A Wrench in the Gears

I suppose you can say that I've been looking for a new job at the back of my mind - when you work in a grocery store that has a lot of people who are working it as a supplementary job to their husband's real job incomes, you begin to welcome about your effectiveness as a breadwinner. I don't expect to buy thousands of dollars each month, but I do know that I'm worth more than what I'm making now, and I'm capable of better things than scanning 1500 items to meet quota everyday.

But the job that I have now isn't too bad - it offers me independence, my own hours, and okay pay for the kind of city I live in. For a retail position, it's absolutely fantastic. After having to work all the holidays and miss out on festivities, I can finally just schedule myself around holidays so that I can at least have it off.

Well, the wrench that we speak of was a phone call I received today. Apparently this staffing company found my resume online and they were looking for an editor/writer/webhead to help out with running a semi-major website that previews and reviews movies in Seattle. I got immediately excited, but after a while, after reading the job description they sent to me and pondering the bigger questions, it got harder to be full-hearted about it.

I may or may not qualify for the job - the recruiter was assuming that I used to get paid for my work on my college paper. Well, yeah, I got a 400 dollar stipend for the quarter - hardly what I'd define as a paycheck. I'm actually not officially qualified in terms of a journalism degree or a communications degree - for me it's just self-made credentials and a small body of work that might qualify me for this position.

But the other catch is this. The job is a contracted job, which only lasts for 2-3 months. To give up a full-time job for a short contract job may seem insane, but these two factors make up for it. It may turn permanent, or open new doors for me, and it doubles my pay. Doubles it.

Now, before anyone bops me on the head for passing up a no-brainer, here's the other catch. It's in Seattle. So if I were to commute, it would be a 2 hour drive back. And a 2 hour drive home. That's excluding rush hour traffic and any accidents. Which would make half my work day simply commuting. That's a tad insane.

So my wife and I have been pondering the whole day, asking total strangers and small animals what we should do. My brother finally gave an answer that made too much sense to have been overlooked: Apply and interview for it, and when you get an offer, decide. Then it occured to me that I haven't actually gotten the job. For all I know I could interview like a monkey on crack. They may discover that after all, I'm just a poser with bad grammar and worse run-on sentences. So basically, I was worrying over nothing.

So I summed it up to my wife in this metaphor: I gotta not worry about winning the marathon before I learn how to walk. I actually said something much dumber and nonsensical, but I remembered the better metaphor. How odd.

Well, I'll call the staffing people tomorrow and see what happens.

Pfft.