When you say a 20% pay raise are you talking about an hourly raise or are you just talking about the fact that you'd be getting more hours and therefore being paid for them? If the latter I would look into a rate raise as well since you're obviously valuable to them. And/or a title change because that will signal something to the people around you, especially in terms of what sort of more interesting projects you can do or how much autonomy you have. [...]Oh also, how is the office environment when it comes to sticking to 40 hours a week? Does full time actually mean you'll be working 50 hours a week and/or taking work home?
Same pay rate, more hours. A title change/pay upgrade isn't really feasible, regretfully. It's a heavily unionized government environment, there are no increases for merit--only if the job itself changes. This would be the same job, just 20% more of it. But the job itself isn't too demanding, it's not a workaholic culture and nobody takes work home ever.
How close are you to vesting in the pension system at this point? Do you have any medical stuff or stuff coming up that the health benefits would be particularly valuable for (dental work, kids, etc.)?
Health benefits are the same for everyone over 50% FTE, so no change there. I'd guess I have 4-5 years credit. But I could always work somewhere else for awhile and then come back to state service if I wanted to finish it out, ideally with a better gig in the same system (since benefits are based on top consecutive 3 years of salary).
I'm not getting a strong sense of enthusiasm about the master's degree and related career. Maybe it's just how you've written it. But are you totally set on it or do you just like the idea of having the option? If it's something you're dead set on then don't let anything get in the way. If you just like having the option then maybe it's worth the risk that this full time will interfere. You know yourself best, of course, but I would give yourself more credit for being able to get stuff done, including frugal activities, even with full-time work.
When I first started my program I was super excited about it, but over the last few years I've seen there are less jobs, which is discouraging, and I'm less sure about what I'm going to do...maybe I am just burnt out on being in grad school, but yeah, I am sort of directionless now. I guess I like the option? But then, I've just spent four years getting a degree, I figure I should use it, right? Which could be hard to do if I'm already working a full-time job somewhere else. I dunno.
I think you should bring up your concerns with your higher-ups and maybe they can see some solutions like giving you a more flexible schedule during finals or letting you take your vacation all at once when it's time to do the thesis, plus the option I mentioned already of going back to part-time after the transition if it's too much (thought I would guarantee them a certain number of months full time and a guaranteed 1-month notice about going back to part-time so they're not worried they're going to lose you all of a sudden).[...] might the option still be in place for a later time? I would offer to be full time to help with the transition for the new boss but say that I wanted to maintain the option to go back to part-time after, say, a three-month period.
These are good suggestions. I think they would be willing to let me be flexible provided that it's not crunch time for a project. I don't think I'll have the option to go up again, since it's because of the boss thing, but going back down will probably be an option anytime, along with the rest of the ideas (I once took 2 weeks vacation to work on a paid internship and they were cool about that, though the new boss might be different).
