Rat Race

Opportunity

By Olive L. Sullivan

My son bopped into town this weekend from Wichita. He completed his job training program in Manhattan in May, and then he and his “tribe” packed up and moved to Wichita, where one of them had inherited a house (and a mortgage, apparently). Now nearly two months later, Frank is still looking for a job. The nice thing is that means he can just show up in Pittsburg for a few days or a week or whatever; the bad thing is that he has no money. Whenever he’s looking for a job, I find that I fall back on the same phrases, chief among them, “No one’s just going to call up and offer you a job.”

He retorts, “It happens to you all the time.” Then I explain, well, yeah, but I also have more than 20 years of experience in my field, two college degrees, and a lot of additional knowledge. He has a lot of knowledge, no degrees or experience, and attitude. I also network all the time. He doesn’t. So, I repeat, no one is just going to call and offer him a job.

However, since he’s been here, I’ve had tentative offers for three jobs. Sigh. This is not helping my parental case – although it’s doing wonders for my ego. And it’s required me to give a lot of hard thought to what I really want at this point in my professional life. I say – often, and to anyone who will listen – that I want the freedom to write, edit, coach writing clients, and do all of this on my own schedule. That schedule would allow for lots of travel and lots of sleep. I say money is nice, but it’s a means to an end. I’m not working solely for a paycheck. And then someone comes along and offers me that, and I have to rethink it all.

I make a good living here at my real job, and I do have a fair amount of freedom, except for the whole part where I have to be at my desk from 8 to 5 every damn day. While I’m here, however, I get to do a variety of things, some of them interesting. I have good benefits and I like the people I work with.

Of the three potential jobs, two are in publishing, which is where I feel most comfortable. I know my way around a publication. I understand deadlines and all the assorted tasks. I enjoy it a lot. It does not pay well. Both of these positions, one full- and one part-time, are in Missouri. So I would be earning less money, have the same or greater commute, and be fulfilled. The part-time one would allow for travel; the other would require an even more intense work schedule than the one I have now. But it would be fun. You see why this is difficult.

The third job is as an administrative assistant. A part-time job would provide me a nice base income, on top of which I could put my freelance money, but I don’t think the total would match my current salary, certainly not unless I stepped up the freelance part quite a bit. On the other hand, I could set my own schedule and work in Pittsburg – no commute. On the other hand (how many hands do I need, anyway?), the work, while valuable and supporting a cause I believe in, sounds like it would not feed my soul anymore than the work I do here at the real job, and maybe less. I shudder when people toss around words like “spreadsheet” and “phone calls.” At least here I get to do a lot of design work. It may not be the most creative outlet I’ve ever experienced, but every time I put together a product sheet or a label, I’m building my design skills, and that’s good. A day spent messing around with the CS3 design suite is a pretty good day. If it includes a canoe outing with Spike in the evening, it’s a darn good day.

I keep saying I want my life to look different, but then options present themselves, and I keep coming back to the conclusion that I’m here at the real job for a reason. In the past couple of months, I think I’ve done a pretty good job of honoring the creative side of my nature. I’m doing more poetry readings and working harder on my creative writing on the side. I’m maintaining the freelance editing business, and working with beginning and intermediate writers. I’m not getting rich doing it, as I would be if I were successfully practicing the Law of Attraction, but I don’t have to get rich because I have a good job with a good salary to fall back on. Maybe I’m getting closer to a work-life balance. Maybe I’m just settling in to the place I find myself. I’m good at that.

I don’t like to think of myself as motivated by a big paycheck – it doesn’t fit my grasshopper persona -- but it doesn’t hurt to have a little security, or as much security as anyone can have in such a down economy. After all, there is no guarantee that my job will continue. It may be that someday I won’t have to dither about what I should do. The decision will be made for me. When that happens, I’ll be just like Frank, with all the time to travel that I want, and that will be the perfect time to invent myself for the next go-round. Meanwhile, I’m staying put – at least for now. Until the next person calls with a job offer, and I have to think it through all over again!

My column "Back to the Rat Race" appears every two weeks in Joplin Tri-State Business. This edition was published on June 29, 2009. JTSB is now available online at www.joplintristate.biz.