Prospects

This afternoon I went to a going-away party for the current director of Doug's House, the AIDS hospice I started volunteering at last year. After 4 years, she's decided to move on, not surprisingly. It's an emotionally draining, low-paying and probably fairly thankless job.

I haven't been back since the end of the last school semester (early last December), but everyone seemed happy to see me. I met the new director of the place, a really nice middle-aged guy who seems really enthusiastic about coming on board. In fact, while I was talking to him, he offered me a job.

Basically, I would be doing the same types of things I was as a volunteer, except.... with a lot more responsibility, and well, literally getting my hands dirtier. I would probably have to deal with a lot of bodily fluid clean-up, including poop, vomit, blood, urine, and whatever else comes out of human bodies when people are dying. And since I would be a paid staffer, I wouldn't be able to refuse like I could (and did!) as a volunteer. I would also have to track and distribute medication, which makes me a little nervous.

On the plus side, it pays $2 more an hour than I'm making right now at an increasingly intolerable retail job. On the down side (in addition to poop, vomit and blood), the hours would be irregular, not guaranteed, and possibly not the most desirable (at best). Like working overnight on Fridays.

In talking to the director, he said he would like to work with me to try to set a more regular schedule that would be to my liking, but maybe wouldn't be able to set anything in stone.

So I also always have the option of just cutting down my hours at said Intolerable Retail Nightmare, to, perhaps, 18-20 a week, and pick up the rest at the hospice. At least until maybe I get more comfortable and sure that I want to continue doing that. So I told the director I'd think about it and get back to him. It's very tempting.

Of course, according to Malcolm Gladwell, I've probably already made my decision. Now I'm just trying to figure out the best way to go about it.