Two Stupid Jobs

December 11, 2009 9:51 AM

I went from possibly being unemployed to being offered two jobs I only sort of want. I need to take one of them in order to live, which should I take?

I recently posted this anonymous askme about getting an internship in public radio, and I ended up getting the position. I then had to tell my employers at a full time job that I have worked at for four years (outsourced IT) that I would like to go part time for three months during the internship. Initially, they told me there was no place for me there while I was doing the internship and there was much hand-wringing and worrying about money, as well as applying for other positions.

Eventually, me and my employers were able to come to an agreement where I would move away from my current position in account management toward a more sales-oriented position. I will be taking a pay cut, from 73k to 60k, which won't impact me much. For the three months that I am part time, I will be making 30k, which, while difficult, I can handle. My continued employment is provisional on my success in this position, and will be reviewed again when the internship wraps up at the end of March

During the period of hand-wringing and application sending, I applied for a position at a non-profit as their operations manager. This non-profit works with first amendment issues and, as someone who wants to work in journalism, has a mission that much more jibes with my world view than the corporation I currently work at. About 2/3 of the job will be administrative and kind of dry, but there is a third that will allow me to work on education initiatives, writing for the website, and other things that I feel like I would actually enjoy. The executive director of this non-profit has basically told me that he would like to offer me the position and that he just needs the approval of the board.

The problem with this position is that it starts, full-time, at 36k a year, a little less than half of what I make now. Additionally, the director has made it clear to me that it will require more than the standard 40 hours a week, and will include having to go to conferences (pays us for travel and lodging, but no per diem or anything.) The director has made it clear that they are not looking for "nine to fivers," and they want a person who can commit outside of the standard 40 hour work week. I live in New York city, and I'm paying about $825.00 a month for rent. Doing the math, if I were making 36k a year, after taxes, rent would be just under half of my total monthly income.

So I'm faced with a choice. In one corner, a sales job that I almost certainly won't enjoy, at a decent pay rate, with the provision that I need to remain successful or I will be let go, and in the other a job which I might like a little more (though still saddled with a lot of drudgery) for very little money, requiring hours beyond the standard 40. Honestly, neither of these are holding a very strong appeal for me at the moment. My focus is on radio and journalism, both admittedly difficult fields to break into.

I guess my question would be, which one sounds less painful to you?

Should I go for financial security and take the sales job?

or

Should I go for a position that I might potentially like more and work for peanuts for the forseeable future?

Your help would be appreciated. Any questions can be sent to throwaway email address:

[e-mail]

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (16 answers total)

Loving your job doesn't pay the bills, especially in NYC. Sorry. You didn't mention benefits, but I would take that into consideration alongside salary: when you need health or dental insurance, you really need it, even if the rest of the time you don't think about it. That said, you're going to have some free time during the part-time period. See if you can work for that nonprofit or another you support in your free time. I assume, making 30K, that you're working roughly half the time you'd work for 60K, so somewhere less than 40 hours.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 9:58 AM on December 11, 2009

If you accept the non-profit position, you'll be taking a pay cut from 73k to 36k. I would say stick with the higher paying job (even at the part time rate) so you can sock away money so when a fabulous new journalism/radio opportunity presents itself, you can pursue it.

Internships are a great place to find these new opportunities... good luck to you!
posted by timpanogos at 10:07 AM on December 11, 2009

I'm a little confused - have you already done the internship? If you take the nonprofit job, do you have to give up the internship?

Normally I would say go for the nonprofit job and see it as something like another internship, but being "operations manager" there might not actually give you much of a chance to do the substantive stuff you want to do. On the other hand, there's no substitute for the contacts you'll make there.
posted by yarly at 10:11 AM on December 11, 2009

It pains me to watch myself type these words, but "liking your job is a luxury."
posted by rhizome at 10:12 AM on December 11, 2009 [1 favorite]

I've worked in nonprofits that sound like the one you described, where they expect employees to work 50+ hour weeks on crap pay and no benefits because employees should be working for the love of the cause! Those nonprofits treated their employees poorly, and the compensation was only the start of it. Your description of this nonprofit set off those warning bells for me.
posted by rhapsodie at 10:15 AM on December 11, 2009 [5 favorites]

Having worked at various non-profits for the last 4 years, I can tell you that it's both greatly rewarding and also really shitty. (Of course, it depends on which non-profit, the people you work with, etc). If you are super-stoked about what the organization is doing, though, that really helps with the whole notmakingmoney thing. Because to be honest, you probably won't ever be making 73k at a non-profit.

Also, working at a non-profit usually means that even though your title is one thing, you end up doing ten other things that aren't necessarily in your job description. Which to me, is a pretty good thing. It keeps you from being burnt out.

(Again, this is based on my experience only.)

If you're going for prudence, though, it sounds like keeping your part time job might be wiser in the long run.
posted by too bad you're not me at 10:19 AM on December 11, 2009

You should be trying to get IT jobs, not sales jobs and not nonprofit jobs that don't pay. Or you should move somewhere cheaper.
posted by beerbajay at 10:44 AM on December 11, 2009 [1 favorite]

I don't know what is an appropriate answer to this question. Only you really know what you can really afford (mentally and financially) in taking a pay cut. Were I in this position, I would take the nonprofit job because currently, I make a good salary in a job I hate, which I took because I was stressed by lack of discretionary fun money working for a lesser salary in a field I liked. It's not worth it. It really isn't; you trade the financial stress for existential angst. In my case, the negative impact in my life from angst is triple the impact of financial stress.
posted by crush-onastick at 10:47 AM on December 11, 2009 [1 favorite]

I think you are overestimating the enjoyment you will get out of a job that is in an area that you are excited about and underestimating how annoying it is going to get to put in those unpaid hours. Going from 73k to 36k is going to be hard and you're probably going to miss lots of little luxuries that you are used to now.
posted by peacheater at 11:03 AM on December 11, 2009 [2 favorites]

I have to agree with rhapsodie - your description of the non-profit position, its pay and their expectations sounds like they look to take advantage of you. I understand that NPs can't compensate commensurately with FPs, but that doesn't mean that they should run their employees into the ground, not buy them lunch on the road (unforgivable in my book), expect them to care, and expect them to live in the NYC area (which we all know is painfully expensive), all for $36K. No good.

Also, if you're working 50+ hours per week, when will you have time to work on what you're really interested in?

Save your money from the higher-paying job and focus on your pursuit of the radio and journalism.
posted by SixteenTons at 11:33 AM on December 11, 2009 [1 favorite]

But if you take the non-profit job you won't be able to do the internship of your dreams right?

If you are not super excited about that job I'd stay where you are and focus on the internship and maybe trying to get some freelance journalism work.
posted by grapesaresour at 12:14 PM on December 11, 2009

As a career salesperson, I want to warn you to make sure you understand clearly what "success" means in the 3 months that you are part time. If you are starting from scratch with no standing accounts, selling anything in 3 months is going to be a challenge, especially as a part timer. If they only thing they are taking into account is sales you will very likely be unemployed in 90 days.
posted by COD at 12:47 PM on December 11, 2009

If you make 36K and pay $825 in rent you will need either a roommate to split rent with or a second job. From experience.

On paper it seems like you can swing it - oh after rent and utilities and the phone bill and groceries I'll still have a few hundred dollars....and then something happens - you get sick and need to go to the hospital, your rent goes up, whatever - and your wirld is screwed.
posted by WeekendJen at 12:47 PM on December 11, 2009

your world, even
posted by WeekendJen at 12:47 PM on December 11, 2009

You may also want to consider the future of journalism. Every major journalistic outlet is cutting jobs, closing publications/stations, and trying to get away with hiring fewer people. I don't mean to rain on your parade, but now is not the time to get into journalism.

Put it this way: if you knew for sure that you'd never be able to support yourself by working as a journalist, which job would you rather have? Would you stay in IT as a career? Would you go into advocacy or other stuff related to what the non-profit is doing? Would you do something else entirely? Whatever the answer to that question is, that's what I think you should do.

(I'd take the non-profit job. But then, I've lived in NY on less than $30k, and I couldn't imagine doing a job that I don't care passionately about. Other people are different, which is why you have to decide what's right for you.)
posted by decathecting at 1:19 PM on December 11, 2009

If you're interested in breaking into broadcast journalism, you may be working for peanuts for the foreseeable future anyway. And there really are not a lot of journalism jobs to be had right now, even for peanuts.

Assuming that your are fully committed to working in journalism, my personal approach would be as follows: work part-time at your current company while doing the radio internship (it doesn't sound like the nonprofit job would allow you time to do the internship anyway, right? or am I misreading the situation?). Kick ass at the radio station, learn as much as you can, take on as much responsibility as possible.

At the end of the internship, there are two basic possibilities: either the station will hire you or they won't. If they do, rejoice, take the job, and start living very close to the bone. If they don't, go back to full time at your current company and start saving as much money as possible while applying to journalism positions, taking any little freelance gigs you can find, maybe doing some citizen journalism etc. Eventually, hopefully, you will be doing journalism full time or close to full time and can leave your current employer.

Working at a nonprofit is exhausting and not something I would try to do halfway. Especially when you're starting out, there will be lots of new stuff to learn, you will want to impress people, and you will not have much energy left over for your radio work.

I'm also thinking here about the narrative on your resume. My gut instinct is that it's fairly easy for a potential employer to understand someone working in the corporate world for a while and then making one big move to follow their dream of being a journalist. It might be a little harder to explain why you jumped from IT to non-profit work and now want to leave that too. I'm not saying impossible, just a little harder.

On the other hand! You could take the non-profit job and discover you love it. You could use it as an opportunity to write more, do a newsletter for the organization, etc. There's also the chance that you could start the radio internship and discover that it's awful. So, the above is what I would do, but in the end you need to follow your gut.
posted by Mender at 1:44 PM on December 11, 2009