Personal musings, feel free to skip.
Got a job offer from a company, basic end-user support. Some networking and hardware work, mainly on IBM machines. Starting pay is $16 an hour, moving to $18 after the first year and then going from there, which is a decent step up from the meager $11.50 I'm making now. I'm qualified, I'm able, it's good pay, plenty of opportunity to go further. Then she tells me that there's some travel involved. Specifically around 25% of the time I'd be in one of Georgia's border states supporting one of the remote facilities.
And I turn it down. My father spent most of the time whenI was young on the road. He'd be gone before my brother and I woke up, and get home after we had gone to sleep. There were plenty of nights that he spent at the office, bunked on the couch. He provided for us as best he could, he was able to ensure that my mother would be able to be a stay-at-home mom, and it was appreciated, but I still missed having him around. By the time I started getting older there was a lot of resentment built up, and there were a lot of fights. I don't want to do that with my family.
But that wasn't the real reason I turned the offer down, not after I thought about it for a bit. It's much more personal than that.
It was because of the little voice in the back of my head that jumped up and started going "Yes! Go for it!" It's the same little voice that's quite happy to pull any and all overtime, the one that thinks 60 hour work weeks arn't enough. The one that measures my value by the numbers on my paycheck. When I was in college, I listened to that little voice a lot. I would put in a good 60-70 hours of work a week, between the theater and my actual job-type job. I went from popping caffine pills like candy, to ephedra, to meth and whatever other uppers I could fine. Never did coke, though, probably because I couldn't get any. By the end of it, my system was so torn up that I couldn't eat much more than broth for about a month. And the scariest thing about it was that I was happy doing it. I've never slept so well. That total and utter exhaustion told me that I was doing something... if not worthwhile, then something that I had put absolutely everything I had into. It was a good feeling, and it took me awhile to realize the addiction for what it was. Bu that point, it had damn near killed me. My stomach is still nowhere near what it was before that couple of months.
I try not to listen to that little voice anymore.
But it's still there.
And I turn it down. My father spent most of the time whenI was young on the road. He'd be gone before my brother and I woke up, and get home after we had gone to sleep. There were plenty of nights that he spent at the office, bunked on the couch. He provided for us as best he could, he was able to ensure that my mother would be able to be a stay-at-home mom, and it was appreciated, but I still missed having him around. By the time I started getting older there was a lot of resentment built up, and there were a lot of fights. I don't want to do that with my family.
But that wasn't the real reason I turned the offer down, not after I thought about it for a bit. It's much more personal than that.
It was because of the little voice in the back of my head that jumped up and started going "Yes! Go for it!" It's the same little voice that's quite happy to pull any and all overtime, the one that thinks 60 hour work weeks arn't enough. The one that measures my value by the numbers on my paycheck. When I was in college, I listened to that little voice a lot. I would put in a good 60-70 hours of work a week, between the theater and my actual job-type job. I went from popping caffine pills like candy, to ephedra, to meth and whatever other uppers I could fine. Never did coke, though, probably because I couldn't get any. By the end of it, my system was so torn up that I couldn't eat much more than broth for about a month. And the scariest thing about it was that I was happy doing it. I've never slept so well. That total and utter exhaustion told me that I was doing something... if not worthwhile, then something that I had put absolutely everything I had into. It was a good feeling, and it took me awhile to realize the addiction for what it was. Bu that point, it had damn near killed me. My stomach is still nowhere near what it was before that couple of months.
I try not to listen to that little voice anymore.
But it's still there.