Decisive indecision

I made the choice. Well, I thought I did.

Technically, I let the stale date of the job offer pass. In practice, there's still a faint chance of me saying "yes" Monday morning when I'm calling the HR witch. It was definitely a tough choice and took a ridiculous amount of pondering, self-reflection and thinking.

I do love this city. I've grown to love the healthy and active lifestyle it promotes, even if the promotion is at times rather manufactured and artificial.

When I woke up on Friday morning, I was sure I'd choose Finland. When I was jogging down Spanish Banks with the sun shining through a clear blue sky, I looked at the mountains and the downtown silhouette, felt a cool ocean breeze, passed jogger girls smiling at me, and thought: this is where I want to be.

My friends were having a small lunch BBQ on the College patio and asked me to join, offering me burgers. While sitting there, feeling the sun shining on my face and gnawing away my patty, I was happy. I also realized that all of this is so cool because it is so temporary. And because I have no responsibilities, except for one: the Choice.

If I choose a job half-heartedly, I will do a half-assed job. I've visited the Firm's site in Yaletown four times now, and I just can't see myself visiting it on a day-to-day basis. Why? Intuition. I said my intuition is broken but that's not exactly true. I know where I stand: the job offer is for a respected company and the posting was near-perfect, but the job itself is not what I want to do. I still probably would've taken the position just to stay in Vancouver "for a year or two". I finally got ripe to choose the Firm over my Senior Researcher position at the University.

The job posting for the Firm in Vancouver was very much what I'd like to do if I chose to drop my research career. Staying in Vancouver would be a chance for me to try and continue my mission of personal growth, but in the end of the day, there's only so much a city itself can give you. The change must come from within. And I'm not sure I can cope with the idea that the job I'd take here would be temporary a priori.

Then there's the Other Firm in Finland that approached me about offering a position combining my research experience with industry driven objectives. A position that does not have the a year or two written all over it. A position that would be a step up, not a step aside. I don't even have an offer yet, only information from a very reliable source that it is under consideration. Both Singhjot and Poperiu suggested for me to take the job here anyways and then interview with the Another Firm, and ditch Vancouver once I'd had a confirmation. Highly unethical and unprofessional, and I don't think I can do it. Like the companies would really care about me for that matter.

For the time being, it's bye-bye to having the best outdoor activities in the world at my fingertips. In the end of the day, they were options, just like everything else. But really, while the stale date has already passed, there is still a small chance of me doing a final decision of not having a career at research. In which case, staying here is just as good an option. That's why I'm waiting till the beginning of Monday. Although in some sense the decision is pretty much made, I'm still weighting the importance of individual components. I came here for myself, not for a career. How long can I separate those two things from each other?

I'm so glad I don't have to make such decisions on a day-to-day basis.