When Opportunity Knocks, and You're Too Busy to Answer the Door

Yesterday, I turned down an awesome opportunity.

Why did I turn it down?

• Time: even without this new job I work close to 50 hours a week; adding this in would have added a minimum of 5 hours a week, but more likely 10 or more. 60 hour weeks are tough, and not something I want to deal with at this point.
• Family: when there's a new family member to take care of, getting all of the quality time I can at home is very important.
• Stress: like I said, 60 hour weeks are tough. I already have a mentally stressful job, and adding another one, along with additional travel and rushing with time constraints is just a bit too much at this time.
• Pay: the pay wasn't right. It only would have been a 4% increase in our household income (before taxes), but would have cost me 30% of that additional pay in travel expenses alone. I'm not sure this was a true deciding factor, but if they would have offered a bit more, who knows.

Alright, enough of all of this ambiguity; what was this "awesome" opportunity?

Last week I was offered a position to become an adjunct faculty member at Ferris State University. I would have been teaching one 5-credit-hour class (2 hours lecture, 3 lab), Digital Multimedia Production.

At first, I thought that it would be an excellent experience and that I wanted to pursue it. Ever since going to college, I thought that it would be a great to teach other people the things that I know. This class would have been perfect for me, and I think I would have given a lot of value to the students. I was excited to get the offer, and really wanted to try and make it workout.

However, like I said above, the circumstances aren't right for it. I hope that this spring or next fall, if the offer is still available, that I could work something out to get my feet wet in the teaching field. I don't think I'd ever want to do it full-time, but as something on the side I think that it would be a lot of fun.

Ferris (specifically the Printing Department): thank you very much for this opportunity; I appreciate your thought and your offer, and I'm sorry that we couldn't work something out at this time. Please keep me in mind as a future prospect.

On a related note, if you know anyone in the Big Rapids, Michigan area that could possibly fit in this position, let me know as soon as possible!