the prospect of wanting to get into a mortgage in the next 3-4 years looming, I feel I need to make this choice sooner rather than later.

Choice 1: In order to make my commute seem worth it, I want to be making more money. I have offers on the table from two departments, Sales and Operations. Both would include a pay increase. Both would also include a workload increase, a difficulty increase, a responsibility increase and a general more 'serious' role.

Choice 2: I can start to look for an alternative position in the North side of my city similar to the one I'm doing now. This is more high risk, as I have no idea what I'd be getting into as far as environment goes. This would involve taking a paycut (to the tune of around $4/hr), but I would eventually be able to work up back to where I am now. Hopefully.

Choice 3: Or, I could stay with my current employer, transfer to the Sales side of things, get my 'experience', and then eventually start looking for a Sales position in the North side with a different employer. But, I am not sure how long it would take me to get into the Sales position (typically they start everyone out as a Sales Assistant and you work up from there). There is also the fact that I know I'd be using this company simply for experience, with no long term plans to stay with them.

Basically, my worry is for the next 3-4 years when we start to work on getting our house sorted. We are wanting an acreage, so if we do find a place, there is a risk I'll be even further away from my current job where I'm at now.

So I am leaning towards staying here, trying for Sales, getting experience and then eventually switching to a different Sales company later. But, I am apprehensive about it and wondering if that sounds like a reasonable plan?

Or should I try to switch to a different company now and climb that corporate ladder? Or stay here, climb here, get my experience here and then switch to another company with all the tools I gained?

Right now my other half makes the majority of our income, so I'm not worried about the immediate future. I'm worried about our long-term goals. I want to be set-up in a stable career with enough experience and tools that I can move up, can start making more to support us and our lifestyle a bit better and generally look at making a more stable life for us as we start to take on more bills.

I'm not freaking out just yet, but I feel like this is a pretty big jump. I love my job right now, but it's not going to get me to the point I need to be at in a few years. I did get a fairly large raise this year, which helped, but I'm worried that those will taper off and this position will eventually hold me back.

So, if you were in a position that paid well for now, but required 2 hours more out of each day and might not allow you to buy the house you want in a few years.... What would you do, if you were in my shoes?