Two Possible Paths

My husband came home last night with an interesting idea.

The HUGE client he's been working with quite a bit lately was talking about how they really needed some new people to fill positions there. He half-jokingly said, "Hey! How about my wife? She knows quite a bit about computers. She picks new things up really quickly. And she probably already has a head-start from listening to me talk about work all the time."

The woman he was talking to said, "Great! Have her interview!"

This was probably due to the fact that he is their Golden Boy. He can do no wrong. If he had told them he knew a good walrus who could do the job, the walrus might get an interview as well.

So, he proposed the idea to me last night as we sat on the couch, eating pizza and watching TV. He picked a good time to bring it up, as I had just finished bitching about work and the rampant idiocy that I had witnessed that day.

I said, "I wouldn't be able to travel and I don't talk to people."

He said, "You could work out of Battle Creek and you wouldn't have to talk to very many people. You're good with computers. You understand how they work. I think you'd be great at this job."

I said, "Oh."

He said, "They have good benefits. They would pay pretty well."

I said, "If I'm going to have to work until I'm 70 in order to get Social Security, I'm going to work at a job I love...not just another one I can tolerate or one that I don't hate as much as my current one."

He said, "They have tuition reimbursement."

I said, "Working for a company that offers tuition reimbursement is only a benefit to me if I'm able to actually use it."

If I'm busy working all the time, when would I take classes and finish my degree?

I pretty much said no to the idea last night, but I started thinking about it more this morning. I do indeed severly dislike my job. I bitch about it often, and not just on here.

Actually, it's not really the job I dislike so much as certain people and the way we're treated on a day-to-day basis. I found something written by the BBB called Ways To Keep Your Employees Happy on the internet yesterday, and I was astounded. Everything that's listed is something that DOES NOT happen here. Every one of those things are the reasons I hate this place.

-There's no communication. We apparently have procedures but no one actually knows about them...until we're yelled at for doing something wrong.

-We're treated like children and continually disrespected. We're micro-managed nearly to death.

-We are told that we're doing a good job once a year and that we're fuck-ups on a daily basis. The only way we might hear that we're appreciated not in a review is if we donate an organ to someone or step in front of a bullet or something else of an extreme nature.

-We only get certain holidays off. Memorial Day, Labor Day, Christmas Day and New Years Day. Anything else, even when the market is closed, we're here.

And so on and so forth. You've most likely heard (read) all of this before.

I think my two main hang-ups about even interviewing at this new place are the following:

1) I dislike change. I think things to be predictable and steady and the same all the time, even if they suck. At least then I know what to expect. In March I will have worked here for 4 years. I've had a long time to get used to this place. A new job is a BIG change.

2) May 27th of this year will mark the eighth anniversary of my graduation from high school. I am currently 25 years old. After 9 years (on and off) of attending college part-time, I am now officially a sophomore. Woo.

I'm afraid of starting a new job that I might once again get sucked in to, thereby causing me to lose my focus and guaranteeing my role as "the girl who never got a degree" even if I do end up successful.

I've been working too hard for too long to give up at this point. The longer I wait to go back to school, the less convinced I am that I will actually get through it. I've already moved it back from January of 2005 to Summer of 2005 to Fall of 2005 to January of 2006. Going into another job that I don't hate might cause me to keep pushing back my back-to-school date. The fact that I hate this job so much is essentially my guarantee that I will be able to leave it when the time comes. It is the safety net that keeps me from straying off of the path to my goals, even when I get frustated.

I wish someone out there could just look into the future and let me in on what will happen in my life if I stay at this job or take a new one. Then I could make an informed decision. If someone could tell me that I could work at this new job, make a lot of money, pay off my debt and save enough for my final year at community college...AND that I would actually GO BACK to college, I would do it. As of right now, though, there are too many "maybes" for me to be comfortable.

So, anyone have any advice for me? Can anyone tell me what I have in store for me in the future, for either path I might take?

If you do, I'm listening.