In case you were wondering...
I was offered the job. But I turned it down today.
The money was okay, not great. It was a small bump up from my current salary--not as big a bump as I wanted, but not an insulting amount, especially considering that my industry is not doing so great right now, and that I'm the sole breadwinner of my family. It would have been enough to buy myself some more nice things once in a while, enough to help out the college fund a lot. But ultimately money wasn't the reason I turned the job down.
I don't ever blog about work, or what I do for a living, so this will be hard to do without violating that rule but...suppose you were a zookeeper. (I am not a zookeeper.) And say you were dreaming of running your own zoo devoted to penguins, but right now you're working as a general zookeeper, taking care of a few penguins as part of your overall duties. And you're suddenly offered a job running the...um...reptile division of a zoo that has no penguins whatsoever. You might consider taking the job, just to get the experience running a whole division of a zoo, but this would be taking you further away from your penguin dreams (because you'd be losing out on penguin experience, and not keeping up with the latest penguin care innovations). So you stay at your current job, in the hopes that one day you might be put in charge of the whole penguin exhibit. Does that make sense?
Anyway, I decided to sacrifice a small short-term gain in income in favor of my long-term dreams (as much as I can be said to have any career "dreams," as wizened and cynical as I've become). Luckily my husband was supportive of this. And I guess Bat Girl will just have to take out another college loan when the time comes.
But it was a tough call. It's not the first time family considerations have entered into a career decision for me. In fact, I took my current job, after being self-employed for a long time, largely because we wanted better health insurance to cover IF treatments. But this time, it was even more concrete, thinking about how much organic milk or tiny shoes or 529 contributions that small but real raise would have bought. And in deciding in favor of my dreams, in taking a risk, I really did feel for a moment that I was depriving my child.
Ah well. If mama's happy, everyone's happy, right?
The money was okay, not great. It was a small bump up from my current salary--not as big a bump as I wanted, but not an insulting amount, especially considering that my industry is not doing so great right now, and that I'm the sole breadwinner of my family. It would have been enough to buy myself some more nice things once in a while, enough to help out the college fund a lot. But ultimately money wasn't the reason I turned the job down.
I don't ever blog about work, or what I do for a living, so this will be hard to do without violating that rule but...suppose you were a zookeeper. (I am not a zookeeper.) And say you were dreaming of running your own zoo devoted to penguins, but right now you're working as a general zookeeper, taking care of a few penguins as part of your overall duties. And you're suddenly offered a job running the...um...reptile division of a zoo that has no penguins whatsoever. You might consider taking the job, just to get the experience running a whole division of a zoo, but this would be taking you further away from your penguin dreams (because you'd be losing out on penguin experience, and not keeping up with the latest penguin care innovations). So you stay at your current job, in the hopes that one day you might be put in charge of the whole penguin exhibit. Does that make sense?
Anyway, I decided to sacrifice a small short-term gain in income in favor of my long-term dreams (as much as I can be said to have any career "dreams," as wizened and cynical as I've become). Luckily my husband was supportive of this. And I guess Bat Girl will just have to take out another college loan when the time comes.
But it was a tough call. It's not the first time family considerations have entered into a career decision for me. In fact, I took my current job, after being self-employed for a long time, largely because we wanted better health insurance to cover IF treatments. But this time, it was even more concrete, thinking about how much organic milk or tiny shoes or 529 contributions that small but real raise would have bought. And in deciding in favor of my dreams, in taking a risk, I really did feel for a moment that I was depriving my child.
Ah well. If mama's happy, everyone's happy, right?
posted by electriclady at 4:33 PM
4 Comments:
You've got to follow your heart sometimes. I applaud you for that.
I think you did the right thing.
This stuff is always complicated. I'm glad you seem comfortable with your decision. The devil you know, right?
Sounds like you did what you felt was right and that's the important thing. Those are always the right decision.
On a completely different note, if you don't mind me asking... when you were pregnant with Batgirl, did you have a cerclage? If not, how often did they monitor your cervix throughout your pregnancy, and when did they start monitoring it (12-14 weeks?) Thanks, just stuff I'm starting to worry about. You probably know how that goes.
Post a Comment
<< Home