In the interviewing process at my current job, I was told that there would be at the most 25% travel time. I work for a software consulting firm.
When I started the job, I found out eventually that employees get "deployed"; meaning, they will be sent out to job sites to work from weeks a time, to years at a time (depending on the project).
To be completely honest, this just isn't for me. I like to work in the same place. One of the reasons I took this job is because it's located really close to where I live, and it's just a short 10 minute subway ride from my condo.
I've gone through one interview process to be deployed for this company (didn't get the deployment), and am about to go through a second one.
My question is the following:
How do I talk to my boss about this? I'm thinking of having a conversation asking if it would be possible for me to not be deployed to a client-site, and to work on exclusively in-house projects if possible. It worries me though, that he might take it negatively. Since we're a consulting company. Other coworkers said this situation was clear to them in the interview - where in mine it was not. In my previous jobs I would only go to client-sites for installation (a week at the most).
Is this a bad, or a good idea? Please explain your thoughts.
Extra Info: I'm worried about getting fired if I talk to him about this - but also I don't want to intentionally bomb these deployment interviews in hopes that it won't happen. I'm thinking that if I do talk to him, I might want to have some job offers lined up already - just in case, and so that I have more leverage during the talk. I also really really like working for this company despite this. The office environment is perfect for me, and I love all of the people who work here. Being deployed would potentially change all of the things I like about this company.
Update: Thanks for the responses, it was hard to choose a correct answer since they all had different points that were all valid. For right now I'm going for a bit of a temporary solution. I'm going through a lot of personal problems at the moment, so I'm going to say this to him, and request if he will choose someone else to go through the deployment process. In the meantime I'm going to keep my eyes open and send feelers out for another job. Eventually once I'm not going through so much outside of work I'll have the conversation with him about not being deployed ever.