and, just like that, this morning i'm leaning towards taking it. i've been looking around to see what else is out there and this really is a good offer: the job is senior enough that it doesn't feel like backsliding (although it's a bit lateral). it would be a big raise over any salary i've made before. it would introduce me to new geographies and new ways of doing things. on the career path i've been on so far, it's about as good an offer as i'd be likely to get. i've got a call with the recruiter in an hour to talk about whether they'd let me do four tens instead of a normal work week, which would free up an extra day per week to pursue other things.
on the other hand, the objection about it cutting off my ability to pursue a whole other trajectory full-time, to explore in a really open-ended way, is still there. i do not need the money right now. same for the objection that i know, now, that i don't want to be a proposal writer for the rest of my life, and this represents more time doing that full-time. this job doesn't have to determine the rest of my career, obviously -- i've probably got another 30 years of working life ahead of me -- but it's a step in that direction.
at the same time, given that i'm still so hazy on what else i'd rather be doing professionally, it makes sense to take it and then to get more focused in my spare time about exploring this and that, having conversations, coming up with research questions, and organizing locally. having all my time to myself has been really nice but it also makes it very easy to procrastinate and stay shapeless. i'm pretty self-disciplined but i've found it hard over the past couple of months to get the ball rolling on these questions and explorations. in fairness to myself, i have done some of that, had a couple of informational interviews. but when i talked with my professor back in the summer, he suggested i come up with some two-page concept notes for research projects and try to shop them around to different NGOs. i haven't even begun to do that.
like, what if i take the job but have as a medium-term goal -- within the next 12-18 months, say -- a collaborative research project that i could leave this organization to do full-time for a while? and in the meantime, forge some connections and maybe try to tack myself onto other folks's research projects by basically volunteering to help with technical editing, coding, whatever. get some experience and grow my network in a new direction that way.
i dunno, maybe i should take the job. worse comes to worst i really do hate it and leave after three months. best case scenario, the people are great and i'm learning new stuff and i have time and motivation on the side to start looking around.
yarr.
