I has a job
All the chips are on the table. And I’ve decided. I’m going to work for my first-choice position.
I could have made more money at a place up north, but it would have been a more stressful, more uptight position. I could probably have made more money with a contractor for the navy, but it’d mean basically delving into a bunch of somebody else’s perl and saying there for a while. Probably could make a bit more from either of the other two positions, too, but I didn’t feel like either of them was a good fit.
So here I am, with a start date of March 24th, and the need to go car shopping. Lots to do, lots to do.
The recruiter at my second choice position did a good job trying to make me regret my decision, then he got angry and hung up on me when I told him. The third choice position kindly wished me the best of luck when I told him. The other one I talked to today (either the 4th or 5th place) expressed some degree of regret but understood, because it was a php/java dev job and I decided I wanted to keep moving in the sysadmin direction for a while.
I feel a bit relieved, but also a bit of “buyer’s remorse”. With so many choices and no really huge winner, I find myself wondering if I made the wrong choice. Maybe the traffic will be worse than I expect, or I’ll react to it worse than I expect. Maybe I should have taken the job that’d give me the most money. Maybe the job I think will be more stressful will actually be less. Maybe I won’t be able to grow in ways I’d be happy with at the one I picked.
I have to put all of that out of my mind though. The bottom line is I’m going to have income again, and it’s going to be significantly more than I had before.