Job Opportunity Dilemma: Love Location or Love Cash. WWYD?

I read the first post in this thread and knew you'd come to the right decision. Now I'm at the last post and you did. Congratulations on your new job.

 

If you are going to pay seven percent of your income as rent for your house and rent is $1,500 a month then you would make a quarter million a year. I think in today's local news market that is really good money and you should grab it. .

 

It’s not that much… but it’ll pay for everything and then some.

 

Yeah. There has to be some seasonal or special event tag.

The new love is the parent or teacher he meets covering a story.

 

I've lived in cities that have great weather and shitty weather. I've lived in cities that are tourist destinations and others that are in the middle of nowhere.

If you've got some friends and the work situation is solid, those are the most important things. Good luck!

 

If it’s a Hallmark film, there’s always a dog involved too.

 

Oh, and as for advice, I’ll quote that noted philosopher Biff Tannen:

Make like a tree, and get outta there.

 

The journo in Hallmark films lives in some of the nicest digs in town and has time to cook and do crossword puzzles.

I got the formula by the azz because I've sat through about eleventy billion of these films.

 

I guess I'm in the minority. Having lived in a place I hated at a job that was pretty fulfilling, and now living in a pretty desirable place but working at nowhere near my dream job, I'll much rather take the latter, and would suggest you consider doing the same.

I think I know the answer to this, but can you dial down your commitment to your current job, so that clusterfucks out of your hands don't affect your physical or mental health? Could you lateral to a tolerable job in the area you now live?

Of course, staying put doesn't solve what seems like an inevitable walk-the-plank moment in your current position.

As for gambling, can you mask your location with a VPN?

 

All good points.

In June, when I learned I would be moved from the anchor desk into management, I sent out applications all over the area for higher-end jobs that I figured I could transition into.

0-for-84. 46 were local. 38 were remote jobs.

Humbling. Eye-opening. Discouraging. I didn’t mind taking another pay cut to stay but I wasn’t going to walk away and work for peanuts.

Somewhere around late October, I tried that approach of dialing it back a little. Every day I came in with a plan for the day at 1 pm (I work through the late news).

By 5 pm, every day, it was blown to bits.

Ultimately, we are told that we’re being judged by how good our reporter content is.

Last night at 9, I have one reporter who doesn’t understand her story — so much so that we had to kill the story as she went to the wrong TOWN and started recording her standups about what she thought had happened.

Then I have my boss calling me at that moment, asking why this reporter doesn’t have a story and that I need to check on her more throughout the day.

Someone else assigned her the story at 10 am. I have to stay on top of 7 reporters each day/night, fix all their scripting mistakes, do their digital and track each story to review with them every 2 weeks. (We’re not even a small market…)

There are too many “what has happened to my career?” moments since the new assignment.

The only place where I get more interest than before… yup, TV news. Weirdly, every manager outside of my company is sympathetic to my plight and even giving me credit for not leaving.

TV news is like porn. We all start out with big dreams. Some of us make it to stardom, fame and Ferraris. Some of us get out by 28. Others - like myself - get by at age 50 by doing gangbangs with ugly fans who win contests.

In other words, I am definitely in the Diggler-on-the-couch stage with the firecrackers going off, wondering “what the hell happened to my career?”

 

Good morning, my friend. I think at this point it's pretty obvious you need to pursue the other opportunity.

That said, I've been laying back, waiting to ask this: what are your ambitions? And what were they when you started out?

Maybe that's where the answer to this question can be found.

Because after the new opportunity, what then? You're still young in the general run of things, and in the TV news calculus of looks and skills you're just reaching your peak as an anchor.

I'm fifteen years farther down the track than you are, but at 50 I was still pushing hard to get to the next level. Not necessarily the next level of the business - although that's always a consideration - but the next level of my own potential. What can I do? How far can I go? How high can I reach?

Turns out a career is mostly the series of questions we ask ourselves - and the answers we find.

Family and retirement planning and "lifestyle" geography are all important. But they won't entirely paper over a nagging suspicion you might have reached higher or gone farther or been happier.

So maybe it's worth a couple hours of remembering what you wanted for and from yourself 25 years ago.

DM me if you want to kick around specifics.

In any case, I enclose my warmest thoughts for your continuing health and happiness.

Go get 'em, brother.

 

Az— brilliant outlook. I needed to hear that.

What this opportunity gives me, as I thought about it driving home last night, is the chance to “design a life”. It’s a great place where my work will matter again.

So the non-TV world didn’t want me.

But I’ve never been “more in demand” in the TV news world. So I’ll keep leaning into that.

It’s time to keep working my ass off but, as it was for many years, for my efforts to matter again — to make an impact.