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the good life in a digital age

moving on

This is my last week at the BBC. Next week I’ll start my new job at the RNIB in Kings Cross.

I’ve seen lots of people quit the BBC for the wrong reasons. Or at least they don’t resolve those problems with their first new job (the spring board job). The only things you are guaranteed to get when you leave a job are the tangible things, the kind of stuff that is written in your contracts.  So I will definitely be getting:

  • a much, much shorter commute
  • less money, although pretty much the same benefits otherwise
  • no working in the office over the weekends or late nights (they shut the place up)
  • a greater variety of places to eat at lunchtime
  • to be working for a charity, working for a goal worth getting out of bed for
  • proximity to the British Library
  • an office with purple floors

This really distills down to “closer to home, for a charity”.

Tangible sacrifices:

  • I won’t have a community of IAs immediately around me (although I have high hopes for regular coffees with the lovely folks at the Wellcome Trust in Euston)
  • I won’t be managing people (one of my favourite things about my BBC job)
  • My projects will be lower profile
  • I may end up less well-read (because of the shorter commute)

My intangible but realistic hopes:

  • get some energy back. A shot in the arm
  • to work with a lovely team of people
  • re-apply stuff learnt at the BBC
  • learn new things
  • to unravel a new organisation and the way it works

I won’t be expecting to get unambiguous and stable strategy, respect that doesn’t have to be earned, and to get away from decision making I disagree with. But I think lots of people fall into that trap.

Written by Karen

August 18th, 2008 at 6:40 am

Posted in bbc,career,rnib