That little koan has been reverberating through me for a little while now.
Which sucks.
A year ago I was offered a 20hr/wk job that paid $11/hr working in an after school program a half-hour drive from where I live. It would have required me to give up weekday reffing (which some months pays more than $220 a week), and was an entry-level education position offered to someone with over ten years experience in public education.
My potential supervisor could've been one of my students.
I passed it up, thinking 'something better will come along'.
Last month, I was offered a 12 hour/week job that paid $12/hr working in an after school program an hour-drive from home.
Uff.
A year ago July I passed up an offer to work in ground-zero social service agency, a very large, very infamous drop-in center for the most destitute homeless population in the very large city that I live in. The office I was interviewed in looked over the spot where a few months early, a 20 year old woman had been randomly and tragically shot dead. The offer was for $26,000 a year to work an entry-level job in the trenches. My rationale was that I had already worked in the trenches, and my last job paid me $28,000, so with a Master's degree I should get more, right?
Tonight I interviewed for a residential care facility for mentally ill children. The interviewer -who was a cool woman by all means- told me flat out the realities of the position. "Our policy for self-inflicted harm is to not intervene until it's life threatening. So I've sat for hours with clients cutting themselves like this (motions perpendicularly with the wrists = non-life threatening cutting) instead of (motions parallel to the wrist = life-threatening), with blood rushing out of their arms while talking to them about developing coping strategies and problem solving. Is this something you can handle?"
I worked in the trenches with "at-risk" youth 15 years ago and one reason I got a graduate degree was so I didn't have to do that sort of work any more.
I don't want the job.
How much worse is it going to get?
Which sucks.
A year ago I was offered a 20hr/wk job that paid $11/hr working in an after school program a half-hour drive from where I live. It would have required me to give up weekday reffing (which some months pays more than $220 a week), and was an entry-level education position offered to someone with over ten years experience in public education.
My potential supervisor could've been one of my students.
I passed it up, thinking 'something better will come along'.
Last month, I was offered a 12 hour/week job that paid $12/hr working in an after school program an hour-drive from home.
Uff.
A year ago July I passed up an offer to work in ground-zero social service agency, a very large, very infamous drop-in center for the most destitute homeless population in the very large city that I live in. The office I was interviewed in looked over the spot where a few months early, a 20 year old woman had been randomly and tragically shot dead. The offer was for $26,000 a year to work an entry-level job in the trenches. My rationale was that I had already worked in the trenches, and my last job paid me $28,000, so with a Master's degree I should get more, right?
Tonight I interviewed for a residential care facility for mentally ill children. The interviewer -who was a cool woman by all means- told me flat out the realities of the position. "Our policy for self-inflicted harm is to not intervene until it's life threatening. So I've sat for hours with clients cutting themselves like this (motions perpendicularly with the wrists = non-life threatening cutting) instead of (motions parallel to the wrist = life-threatening), with blood rushing out of their arms while talking to them about developing coping strategies and problem solving. Is this something you can handle?"
I worked in the trenches with "at-risk" youth 15 years ago and one reason I got a graduate degree was so I didn't have to do that sort of work any more.
I don't want the job.
How much worse is it going to get?
