Working On It

Yes, I would leave this for the right job.

I could be driving a AAA truck for a living.

Of all the random job situations I've encountered over the last four years, the AAA job offer was by far the most random. But it makes sense, if you have the context. I was unemployed. You don't get rich driving a AAA truck but I would have made between $30,000 and $50,000 a year, depending on how much overtime I was willing to pick up.

It's a stable job. There's no chance people are going to stop driving cars and needing help. If you just want a job, you could do a lot worse than working for a nonprofit, member-owned company.

I've turned down a lot of jobs and potential jobs over the last four years. There was the night news editor job I turned down because it was a 60-mile commute. With stars in my eyes upon leaving Utah, I thought I wasn't going to work nights ever again.

When I was interviewing for a part-time job in Portland, the editor in chief asked me if I was interested in being the sports editor in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. Yes, I'm interested, but I can't leave my wife in Maine alone to go through PA school.

There were jobs that didn't materialize in Reno. There was the time I flew to Pittsburgh and interviewed for a job on their chop-shop copy desk. There were jobs I was a shoo-in for in the Midwest and in Boston that nobody ever even called me about.

It was something of a revelation to land my job in Maine just over a year ago. Portland's a great place to live (eight months out of the year, anyway). We have fantastic friends here. We can afford a nice house here. I can walk to work.

A few months ago, as The Wife and I sat down to eat a meal together on a rare jointly-held night off, I had a small complaint about our current situation: I work until after midnight four nights a week.

"I get kind of mad at God sometimes," I told her, "because I don't get to control the situation. What I'd really like to do is write, during the daytime."

God, as it turns out, is hilarious.

That conversation was Wednesday night. On Friday, a call came from a friend with a job that I was perfect for. Daytime hours. Writing. A prime beat. All in all, a fantastic gig ... over 2,000 miles away from Maine.

We weren't interested in moving, but ... it was a Fantastic Gig.

How do you say no to that kind of offer? We spent six weeks trying to sort that out. At some point, TW was mentally packing boxes and calling a moving company. At some point, I figured out how much the move was going to cost. We both spent days on Trulia and Zillow looking at houses.

But, like I said, God's hilarious.

It turns out real estate is more expensive in other states. Obviously, this offer wasn't in Texas, the land of cheap McMansions. I'll give away that much.

We were still seriously considering leaving, but then we had a soft sale of our Portland condo fall through. And at some point, leaving Maine just didn't make any sense. It was a Fantastic Gig, but we just couldn't make it work.

It was horrible turning down the Fantastic Gig. I was letting a friend down and I realized how much I miss writing. I'm still working on not feeling terrible about it.

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I'm thankful for my wife. Did you know that? You probably did. Saturday was graduation day from her old school, the University of New England. Less than two years later she was teaching a class at UNE.

She's been offered several full-time jobs in Maine since we moved back just over a year ago. One of those offers came the day after we turned down the Fantastic Gig.

Like I said, God's hilarious.

The Wife has even-more gainful employment and I'm doing what I always do. I run spellcheck at work and evade drunks on my walks home after midnight. We're back in the status quo.

That's not a bad thing. Dream big, I always encourage people. You really can achieve anything. But there's something to be said for not overturning everything that's good and right in your life to chase a dream.

The entire episode has been a net positive. Writing wasn't even on my radar a couple of months ago. Now it's all I think about. I've successfully wormed my way from the copy desk into writing at two papers before; who's to say it can't happen a third time?

Funnier things have happened.