New job - Dodgy work practices

LegacyUser

A bit of history- work in construction, historically in the consultancy side. As is no surprise to anyone, since 2008, things have been really sh!te in the construction sector, in and out of work, short terms contracts, twice on the dole, self-employed for a while. After a lot of messing about, I was lucky to secure a contract position with a respected company a few years back, right up my street and in total I spent 2 years with them and was completely happy there. Job was going well, but the contract situation was stressful - month to month, at one point was let go on a Friday to be re-employed later that day. Decided after the last incident I would job hunt intensively - so, was successful and handed in my notice, my director reckoned I would ride it out, but with 2 stints on the dole and a mortgage / family etc, I know you have to look after No. 1. As it turns out I would have been fine (they've taken on more people, a colleague had moved company, more projects etc), but at the time I was not to know this, especially after being told I was being let go.

So I end up with this company who deal mainly in contracting - different environment than consultants completely - extremely aggressive commercially and ruthless. Their work practices are really dodgy - bordering on illegal (cartels, price fixing) and immoral / unethical (really poor advice to clients, inappropriate relationships with contractors - kick backs, clients getting poor value, service). In a nutshell, I'm completely unhappy with the situation I'm in - at best, it's shady / unethical, at worst it's illegal. There's also friction starting to build with my boss with all the dodgy situations that have arisen - it's smoke and mirrors, no transparency and a very, vey political environment work wise.

Things are, I'm paid well, I would say artificiality so given the state of construction, and they are really busy - loads of work coming in. But I'm working crazy hours - we're totally understaffed, and as a result I work 12 hours plus days. Get very little acknowledgement of this and it's starting to cause family issues - late home every evening is not good, despite the impact on family life, I'm exhausted most of the time - my mind is pre-occupied by this job.

So I know I need a change, but if I do I'm probably into lower pay, back onto temporary contract (potentially - I'm 'permanent' now, but as everyone knows that's not worth the paper it's written on). But potentially a better working environment (there's a few jobs starting to crop up in consultancy).

Looking for some constructive advice please.

Mrs OBumble

It's a hard one.

The only advice I can give is to remember that the top end of your wage packet is usually taxed at a little over 50%.

So a 10k salary drop = a 5k drop in take home income, which kinda cushions the blow.

Other than that, the only advice is to get busy job hunting, so you get out before you become too tainted.

Good luck.