August 3, 2003 ~ Dilemma
Sunday.
I've been hoping for a better financial opportunity for quite some time, but what we were offered today wasn't quite what I had in mind.
Morgan went to the manager of the restaurant this afternoon to try to work his hours around the new bookstore job, and she offered him a promotion. More pay, with benefits, regular hours, 40 hours a week, as a personal assistant, and he is still welcome to take some evening shifts bussing and hosting in the restaurant whenever he needs extra money.
If he takes it, we will be much more financially secure, will have much more time together, and he will be able to have a personal life again. Plus, he will be able to devote more solid time to the web design business.
But, if he takes it, he will have to give up his dream job at the bookstore (there's no way he could do both, the hours completely overlap), and he will be doing a job that he has no passion for whatsoever. (Balancing account books and being a personal assistant is not the direction he ever planned to go in. Working with books in a bookstore all day is something much closer).
The bookstore job doesn't pay much, though, and has no benefits. If he chooses it over the promotion at the restaurant, he will be sending a clear message to the restaurant manager that the restaurant is not his first priority, and she may cut his hours back or even cut him off the payroll completely come winter, when the restaurant staff is cut back. If Morgan keeps the bussing / hosting job, he is more of a disposable employee.
We know that the logical decision (for our finances and sanity and marriage) is for him to take this promotion and quit the bookstore job practically before he has even started. It looks obvious, when all laid out like that.
But we both really believe in doing something not just for the money that it will make but for our passion for it... Morgan wouldn't have any passion for the personal assistant job at the restaurant, but we would be much more financially secure. Morgan would love the bookstore job (does love the bookstore job) but if the restaurant manager takes his choice badly, we could end up in some serious financial trouble.
Morgan sounded near tears when he talked about the possibility of quitting the bookstore job. He loves the people there, he loves the atmosphere, he loves the manager/owner -- like I said, it is our favorite bookstore. And it would also suck to let them down by signing up to work with them and then quitting after just a few days.
I want for Morgan to have a job that he enjoys, for once. He was so happy when he came home last night, still glowing with stories from working at the bookstore. And he'd only been there one day. I haven't seen him that excited about a job ever before. But it looks like his happiness with his job could cost us any hope of ever getting out of this financial mess. I don't want for either of us to have to make that sort of decision.
Sometimes, I wish the fates would just decide for us, rather than pulling from two opposite sides. Lately it has felt as if we keep getting little delicious tastes of good things, only to have them pulled away a moment later.
What to do? What should we do? We have to decide by midday tomorrow.
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