North, South, East or West? Heh... Might be up or down for all I know.

I think I'm at a crossroads in my life, though I may be making a mountain out of a molehill.

So I've been perplexed by a decision I have to make within the next month. I've been offered a job working for Alltel Wireless. I'll make less than what I'm making now at AT&T but the job is stable, I'll be getting benefits, and there is advancement. AT&T is a contract gig. No bennies, no advancement (unless they hire us full time which, while likely, probably won't be for a sometime yet), but great pay and easy work.

I was going to sit down and make a pros/cons list because this decision has me split right down the middle. I mean, typically, I'll lean one way or the other. But this one has me completely at a loss. While contemplating my decision, I was checking out WWdN:iX and Wil's post about about the journey, not the destination made me realize that I'm no longer a kid, doing what's easiest or what makes me the most money isn't what drives me anymore. The fact that I'm contemplating leaving one job for another based on the ability to make a career out of it really surprised me.

True, I haven't made my decision. I could very well choose to go with the money as it could really help me right now. But do I really need it? I don't think so. The pay cut I'm taking is only $1+ an hour which isn't all that bad. And the drive would be considerably shorter. So that's a benefit in its own right.

But then the money would help get me out of debt a lot faster and the job really is easy. But it's such a rinky-dink set up. They haven't gotten anything truly stable yet as it's a new product. So we have to deal with seriously pissed off customers, field technicians who electrocute themselves because, gods love 'em, they were only born with half a brain, and lower level techs who are too afraid to try anything because they don't want to screw up and have the customers yell at them.

The decision is harder than I had ever realized. I would start with Alltel November 5th so I have until then to make a decision. I mean, I don't even know what it's going to be like at Alltel. I can only hope it'll be like Verizon. While VZW had its drawbacks, it was a stable company with a lot of room to grow. I made it to supervisor there. I'm just not sure. Maybe it'll be worse. I wish I had a crystal ball. Not to see how things would come out, but to get lottery numbers so I could just throw this whole decision out the window and live in a giant mansion on a lake somewhere in Ireland. Eh, a man can dream.

And now, Email sig of the day, courtesy of WWdN: "Always be yourself. Unless you suck."