R & R (Regret and Relief)
I’ve turned down the job offer and cancelled tomorrow’s meeting. My supervisor hasn’t gotten back to me – I have a feeling she’s not on campus today to check her email or take calls, and the last thing I wanted was to leave the decision to the last minute tomorrow. I didn’t want to cancel the meeting an hour before or something – that would be poor form, I think.
I feel a mixture of regret and relief. I feel regret because I did like the sound of the job and the benefit of opening another door in another department of the university for future contacts and employment opportunities. My friend Adam thought it must be brain-numbing “busy work” if they were offering the job to me without meeting me first. Part of his rationale was “why would they offer the work to someone who has no background in business or commerce units?” But as I pointed out to Adam, they had my CV, and obviously the recommendation/referral from the exams manager chap counted for something. Adam said it sounded boring, but I thought reviewing unit structures and content sounded interesting. Maybe I’m boring!
When I rang back E to apologise and cancel the meeting she sounded genuinely disappointed (maybe the disappointment was along the lines of “Damn, now I’ll have to find someone else!” but it’s nice to feel wanted anyway!). She was nice enough to say that she would keep my CV and keep me in mind if anything else came up in the future (again, whether this happens or not remains to be seen, but it was nice of her to say that anyway).
I feel relief because I did know deep down that it was crazy of me to even consider complicating my life and adding to my workload and schedule even more, and even crazier to consider suspending my enrolment. I didn’t want to go to the meeting tomorrow knowing deep down that turning the job down was most probably the correct thing to do. I think I had pretty much worked it out by last night. I’m relieved I’m not agonising over pros and cons and “what to say when I ring to cancel” any more!
I guess if an opportunity came up that would definitely lead to future employment or was related to my academic field or teaching, then suspension might be a good choice, but it just didn’t sit right with me in this case. And I’ve reminded myself that I did say at the beginning of the year that my priority would be finishing my thesis and finishing my PhD. I must stay focused and not get distracted! I think I’ve done the right thing. I hope I’ve done the right thing. You know how even when you’ve made a decision after weighing up pros and cons and carefully thinking it through, absolutely agonising over it, sleeping on it (and to a certain extent, having it sabotage your ability to sleep restfully because you’ve been thinking about it so much and going through all possible scenarios in your mind), there’s sometimes this tiny almost irrational part of you that questions and doubts the correctness of your decision? I’m trying to ignore it right now. Maybe I should distract it by having a cup of tea.