The Great Desert University is advertising a job opening at the Tempe campus. They want a business writer who can do PR for their business services branch. It’s a job I could do in my sleep, and it pays $50,000 to $52,000.
Fifty grand, though it’s only three-quarters of what I was earning, would go a long way toward solving all my money problems. It would cover my part of the mortgage on the upside-down house from now until long after the cows come home, leaving plenty to diddle away on extravagances such as clothes and a cell phone. And it would get me back into Delta Dental—I need to get my teeth cleaned, probably need a couple of new crowns, and am afraid to even talk to a dentist about what that’s going to cost.
But…
Yesterday I drove out to campus to take my friend Tina to lunch, by way of thanking her for all the wonderful things she’s done for me this year.
You know, just the prospect of driving from The Funny Farm out to Tempe every day is more than I can contemplate. The trip to GDU is just dreary, and then once you get there, where are you? The campus is so ugly and so depressing…as aesthetics alone go, to say nothing of what’s inside the buildings.
After an evening of light rain, today is just beautiful, the weather like San Francisco’s. The dog and I went for a long walk through the adjacent ritzy neighborhood, schmoozed with several neighbors beneath golden fall trees, tried to kiss a cat, returned feeling very content.
I did not have to drive through homicidal rush-hour traffic to get to an office at 8:00 this morning. I did not have to beg some supervisor or take “vacation” time to be here to intercept the workmen who are changing out the hail-battered air conditioning unit…why on EARTH would I want to take on another full-time job? If there’s really some reason for such a strange compulsion, surely I can find better places to work!
Dang. I’ve already written an application letter. It’s good. When they see this thing, they’ll fall all over themselves to hire me. But y’know what? Think I’ll delete it from the hard drive. I’d rather go hungry than go back to work at that place.
A moment’s exploration revealed that AARP offers Delta Dental at a reasonable rate, with no waiting period for routine care. I’ve re-upped, having found a full year’s premiums can comfortably be paid in one swell foop. And now I believe I’ll ride the new purple bike through the neighborhood. Unemployment hath its charms.
😉
Funny that’s exactly what I learned when I quit working a regular job. The value of my free time was worth a lot more than a paycheck!
You need that one-month vacation! Let me know how that dental plan is–we don’t have one through work here (that’s any good, that is).
Might be okay if you could telecommute. Probably it wouldn’t be a 40/hr a week job.
Maybe. If it’s a classified job (at that salary, it may not be), you’re required to clock in and out, and someone has to approve your time sheets. The Crow announced some time back there would be NO telecommuting for ASU employees. That edict is more honored in the breach by anyone who works behind the lines, but in fact, telecommuting is verboten.
And what’s $50,000, anyway, if they come up with more furloughs and increasingly creative ways to dock your pay? A $700 parking fee is nothing other than a pay cut. If the job is classified, the bite for the state pension plan — from which future retirees may never see a penny and to which I would have to contribute until I’m 76 years old to be vested — is 9 percent of gross.
Seriously, once you leave the grind you realize how much of your soul really was being sold on a daily basis.
Hubby and I had this very conversation. We have a rough plenty now and wouldn’t go back to jobs with a gun to our heads.
Why are you rejecting yourself? Why not apply and see what they have to say?
What’s the worst thing that happens – you get the job and demand more money or less days? They say no and all you did was waste a couple hours?