One Choice Down

Posted by Nuzzling Muzzles

Historically, my body tells me whether or not a job will work out for me.  If I get instantly ill and develop a high fever either during the job interview or on my first day on a job, that's a definite sign that I'm going down the wrong path.  I have actually turned down two job offers because of my body rejecting them.  The one time I took a job despite having a 104 degree body temperature, I absolutely hated it.  I spent every minute of every day planning my escape out of that job.  I told myself never again.  If I get sick during a job interview, I need to move on.

So, I went into this job interview recently feeling good about it.  My skills and experience qualified me for the job, the office was only a 12-minute drive from the house, so I could go home to let the dogs in and out and feed the animals.  It seemed like deal to me.

I walked into the building, and the receptionist was friendly.  She handed me a packet of papers to fill out and then left for her lunch break.  My interview was in five minutes, so I felt pressured to hurry up and fill in all the forms.  The man who interviewed me kept coming out to check on my progress, but it was such a huge amount of paperwork and even with me writing as fast as I could, I really needed about 40 minutes to complete the packet.  I finally gave up and just signed it without filling in a lot of the questions, so that we could get on with the interview.

Then he expressed concern that I may not be able to move fast enough for him, in part because I took so long with the paperwork, and in part because he had sent me an email the previous morning asking me to call him, and I did not.  So, he had to call me and leave a message asking me to call him.  I'm a rancher.  I spend the majority of my time outdoors doing chores and running errands.  I don't sit at a desk reading emails and answering a phone like he does, so I didn't see his message until late in the afternoon.  He was disappointed, because he wanted to interview me that very day.  He just kept saying, "We move fast here.  I expect immediate responses."

He then went on to explain that he expects his employees to work 80 hours a week on a 40-hour a week salary.  We have to keep our schedules flexible so that if he needs us to work nights or weekends or holidays, we can.  As he described the operating procedures of his company, my nose started running and I didn't have a tissue, so I had to keep sniffing the mucous back up inside.  I was thinking how this sounds so much like the last four jobs I had, and in all cases I was basically in a slave labor camp and had no personal time.

He fired off questions at me, and before I could get two words out of my mouth, he'd cut me off and fire off another question.  All I could figure out was that he wasn't really interested in my answers, but he was trying to either get me to speak faster and to the point or he was trying to frustrate me so that he could see how I respond under pressure.  When he wasn't testing me, he seemed like a nice enough guy.  I didn't think I would have problems working with him or anyone else I met in the company, but his insistence on being speedy in everything you do and say was a bit over the top.

I'm sure I appeared to be calm and collected during his rapid fire interview, but little did he know that I took double my usual dose of anti-anxiety medication just to make it through the interview without spontaneously combusting from the effects of my own nerves.

Then he got to the topic of salary and benefits.  That's when my eyes started burning and I began developing a headache, ear aches, and a sore throat.  What he wanted to offer me was less than I made in an internship position when I first started out working in this field 12 years ago.  What he offered me I could make while serving people donuts and coffee or making sandwiches in a sandwich shop, and these other jobs would by far less stressful.  These other jobs also would not require overtime.  Plus these other jobs would be hourly wages, so I'd actually get paid for every hour I put in, so there's actually a chance I could make more money serving donuts and coffee than I can working round the clock doing complicated engineering tasks.

Then there's the benefits.  The company offers medical insurance, but they only contribute $100 a year to it.  That's ridiculous.  I may as well continue putting money into a special account set aside for medical bills.  I pretty much told the guy that the salary was way too low for a person of my experience and skills.  He agreed and said he'd talk to some people to see if they would allow him to offer me more. 

By the time I left the office I felt a chill and knew a fever was forming.  I was so out of it that I barely noticed the fact that they had closed off my street to through traffic because of a wildfire.  My husband had to come home from his job and point it out to me.

This morning I have been exploring different scenarios.  Even though the salary is terrible, it would patch that leak in our checking account and help us break even every month.  We wouldn't get ahead, though, and our expenses are going to go up considerably in February when we have to start paying off this year's college loans.  So, this job would only be a temporary fix.

Worst case scenario was that I don't take the job, can't find another job, don't ever receive any of my inheritance because the house doesn't sell and the death certificates are rejected, and I'm forced to pay off the loan on the house in order to prevent us from being homeless.  In that case, in less than a year we will be bankrupt.

Best case scenario was that my mother's house sells and all of the other avenues to collect on inheritance are processed quickly, I am reimbursed for what I put into settling her debts and no longer have to pay her bills, I pay off the kids' college loans, move to a more spacious ranch where I can have peace, quiet and privacy, and spend the rest of my days writing books for a living. 

Chances are, there will be mixed results somewhere in between.  I also think about my age a lot.  I have high blood pressure, hypertension, an essential tremor, an anxiety disorder, and irritable bowel syndrome.  In other words, I should not be in a high-stress, high pressure work environment.  I should be selling women's clothing in a department store, not punching buttons as fast as I can, answering two phones, ten emails, and five instant messages all at the same time. 

Another part of me says I should just bite the bullet and work while my kids are in college to pay off their loans.  I can do my writing and photography later.  But can I?  What if this irritable bowel syndrome is something more sinister?  Pretty much everyone on my father's side of the family has died from cancer.  It's not that far-fetched of a thought since I already am at high risk of getting cancer.  In that case, wouldn't it make more sense to do something I enjoy, even if it doesn't bring in a regular income?

I'm torn between doing the safe, responsible thing to cover the worst case scenario and not letting myself get distracted from my dreams and keeping the faith that everything will turn out alright.  I did spend some time meditating this morning on it.  I tried washing away the curse or black cloud or whatever it is that keeps sending wildfires and other threats my way, and imagining myself being wrapped in a white light, and protected by a guardian angel.  I said affirmations that were as ambitious as possible, such as, "A serious buyer will make an offer on my mother's house today at the amount of my asking price."

My husband's idea was that I could take the job and then quit once some money comes in from another source, but that's just not fair to the employer who will have invested a lot of his time into training me.  I already know that he's been looking for someone to fill this position for two months, and everyone has turned down the job because the salary was so low. 

The guy sent me an email congratulating me on getting the job.  He did offer me a salary at the top of his original range, but it was still outrageously low -- a lot less than I made in an entry level position 12 years ago.  He wanted me to start today or tomorrow, despite me saying that the soonest I could start would be Monday.  I needed time to finish taking care of some responsibilities around the house.  I think the pushiness of his message clinched my decision for me.

But first I wanted to take the dogs for a long walk to clear my head and make sure that turning down the job was what I really wanted to do.  I felt as if getting out of the house might give me a fresh perspective.  The dog walk turned into a fiasco when we discovered that the park was loaded with trucks and tractors building a skate park.  There was a lot of roaring and crashing and beeping and horn blowing.  My Corgi was scared to death and kept running around me in circles wrapping her leash around my legs and tripping me.  Then some strange man showed up and I had to put all my concentration into avoiding him, because he was watching me closely and acting strangely.  By the time we got home, I realized that I didn't even get to clear my head and think because of all the activity around us.

So, I went out to feed the horses, and realized that for the third day in a row I meant to take the horses out to pasture for lunch, but did not have the time.  I had too many other things to do.  So, I cut open another bale of hay and couldn't get the slices separated.  After struggling with that, I thought, "I probably could have gotten the horses out to the pasture faster than this."

Then it hit me that if I'm under this much pressure to get things done in a timely manner at home when I don't have a job, just think how hard it will be for me to work at top speeds in a high-stress work environment and then come home for just a couple of waking hours each day and try to get everything done at home that I normally need to do in a day.  I went inside the house to decline the job offer, and the Internet cut out.

"What does that mean?" I thought.  I was literally being blocked from declining the job.  I mean, I could always call, but still I tend to pay attention to little coincidences.  I started worrying again that perhaps I was making the wrong decision by turning down the job, and I dwelled on it some more.   While waiting for the Internet to come back, I started doing cleaning chores around the house, and every little thing I tried to do turned into a fiasco and took way longer to get done than it should have because all these obstacles kept getting in my way.

Earlier I tried to drive out to the Animal Shelter to walk some dogs, but was detoured in a circle back to my house, because the highway was closed down due to the fire.  I felt trapped because I couldn't even leave my own neighborhood.  Then I started thinking about how trapped I felt in my last job, and how I didn't want to feel that way again.

One of the things I planned to do this week was to drive down to Mono Lake (a 3-hour trip one-way) and catch some images on my camera at sunset, but now because of this fire I can't even do that.  I'm always telling myself to take advantage of opportunities while I have them, because you can take nothing for granted.  Simple things like having access to a road, having the Internet, being able to flush a toilet, having water, having electricity -- all these things have become extremely unreliable in my life.  That's a big part of why I want to move out of this area.

But if I think that way, then I should accept this job offer.  Right?  It's an opportunity.  I went back and forth so much on it, and when the Internet finally returned, I wrote a letter declining the offer before I could change my mind.  I had to go with my gut and not my logic.  There will be better opportunities down the road.  I just need to be patient.  In the meantime, you will find me cranking out ebooks, because that is what I truly love to do.