Tempted by The Man

Got back from Our Nation's Capital late last night, exhausted by the 7-hour visit to the Labor Department and the number of people I talked with (12). La! It's a hard job, gathering information.

This is the working formula: Would the increase in life satisfaction justify the decrease in pay?

Let's take this one by one:

1. Decrease in pay. Firm job pays 160K (not including bonus), G-job pays $55,706. Man. Huge disparity. However, I would get an 11K raise each year for the next 4 years, plus loan repayment help from Crimson Law School. Still, there's no question I could pay off loans in 2-3 years at the firm, while it would take closer to 10 years working for The Man. Also, DC isn't THAT much less expensive than New York.

2. Increase in life satisfaction. For the 2/3 pay cut, I'd be working about half the hours of a New York firm job. The other young attorneys in the program were people I could definitely see working with very comfortably -- I really liked all six I met (there are only about a dozen in the honors program at a time). The work that the civil rights division does sounds pretty interesting, and because I was really, really frank about my likes and dislikes ("I hate case law research. Is that going to be a problem here?"), I got good answers about what the work entailed and how I might avoid case law research (regulatory work, which sounds kinda cool).

However, the offices are depressing (windowless cells) and the computers look like they're from the 1980s, and everyone to a man said that the bureaucracy was amazingly frustrating.

Intangibles: As one young attorney said, do I value my time more (G-job) or money (firm job)? Also, I'm far more likely to find something that interests me at the G-job than at the firm. On the other hand, there are international opportunities at the firm, and none at the G-job. And let's not forget -- I've lived in DC before, and New York sort of calls to me right now. Not to mention the higher concentration of good friends in New York, which was the whole reason I chose that city in the first place.

This, of course, doesn't even take into account the universe of creative possibilities: asking the firm to hold my offer open for a year, asking to go to the NY regional office of the Labor job, doing the G-job for 2 years and then going to a firm, etc., etc.

Oof. I'm so tired, I could pass out right here, onto my keyboard. I'm going to see the financial aid office on Tuesday to crunch the numbers, and then I'll have a better sense of the equation.

I'll leave you with this slip of wisom from Miss D, who urged me to "join the dark side":

money doesn't buy happiness, but it can buy you a balenciaga bag and a condo

Wah ha ha ha! She slays me, Miss D does.