Time's Up!

At 1400 PDT it had been one week since I was offered the job in Hawaii. After talking to tons of people (and some of them more than once)...

...I'm not taking it. Yet.

I leave open the possibility that I will end up kicking myself for not taking the opportunity to go to Hawaii. In fact, just thinking about it that way again makes me shudder a bit.

Thanks to everyone who helped me figure this out. The MVP (Most Valuable Perspective) goes to my friend Jean. After listening to me for a bit, he said, "So you found a good job, but it's not the ideal situation. They offered you the job right away, so you're a competitive candidate. And even thought you don't like your job, you still have it, so you have some time."

I agreed.

"So you want a job like the one in Honolulu in a city with a good gay community," he summarized.

Right again.

"So why don't you apply for that?" he asked.

Good question. When I started applying for jobs, I was just looking for a safety net, so I just applied to a couple of things that jumped out at me. I never really hunted. Now, I've decided that:

(1) I want to leave my current job.
(2) I want to work at a teaching hospital
(3) A city with a healthy gay community is important to me, and I'm not sure Hawaii has one.

Yesterday morning, I got on-line and went to UCSD's website. When I got to the Department of Medicine/Hospitalist homepage, the first thing that came up was:

NOW RECRUITING!

I sent my CV, and they sent me back a note today. We're working on a phone interview, and hopefully a return trip to SD. I'm still planning to send my CV to Denver, LA, and Arizona, but I'm excited about the SD prospects. Honestly, I doubt the job itself will be as good, but I'd rather give everything a chance to move forward than sacrifice my personal growth for my job. I already did that, and it didn't work out so well.

BTW - I tried not to completely close the book on Hawaii. I did love the job -- the only issue was gay life in Hawaii. I might feel more comfortable with it if I spent some time there, so I asked for a little longer to decide. We'll see what they say -- I may be headed back for a conference at the end of the month.