Help with possible life-changing decision

You may love one business over another, but no business will ever love you back.

So make dem duckets while you're young and can enjoy it. Live nice for a year, then scale back and save every loose nickel.

Life will eventually suck on many other levels, so you may as well make a decent living.

 

What he said. Seriously. Take the cash. Or give me the particulars, and I'll apply.

 

BB, since you posted on another thread that you just finished a 128-page football section, I'd say go for the sales job.

 

Hank and McLovin make good points, but Meat Loaf's right: No job will ever love you back. Problem with the one we're in is, it is treating a lot of us worse and worse and the parts we love keep shrinking and shrinking. The more our business treats us like interchangeable parts or line items on a budget, the more we end up seeing it as just another job. And if it has to compete among other jobs, it will lose to many of them on the compensation front. And the hours worked front. And the chance to advance front. And the ability to live where you want to live front.

I was all for the do what you love thing, until it became an unrequited love. Now I just want to get out on my terms, beating the hatchet men.

 

I love what I do. Really. I love writing, I love telling stories, I even kind of like editing.
That said, follow the money. There's a lot less heartache involved than being in a profession that probably won't love you back. Go for the money and do some freelancing on the side. (Full disclosure: that's what I'm trying to do now.)

 

Take the money.

 

What would Mack the Knife do, Bertolt?



Put me down with taking the sales job and stringing. If you love reporting/writing so much, there are a ton of opportunities to get in print or on the web if you're not that concerned about getting paid for it. And that can lead to other opportunities, or at least give you experience and a (presumably) great clip file.

(In other words, you'll have all the time to do a long take-out on a local guy that the local paper may be very happy to run for $50.)

Me, I could never, ever be a salesperson, but if you have the personality for it, go for it.

 

If you can handle sales, make the change.

And do stringing for whatever paper needs a high school game covered.

One will feed the stomach, the other will feed the soul.

 

i left the business.

now i'm in a profession that i think will captivate my interest on a daily basis but i know will never provide me the passion that i got from being a sports writer. i'm at peace with the decision; this is what i want to do for the foreseeable future and this is the best thing for me and my family over the next 30 or so years.

that said, if a miracle occurred and someone offered me one of my old jobs at a top-20 circulation daily, i'd quit my new profession in a heartbeat.

so the moral is to make sure you can envision yourself doing this new job - and liking it a lot, even if you can't love it - before you leap.

 

I am a little curious as to why people are constantly telling others to leave the sports writing business. If these old-timers stuck with it, can't anyone else? Those who tell others to give up writing while doing still in it themselves is a little like someone in a dual-suicide pact where they tell the other to do it first, and they don't follow through. It's a sick and twisted thought, I know.

 

If you can tolerate the sales job and make $60k without hating the person in the mirror, you should do it.
Think of it like this. You are a 5th round pick in the MLB draft and the team that picks you offers you $100,000 to sign, plus they'll pay for your college. You can always go back to college, but that $100k might not be there again.

 

I doubt there's a Web site or forums devoted to the craft of petroleum product sales. That's one of many reasons I'd hate to leave this business now.
I appreciate everything everyone said. Thanks for taking time to help this noob.