the Village Knittiot

…change is never easy.

Sometimes, even though it is absolute lunacy, it’s easier to stay nestled in the familiar mire of shit than to go bounding off into new, frighteningly wide-open, foreign territory.

Case in point, I have a job interview today for a copywriting position at a local marketing company. This is good, right? Because it utilizes my skills better and it would certainly be more creative than the work I currently do. It is also bus-able and bike-able (important to a one car family). Most importantly, I would be able to quit this god-forsaken job and finally escape this vile and oppressive environment.

Nevertheless, there are some drawbacks.

It pays ever so slightly less than my current job. This amounts to something like $39 less a week, but I really am making the bare minimum as it is, and $39 a week is a huge deal to us. Especially with Mr. Knittiot still searching for work. I have no idea how much room is there for negotiation, but I suspect it is not a lot.

It is also a “temp-to-hire” position, which means there is a chance that they will not want me to stay on. I know that they do this just to ensure that the fit is good and if it isn’t, they can opt out of it without any strange entanglements. The chance that they will not offer me the job at the end of it all is small, I imagine, but still, you never know.

Temp-to-hire means that I will also not have health insurance, again, unless I opt for the too-expensive (and pretty damn crappy) stuff offered by the placement agency. It isn’t as if this would be the first (or even the second) time in my life to be without health insurance for a significant length of time — not including the scary times when I was a child. Still, it is something to consider. This might feel like less of a big deal if Mr. Knittiot weren’t already one of the 45 million Americans living without health insurance.

Then there is the fact that it is marketing, and that I would have to do things like write copy for Walmart (one of their clients) and other equally vile organizations.

Sounds like I’m talking myself out of this already, doesn’t it?

But then there is this familiar shit pile I am obligated to come to every day, which is so bad I can’t even begin to tell you, because frankly I’m afraid to share the details.

Maybe it is worth it to go to the other place even if it means I have to get a part time job somewhere else for a little while, or I don’t have health insurance for a few months, or I might be required to extol the virtues of a company I despise, just for the sweet bliss of escape. That is usually when my brain likes to point out that it could be even worse over there — that it might look like a wide open field of daisies that I could stroll through singing tra-la-la-la, but maybe there are landmines out there. And then where would I be? Even more strapped for cash than I am now (though not by much) and still just as miserable.

Please note that all of this has taken place before I have even talked to anyone at the company, interviewed for the position, or been offered the job. Like I said, change is hard — and sometimes it is easier to stay mired in the shit that is familiar.

So, I am going to go today, see what happens, and then wait and see if I even get offered the position. No need to talk myself out of or into something before I even have all the facts.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 13th, 2005 at 8:44 am and is filed under this Random Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.