Why do I keep putting myself into these awkward situations?

Some of you may know that I've a got a job interview tomorrow at a local FE college - for the role of Learning Support Practitioner with adults and children with learning disabilities.  It's an ideal role for me in many senses.  It's in an educational rather than a care environment.  The college has an excellent reputation and is a good employer.  It's for 38 weeks per year, so I'll have long periods of time off (and at least a week off every 5 or 6 weeks)...

...and it will take me out of my current job.

I've worked at the day centre for a year now.  I like the service users and get on with all of them.  The things I struggle with are:

a) Some of the other staff.  Well, nothing new there.  They're mostly very young - even the manager is in her early 20s - and although they're all in the job for the right reason, quite a few of them treat the place like a social club.  There's a big clique, with the manager at the head of it, and members seem to get away with things like using their phones when they shouldn't be, or ducking out of cleaning duties.  The whole place lacks focus and discipline, which makes the work harder.  Important things like Infection Control procedures are routinely ignored.  The kitchen is an accident waiting to happen - yet the Health and Safety manager has given it a clean bill of health!  I've refused to sign his associated risk assessment because I don't believe it tells the full story.  The place it dirty and ill-equipped. Yet he reckons 'No further measures need to be put in place.'  At my supervision the other week, I brought up the phones issue.  The manager said it would be addressed.  Since then, nothing's happened.  In fact, I detect that some of the staff have become a bit more distanced from me.  Some use their phones now in front of me in a way that almost seems to be deliberate.  And then I had one colleague unfriend and block me on Facebook after I made an innocent jokey remark on one of her jokey posts.  I'm sure my complaint is at the root of it, because she is very pro-phone.  All in all, it makes for an uncomfortable working environment.  On the upside, some of the other staff - quite a few of whom seem to like and respect me - are great to work with, and seem to agree with my complaints.  We're almost like a counter-culture there - albeit very small.

b) Implicit in the above - the whole way that the place is run.  The general sense of indifference, apathy and lack of organisational focus.  The way that some service users - those that are much easier to manage - are often left to their own devices.  This, I feel, is tantamount to neglect.  The problem extends upwards to senior management levels.  Everyone, it seems, is looking after their own back, and is only intent on maintaining their position of power in the organisation (does that sound NT-ish, by chance?)  I come home quite a lot feeling exhausted.  Not with the job, but with the people and the way that nothing seems to work properly or get dealt with properly.

What have I got to lose if I take the other job if it's offered?

Well... that's the point.  Today, I spoke to an HR assistant at the college because I was a little uncertain about the salary and hours arrangements.  It's a higher salary, but pro rata to 38 weeks.  But they hadn't made it clear what kind of hours that was based on.  I assumed the full-time hours would be 35 (the job I'm going for is for 33) per week.  I was wrong.  Full-time hours are 37.  After doing all the calculations, this'll mean that I'll be over £100 a month worse off based on what I currently earn for only working 4 days per week, but over 52 weeks.  As it stands, the things I really like about my job (apart from the service users) are the facts that I'm only there for 4 days a week, and I earn enough to manage with a little left over.  In the new job - better than it might be in other respects - I'll have to juggle finances much more, and will probably end up having to do casual work during those long holidays to make up the deficit.  So I'm not really gaining time-wise.  In fact, as it stands, I actually currently get more time off per year because I only work 4 days a week.  That's an extra 52 days leave (less annual leave entitlement).

Hence, my current uncertainty and anxiety.  I'm settled in most ways at the moment, with good time off and enough of a salary to cover me.  It's just the culture that I don't like.  A new job could be the answer.  But then... the grass is always greener, as they say.  Maybe I'll be jumping from the frying pan and into the fire - sacrificing the good things I do have for some that may or may not be better - and I'll certainly be worse off money-wise.  Money is a big thing for me.  I have a pathological fear of debt, having experienced it much as a child. I've always cut my cloth according to my needs, which is why I live so cheaply and simply.  Frugally, some might say.

So... once again, it's all up in the air.  I'll go to the interview, anyway.  I might not get offered the job at all.  If I am, though - and I need to decide quickly, as is usually the case - I really won't know what to do.  I'll probably end up taking the path of least resistance, as always.

Gah!  I hate my head sometimes...

(Sorry for going on... but getting black on white sometimes helps me to rationalise it all...)