>>I've been working for a hospital for the last 12 years.
>
>That is a healthy stretch of time for an IT job imho.

5.5 years in one dept, 6.5 in the current dept. Because of the atomic operating nature of depts at this hospital, it was like starting a brand new job.

One of my personal missons is to not be a typical IT guy. For non IT types there is a myth (perhaps somewhat true) that IT guys have some bad characteristics such as:
- switch jobs way too often
- being in love with technology instead of being driven by customer needs
- speaking with so much jargon that communication becomes problematic
- being anti-social
- dressing poorly
- making things that are overly complicated or difficult
- having no interests outside of IT
- being intolerant of being with poor technical skills

>Your precious 1 year old will grow up faster than you can imagine and you won't want to miss special moments along the way. Wait a sec, I think I just made a case for leaving the hospital!

My job at the hospital is so great, especially that I live 4 blocks away. I run home for lunch with my wife and daughter if they aren't at work/daycare. During my daughters first 8 months of life, I would put my two coffee breaks together in the morning to go home and watch my daughter while my wife had a shower. Stuff like that really plugged me into my family's home life a lot more.

>I guess my point is that if the hours at the hospital aren't too crazy, stick with it so you can enjoy the quality time with your family. Here I'm assuming that the job is pretty stable and the benefits are good.

I agree. My work hours are very short at 8 hours per day with every 2nd Friday off, plus 5 weeks of vacation per year. Very good for a person with a family. Granted when my wife and daughter go to bed at 7pm (my wife is always exhausted these days), I generally work about 1 hour applying software patches to our web apps, answering emails and learning new things. But since this doesn't cut into my family time I don't mind doing it.

>Getting back into the "power hours" of the private sector (esp. IT) during this time of your child's life will kill a wonderful opportunity that may never come your way again.

I hear ya, the first year of my daughter's life was the fastest and most tiring year of my life. I don't really have the energy or drive to do all of the things that I used to, at least for the moment. Looking back, I worked part time at the UT, particupated on the VFP forum at lot, wrote a book, did those Wednesday lectures .... went out to the pub regularily went travelling...now I start getting sleepy at 8:3pm because the house is so quiet and that I sleep so poorly.

>I realize you said you aren't planning on leaving but you are dreaming a little right? ;)

Not really thinking about leaving but just pondering if I still have what it takes. Who knows though, in the next 2 years the best boss that I've ever had retires.