Member- tirralirra
- 5 years ago
- Wedding: October 2013
Ok, so I need objective advice. I’ve been consulting family and friends all day on this, and I’m so completely wrecked over the whole thing. I think I really need outside opinions!
Long, long story made relatively short – I went to school, couldn’t find a job forever and ever, moved home (across country), got engaged and moved BACK across country, and have been looking for work while also going back to school part-time for an advanced degree in a specific field. At the beginning of January, I interviewed for a position that advertised as short-term contracts. The pay was abysmal, but it was something, it sounded interesting, and the commute was far but it was better than the sitting around I was largely doing. I went weeks expecting to hear from the company (who had said I would be contacted less than 1 week after my interview) and eventually gave up, only to get notification in mid-February that they’d like to hire me and my start date was in 1 week.
So. Now I’m at the job, although I freaked out beforehand about managing the time – 40 hours a week, plus commuting an hour each way, plus 20+ hours a week for school, and planning a fall wedding (and I will be out of the country for 6 weeks over the summer). The job is decent – I like my co-workers, they’re nice and we get along, and I like the casual, laid-back vibe at the office. But the traffic has been awful – an hour or more to get to work, close to 2 hours on the way home, and so I’m putting in 12 hour days and making right around minimum wage, plus filling my gas tank twice a week. A week in, I was absolutely miserable about it. I ended up talking to my previous school about what was going on, and I e-mailed a few professors to see about research work. Today, I got an offer to work on a project that is in my field, pays more per hour but is part-time, but is also a job I can do from home. I’d have complete flexibility to structure my job around my school work and my wedding preparations, and there’s always the possibility that it could lead to future opportunities. My current job is not really related to my field and although it incorporates some interests I have, it’s not leading me anywhere. I wouldn’t want to stay at the company long-term. My contract ended up being longer than I anticipated (12 months), but can be broken with 2 weeks notice.
I want to quit. I even think quitting is probably the better option for me. Burning bridges by turning down the opportunity (which I’ve indicated I want to accept) with my school would be worse than burning bridges at a company with whom I have no future. But I HATE letting people down and this puts my nice colleagues in the terrible situation of having to recruit someone fairly quickly to fill my position. In my offer from the company it stated there was a lot of demand, but I fear other candidates may have been formally rejected (although the long wait between receiving the offer and the original estimation leads me to believe perhaps I was not first choice but was never actually rejected) and difficult to recruit now. The company is trying to grow and find others, so perhaps already recruiting, and I didn’t have any sort of formal training to do my position.
Am I a horrible person for doing this? Is it unethical? My friends and family think it sucks but I need to act first and foremost for myself, but I’m worried about what it says about me and about putting in the 2 weeks after really upsetting people. We all share an office space and it will be a very awkward time. I think I shouldn’t have accepted the job in the first place, as I was concerned about the time commitment and my ability to do all of this at the same time, but I was so desperate after such a long search that I jumped at an opportunity and quickly regretted it. 🙁
