So my previous boss called me up today, and told me that my job is still mine if I want it. For the last two summers I worked as a radio operator in a leaky nuclear sub, and it was a cush job; as long as I recognized that the CO was the Alpha dog, was never wrong, and had an equine dick, everything was good. It was the sort of job where I could do very little, and light work, and be as surly as I wanted to all the pleasure boaters. The CO would back me up if the boater copped an attitude; what this means in practice is that the CO recognized that the customer isn’t always right, and that once a person starts acting like an asshole, I no longer have to kiss that person’s ass. I adore the CO for this reason; it comes as a shock to a lot of people when they find that they don’t get special treatment for being an asshole.
However, there is one small problem: the CO is a major* prick, but I am able to negotiate a shift where I only have to work a few hours a day with this person.
*Actually he is just a Captain.
WRT the boaters, they aren’t the most appealing sort. From the Locals who will attempt to steal the hammer and sickle off the side of the boat to the Germans who will spend hours trying to convince me, in MIA English, that I overcharged them 7% tax on a torpedo, none of them are a good argument for returning
Being a sub this means I will be stuck in a little tin can with about 6 to 10 other people (half of which will be religious fundamentalists discovering the world, and alcohol for the first time). Contact with the outside world is through several time zones and a spotty and slow (less than 10kbps) internet connection, or an expensive telephone line. Everyone on the boat is a functional alcoholic: there is no other entertainment.
All told, the pay is good, and I’m not averse to returning, but . . . If I take Spring and Summer classes I can have a normal course load for the rest of my program, which means I will be able to budget 8 hours of sleep/personal time per week. The trade off is I will only have a 2 months to work (not on the sub, at some min wage job); also, by September I will be completely broke. I have an untapped line of credit worth $40 000, and it only needs to last one year; starting next summer I can spend 16 months earning a wage close to what a graduating Engineer will earn. This internship is a sure thing; there are always more jobs than students. One final point: the people on the boat are my only references, and my entire recorded work history.
So given all of the above, what should I do? Should I back out of the summer classes, and work, or should I study? Thanks. I’m leaning towards studying.
Sorry about the analogy, but my real job was kind of unique: how many little people nipple perkers can there be at the giant Pysanky?