Blogorama
Except this won’t be…but it’s a neat title and I like making words into weirdo words (like instead of rammed saying ramalamadingdonged).
Quick note: the version of word that I’m using has that paperclip helper guy. Awesome!
So I maybe have some thoughts to think-write about for this post…or it might devolve into a mess of unrelated and poorly formulated speculations (but aren’t they all?).
This afternoon I will hopefully be confirming the increase of my day-job hours from 24 (recently up from 22) to 32 hours/week. This now perfectly replaces the amount of time that my research position required—a position which I officially completed last Thursday (yay!), the completion of which I will be officially celebrating tomorrow night with a fancy (gift certificate!) dinner out.
Aside from getting paid slightly less per hour for the day job hours (but still paid alright), this is, in my opinion, a near perfect switch. The scales stay equal.
Prior to this (and as you well know) I completed my receptionist job. Last time I checked they had gutted the office, so I don’t really know what’s happening there (renovations? foreclosure?); but regardless, it paid little, killed my brain, and was only useful/worth it while I was working my research assistant hours.
So I’m down two jobs, increasing hours in another one, and counting down the days until I have to start tutoring again. And herein lays the rub.
If, as I predict, I will be finalizing my day-job hour-increase this afternoon, then I will be on campus for 9 hours each day, Monday-Thursday (plus 1.5 hours of commuting each day). That’s a lot. That’s more than a full (or even a little more than a full) time job (32 hours of paid work, plus four hours of unpaid lunches, plus six hours of commuting = 42 hours/week). Add to this my volunteer commitments, which, when things slow down again, will be five hours a week (right now they’re ten+, but I know that won’t be the norm and I’m trying hard to resist the urge to whine about it/build it in like a martyr).
Today, I got an email from my tutee, double checking that we’re still on for this upcoming year. FYI I agreed to tutor this student for the upcoming school year way back in April, when I first got my day job (at the school where she studies). In theory (a.k.a. at 22 hours/week) it was all going to work out swimmingly; work 5.5 hours/day, tutor for two more one day each week in the same location(!), make some extra buck, help a gal out….win, win, win, win.
But, as outlined above, things have changed.
I’m pretty sure adding my extra day-job hours is going to be fairly exhausting for a while; and even once it becomes routine, I doubt I’m going to be able to commit any more than two hours/week to tutoring. Since last year during academic crunch times my student and I were meeting anywhere for four to eight hours each week, I already know my reduced availability is going to make for a bad scene.
In addition, when I first signed up for tutoring it was a job I needed; it was for money I needed. Now, however, I have the day job to cover my butt; not to mention the fact that since I can’t commit to more than two hours a week (as a result of said day job), the money doesn’t make the difference that it did last year.
Aside from the financial considerations, and the fact that I won’t be able to help support my student in the same (so necessary) way I could last year, I also simply don’t want to do it. I’m already not looking forward to it, and I think if I read over some past blogs, I haven’t been looking forward to it for some time. I don’t want to have another job. By the end of this month it will be one full year of having two or more jobs. I am tired and I am done. I cobbled out of necessity and now I don’t have to anymore.
If I’m really honest, I think it’s bad to go back on the commitment I made to my student four months ago…but I know it’s worse to keep it and be bitter, withholding and, probably (again, being honest) mean to her.
If I’m true to my own claims—that my time is worth more than money—then I should back out not, giving my student ample time to find someone else (and, in my defense, there is a huge roster of available tutors that can help her probably more than I did). Even though my finances will suffer (a smidge), and my student will panic (for a minute), I think we’ll both be happier parting here, one happy year under our belts.
Ya. I think that’s what I’ll do. Thanks for listening.
