Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Here are the choices: stay in my job that used to be mindless but I could leave it all on my desk and go blithely into the other sixteen hours of my day. I could switch it off so fast and so completely that I honestly forgot I worked there when I was on my lunch break. As day jobs went, it was pretty ideal. I haven’t had tons of time to write since I took it, but I’ve been creeping along (thank you, #5amWritersClub).
However! This job (for leadership reasons) is still mindless but now also angry-making, the poison of which has seeped into my thought processes at all hours. I sometimes think I can’t make it through another day, let alone the entire next year before I apply for Leave to Remain (the first tier of UK citizenship, for those of you who are not semi-pro immigration wonks like I am), and can stop doing ALL the day jobs. But it’s in a community I love, and I get to live in our own flat in a town where we raised our kids. At the end of the day I have loads of people who support me and will help me get through this one last year, not the least of whom are my current work colleagues/peers.
Or, Door Number Two: take a job four+ hours away, working with children again. My current novel project is a fictionalized version of a year I taught in an all-Black Catholic school in Baltimore’s Empowerment Zone, so for purely practical reasons it would be good to be immersed in an education setting again. I am a method writer, for sure. But also, kids are great company and I’ve done this very job before and could do a lot to ring-fence their childhoods for them. To give them good days when their lives can be so hard sometimes. Ditto for their teachers, who have incredibly difficult jobs—I know I can help them remember why they love working with children. But I’d have to leave my community and home (only for a year!) and pay rent into someone else’s pocket while covering the taxes and utilities back here, too. I know a few people in this new area, but wouldn’t have gym buddies to hang out with at the end of the day. I’d have to drive four+ hours to walk and talk with true friends on the weekends. I’m often lonely now, with my husband and kids and dog so far from me (only for one more year!) but would be super-alone if I took this job. And also, maybe it’s a tiny bit unethical to take a job with children when I know I’ll be leaving it in a year.
My friend Colette, who has taught me everything I know about the Enneagram personality type system and therefore an awful lot about myself, reminds me that my personality type (5) often feels like there’s not quite enough of me to go around, especially emotionally. That Fives tend to hoard personal resources against the demands being placed on them. I can see where this might be my biggest source of hesitation in the current situation—but I sometimes have to remind Colette (and others who suggest I should just dig deeper and try harder to find moremoremore of myself) that my finite personal energy is a real thing. I really do get exhausted by emotional demands. It is not just a point of personal development—it’s a feature, not a bug for me. I’ve done this job here for two and a half years, and I’ve done the job I might be taking for many more years than that. In neither case will I just have to try harder to have more creative energy for writing. I’ll be zapped either way, just for different reasons.
I’ve vague-posted about this on the socials (link) but I hope this gives you more context on the decision I’m facing. Feel free to ask clarifying questions below, if I’m still not making sense. Or just tell me what to do!
I need help, y’all. I’m leaning towards staying? But there’s another job or two in the works…?
You had me at “Poison”.
In my opinion, nothing is more valuable than one’s peace & peace of mind, thus, staying can’t be my recommendation unless you have leverage to change the situation / reporting structure.
Leave it to you to cut right to the heart of the matter, Paul! It’s hard to wriggle away from the pin you’ve stuck into it.
I totally understand the draining of your emotional energy bank. But it sounds like the toxicity of the current situation is a certainty while the other seems full of promise and the possibility for personal growth as well as making a real difference in the lives of some kids. I don’t know about the ethics you mention — do all teachers commit beyond a year? It’s not something I’ve noticed in my children’s lives although we were blessed with much continuity at St. Joseph.
You know best about the financials, but shouldn’t they be secondary anyway once the essentials are “covered”?
Good luck in your decision!
That’s a helpful way to frame my ethical quandary, Nancy – since it’s not a school teaching job, I hadn’t really thought about how some teachers are *only* around from one year to the next. Thank you so much for weighing in!
This is a really tough one. I think there’s not an easy answer. On one hand, poison. On the other, distance and loneliness. On the first hand again, the support of familiar friends, colleagues, town, and home. On the second, familiar work you know you’re good at, and the chance for fresh friendships. It sounds as if there will be things to suffer over, and things to be joyful over, either way. Maybe you won’t know whether you’ve made the right choice until years from now. Maybe there is no wrong choice, just two complex choices. If there are other jobs on the horizon that would let you stay where you are, well, that could be the best of all.