Career Decisions

Apparently I will never take a three day weekend again. After a relaxing long weekend at the beach, I received an interesting opportunity today to take a semi-lateral promotion (if there is really such a thing) at a plant in a different town. There would be no increase in pay and it would be much more production focused than my current job. The idea behind it would be to prepare me for a future job at that plant which IS HR focused, namely the plant HR manager position. My company is very focused on giving all of it's leaders production type experience before they put them into staff type positions, which I like, and I would be doing similar work (nicer title though) to what I am doing now. The upsides are:

1. I would be able to learn about an organization I might be taking a key roll in before I do so.

2. Spend some time being more production focused and therefore (hopefully) being more valuable as an HR leader.

3. My current role as a management trainee requires that I have multiple projects in many different disciplines. The new job would be a more narrow focus and hopefully give me more ownership. De facto titles I could currently claim if I cared:

A. Environmental Coordinator

B. Plant Hiring Manager

C. Relief Supervisor

D. Special Projects Guy

4. Boss's boss brought up the idea and thinks it is great.

The downsides are harder to put my finger on and at this point are only guesses:

1. This job would take me away from corporate headquarters where there tends to be more development opportunities for HR types.

2. Not sure if the job fits in with my preferred career path....I can't help it if I like HR and am good at supervising....I spent 6 years as an Army Officer supervising/managing soldiers I have the skill set, people are always surprised by this.

3. I just moved my wife and son (2 years old) in February and would have to ask my wife to move with no promise as far as how long it would be....again. She would do it, but she wouldn't like it....did I mention she is 5 months pregnant? (For those uninitiated in the art of marriage and procreation read: new doctors, new hospital, new friends, new "wiggles and giggles" group, wife has to start picking up random women at the park to be her friends again, etc)

So there it is people, when is a "lateral promotion" ok? I am all about delayed gratification if it makes me more valuable to the company in the long term, but so far I have received some wishy washy answers to that question. Assume my company will take care of me with the move and relocation bonuses...they are pretty good at that stuff.

Blogging will continue until morale improves.