Saturday, May 14, 2011

conflicted about jobs

I currently have a job I like in a career field that I like. (I teach English overseas to speakers of other languages - TESOL.) I don't make much money. Someone recently pointed out to me that I have been 'living like a college student' for the past ten years (I graduated from college ten years ago this week!) - and that is pretty accurate. I have good friends my age who are now business owners, others who work for large international companies, and others who work for the US government... I enjoy my life, although I admit that sometimes I compare myself to my friends and feel like a bit of a failure.

My current contract ends at the end of July. I've got a wonderful month-long vacation planned for August in Ukraine (except that I'm taking the GRE right smack in the middle of said vacation...), and I've accepted a TESOL position in Ukraine, scheduled to start in September. Even though I have accepted that position, there are some issues concerning work visas and cat-friendly apartments, making it not 100% a go - perhaps more like 90%. Still, I'd been counting on doing that. I'd also been planning to start a grad school program in TESOL in fall 2012 (thus the mid-vacation GRE).

Then a couple of days ago a very different possible opportunity landed in my lap. It is possible - although I don't know how probable - that I might land a job here in Korea as a technical writer for a successful technology firm that is looking to expand into the English speaking market. The potential salary would be half again what I'm making now (as opposed to the job in Ukraine, which would be just half my current salary), with some great benefits - including lots of potential overseas travel to some pretty cool locales. But, it would be a career change. And I'd have to back out of my commitment to the school in Ukraine, and probably delay grad school until 2013.

I'm really of two minds about this - I'd love to do both, although that's not possible. As it is, I've submitted my CV to the company here in Korea. If they end up hiring me (I have a bit of an 'in' - someone from the company called my current boss to ask if he could recommend any native English speakers for the position, and he recommended me) I'll be coming back to Korea after my Ukrainian vacation. If not, I'll stay in Ukraine (assuming everything with visas and cat-friendly apartments works out). I'll keep you posted on how this unfolds!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good luck with your decision! I don't think that you should feel bad at all if you need to back out of the one job. Hope that you can decide which is best for you. Seems like it would be cool to try something new.

Don't know if I'm one of your successful friends or not, but take comfort in knowing that we have 80K in student loan debt and a house cross country that's worth 60K less than what we paid for it. So it's not all sunshine and flowers.

Annie Nimity said...

Haha, you *are* one of my successful friends. And at least your house is rentable and in a city where people want to live. Unlike my former $30k house in the ghetto, which is now worth maybe $10k :-(

I figure if I get offered the Korea job, I'll take it. If not, I'll just stay in Ukraine!

G said...

You are so not a failure at all! You are doing exactly what you set out to do. I seem to remember all of this being outlined a certain manifesto a few years ago :)

Annie Nimity said...

True... but I wrote that 6 years ago (!!) when I was a lot younger, and before I started seriously thinking about things like stock tips and retirement savings.

Anonymous said...

And don't worry about accepting the job until you get a job offer!