I'm obsessively checking my inbox. About an hour ago, I pressed send on a very carefully worded email to my recruiter at the bar, saying that unfortunately I would no longer be able to start work on Monday. My stomach has tied itself into a knot, and I'm praying my phone doesn't start to ring.
It's pretty simple, really. Ever since I was offered the job - 10 days ago now - my mood has changed from jubilant to worried, and I finally realised last night that this was a feeling I really had to address. Despite my evident overthinking, it's not just nerves that's put me in this position. I'm giving up the chance to spring up and out of England at a moment's notice; giving up on two internships that have been offered to me, both of which will give me extra skills and insight into the travel industry; giving up my free nights for free days... And although I don't have the most booming of social lives, I do feel pretty strongly that I shouldn't be throwing away my chances to still see my 9-5 working friends. Particularly for a position that isn't actually necessary to me. Sure, it would be really fun working in a bar, I'd learn a useful new skill, something that I could 'utilise while travelling' (as I've told myself, my interviewer, and my father on numerous occasions) - but it suddenly hit me that if I managed to score this job on the previous bar background I already have, surely I could get the same position just as easily somewhere else, some other time? Fundamentally, when I'm in the mindset to happily dedicate 6 or 8 months, at the least, to working through the night, catching night buses, sleeping through the days and not actually gaining any skills that will be useful for my later career?
I'd thought about all this before, of course, but yesterday two things happened that really clinched it. First off, I had a phone interview at lunchtime for an internship. Somehow, despite knowing I had this bar job on my not-too-distant horizon, I still couldn't stop myself searching out relevant, exciting looking internships and sending off my CV (plus working in an office with no pressure has somehow forced me to spend a large portion of the last month refining my various pieces of writing) - and I've had replies to every one of them. The one I was phoning were offering an internship on a part time basis: my ears had immediately pricked up, as I reckoned I could probably juggle 45 hours of bar work across 7 days with 25 hours of a part time internship... Probably. When I talked to the woman in question, she asked about my prior experience, what skills I was looking to heighten, how I felt interning at such a place as theirs would benefit me... and then she reiterated my earlier email: that I wouldn't be free to start an internship with them until the new year, because I was starting a bar job. She brought it up, specifically.
"So... why... exactly? Are you working at a bar?"
I hummed and haahed in my head. I could hear the doubt in her voice, the confusion, and the - what was it? - scepticism.
I quickly came out with,"Oh... well, because I've been interning for a while and I need the money."
And, as I spoke, it hit me. Why actually am I choosing a job making drinks when it means I'm actively turning down experience in a field I will probably end up working in as a career? Why am I choosing a job people only do when they need a wage when I'm financially stable? And why am I committing myself to working in London for the forseeable future when I've spent the last four years of university proclaiming that I can't wait for the day when I disappear for a year at least, when I really travel?
Her reply was just as telling. With a slight laugh in her voice, I heard,
"Oh, so no huge aspirations to be a bartender then!"
That doubt in my chosen pastime, followed by relief when I assured her it wasn't my lifelong dream to work in a bar - that reaction really threw my whole mindset out of whack. Everything is stacked against working in the bar. I don't need the money, I don't like the hours, I don't want to make such a long and uncertain commitment, and most of all I don't relish the prospect that I'm willfully abstaining from opportunities that could really help me in the long run.
Yesterday evening, I met two of my friends for dinner, and relayed the whole nervous situation. They were amazing, supporting the points I made and also coming up with a few more of their own: that future employers are surely going to be more impressed with internships at relevant companies in the relevant field than bar experience, even if it does involve a dedicated skill like cocktail making. That this job is evidently making me unhappy before I've even started, and that can't be the best way to go into something new. That I got caught up in the application process, without really realising I'd be committing myself so fully to a job that left barely any room for anything else. That I can always get a job in a cocktail bar - but maybe instead of garnering training so I can utilise it abroad, maybe training when I travel is an equally viable option. They talked me out of my stress, and I talked to my dad, and they essentially made my decision concrete.
So I wrote down phrases on the bus ride home. I drafted an email. And this morning I sent it. Even though I'm scared of seeing the reply, I do think I've made the right choice. I'll potentially be interning for the next four months, putting me at the start of April, where I can make travel plans to be heading off to South America by July or August. There's a project in Bulgaria that I'm interested in, too, where applicants are fed and housed in return for training at SEO writing for three months. I would love to do that. I've applied to a travelling intern position that, if I get a place, would mean me travelling in Feb or March for a few weeks, in any given country they wish to send me to. I'm vaguely considering applying to EVS (European Voluntary Service). I have opportunities, and although they're only potential ones as yet, still I simply do not see the point in waylaying them all for the sake of a job in a bar which I DO NOT NEED right now. Enjoy, yes. Require, no. And that's all the convincing I need.
No comments:
Post a Comment