Job Question... What to do?

[splent]

OK this is a weird situation.

While I'm currently looking for a teaching job closer to home, and my current district is screwing me over by not hiring me to go into one building positions (I currently teach between multiple schools, and TWICE now that's happened, and I haven't gotten a call for a third one yet, and if I don't I'm going to be livid, because I should at least be considered as a common courtesy, and they WILL know that I'm not happy)... anyways that's not the point of this post, I just needed to vent

Currently I'm the assistant director of a community choir, I love doing that, I look forward to it every Monday, it's laid back and so much fun. I just finished my first year doing it and am looking forward to being more involved next year.

In the past couple of days I learned a children's choir in the area is looking for a director, a head director. It has been my dream since I've been in a children's choir to lead one. I really want to send them my resume, but they rehearse on the same night as my current gig.

I really don't want to slight where I am now, because I love what I do there, but this is almost like a dream come true for me, and I may regret not even going for it if I do. I also don't want to disappoint anyone in my current position because they've been so supportive and appreciative of what I do for them.

What do I do?

[Tiko]

I'd at least approach them and see how it feels... You never know, maybe it isn't impossible to re-schedule the other gig a bit. Or maybe it is. You won't know unless you contact them and find out 

[Orbert]

If leading a children's choir is truly your dream, and an opportunity presents itself, you have to at least check it out.  Any time you do something new, you may have to leave something behind; that's just how it goes.

You owe it to yourself to check this out.  Apply, find out.  If you don't get it, no problem.  If you do get it, you have a choice to make, and it might not be easy, but you have to pursue your dream.  If you don't even apply, you'll wonder for the rest of your life what could have been.  Don't do that to yourself.

[bosk1]

What do I do?

I love this game!

Run flailing like a madman to the ocean, jump in, then use your mind to construct a water golem to battle the flame golem.

[Orbert]

How many times have you had a favorite teacher/mentor/friend leave for greener pastures?  They all said the same thing.  "I hate to leave you, but I have to do what's best for me.  This is an opportunity I just can't pass up."

Well, you get to be the one moving up.  Sucks to disappoint people, sucks to leave people, but you have to put yourself and your happiness first.

[splent]

I feel like a jerk after only doing it for one year though.

I guess there's no harm in going for it though.

[Orbert]

It happens.  We just got a new youth leader at our church last year.  Amazing young woman, great leader, great role model, everyone loves her.  She wasn't looking, but an opportunity fell into her lap, and she had to take it.  A full-time gig, with benefits, versus the part-time thing, no benefits, with us.  The leader we had before her was with us two years before the same thing happened.  She came to us with every intention of it being her gig for as long as it worked.  But things change, things happen, and people move on.

If you broke some kind of promise, some kind of implied commitment to be there for the long haul, then leave them high and dry, then you can feel like a jerk.  If you've done nothing wrong, and ultimately what you're doing is right for you, then you have no reason to feel bad.  There may be tears, but they'll understand, and they'll move on, and so will you.  I'm not saying it won't be tough.  It just is what it has to be.

[hefdaddy42]

I feel like a jerk after only doing it for one year though.

Why?  What's one year?  Especially against a possible dream job?

[Stadler]

I love these questions.  If you don't take the water golem strategy, here's what I would do:

Apply for the position, and here's why:
- we rarely regret chances taken ('what we do'), but often regret opportunities lost ('what we don't do'). 
- you don't even HAVE the position yet, so cross that bridge when you get there, but...
- you have no ideas if either the old or the new position might be flexible in days/times.

I'm going through this with my oldest son (stepson, technically, but...).  He's 22, and just out of basic training with the Army.  He knows what he WANTS to do, but each time we talk with him it's "well, there's no positions", or "I don't want to do that", or "it conflicts with this or that", and I keep telling him, you can't win if you don't play.

I can't tell you how many times I have gotten jobs or opportunities from just going to talk to people.  "Hey, you're not a great fit for THIS job, but are you interested in THAT job instead"?    In all three of my last position (including the one I have now, which I just accepted Wednesday) I was told that I would have to relocate my family for the position.  I won all three, and have not moved once (and won't have to).   It's not because I'm great, or anything (well...), it's that I don't assume anything, except that "everything is up for negotiation".   

APPLY.  You'll figure it out.