I just finished a pretty tough telephone call. Back in March a charitable foundation listed a summer job opportunity for an intern. Never one to turn away from the low hanging fruit, I applied had an interview and was accepted for the job.
The first problem was that the money was pretty thin. Hell, we paid admin staff at HC more than their offer per month. See, the argument that charities pay less than the real world is true but when one has worked in the third sector for three years it’s hard to get paid even less than the league minimum.
From that point, we discussed various roles, and opportunities including one that most of the finance folks at the school would be in envy. The problem for me was this job violated the one and only objective I have for the MBA: leave the charity sector.
Finally today, I called my contact and made a revised offer. I’ll work for you until July and then move to another job elsewhere. This wasn’t what he had in mind. He hasn’t rejected my counter offer but probably will.
Damn that was tough. Obviously it wasn’t about the money but the job search would have been complete. Over. Done. No more tickets please, but with that small conversation the game is still afoot.
I’m still in the hunt for another internship that would take me all the way to India for July and August. It’s in technology and a pretty cool project but I still haven’t received a call. Their headquarters is in Bangalore and it’s had some issues over the last four days.
The call today wasn’t easy but necessary. The MBA provides many, many opportunities for work and activities but it’s important to keep the objectives in mind.
Forget your goal for a moment and you’ll find yourself on another path leading some other direction to some other place. It’s not that the new place isn’t going to be good; but shouldn’t it be our choice?
