The world is one intimidating oyster

Okay, so I just (read: Tuesday evening) got back from a business trip to Montreal that my company sent me on. Yes, yes, it’s terribly cool that an intern got flown to Montreal, put up in one swank of a hotel (I’ve decided that swank can be a noun if I want it to), and wined-and-dined on the company dollar.

Speaking of which, man, was that food good. Montrealers and business people sure do know how to eat! Even the wine was good, and for me, that’s saying something.

But the thing to pay attention to here is, I was eating with the big businessman, namely my boss’s boss, the VP of marketing.

And what did we talk about? Well, among other things, what I was going to do post-internship.

Now, it isn’t like this snuck up on me. I knew this dinner would happen, I knew this is what we would talk about. I even knew what I was going to say.

See, my boss is a coordinator. She’s already said that I’m working ‘above an intern; you’re doing the job of a coordinator’. And frankly, that suits me just fine. My ideal was, come end-of-internship, change my title, and my pay, and leave everything else alone. I can be Bethany the marketing coordinator, in my familiar desk with the good locale, doing the job I know, and am good at, and like.

So this is what I say. I say, “I like marketing. I’d like to stay.”

And he says “What about sales?”

I try to say no politely. I think I need practice with saying no politely. Not that I wasn’t polite. I said something about wanting to be stationary for a while, having not had roots (or, for that matter, even my own pot of soil) for, like, ever. (If you follow my metaphor, that is. Lauren says I use too many of these, and that they’re often incomprehensible. She claims the need for a metaphortress to guard herself in.)

But yeah, so I’m like, ‘sales isn’t for me’, in different words, of course.

But see, my boss, he’s a salesman. And I think he kind of wants to sell me on sales. So he starts ‘selling’. (And it goes without saying how cool it is to have the big boss trying to talk you into a position.)

The money- wow.

The perks- wow.

The moving to somewhere I’ve never been- wow.

The never being home- ow.

The stress- ow.

And yes, I’m, as I said myself, fairly rootless. And it’s true that I own, like, next to nothing, and could pick up an move with about 30 seconds’ thought. But do I want to? I don’t really feel done with Toronto yet.

And sales sounds (and as far as I can tell, is) fairly exciting. But do I like exciting that much?

It may paint me with the fuddy-duddy brush to say so, but I kind of like the quiet life. I like sitting in front of the television and beading for hours. I like laying about on a Sunday with nothing to do, cause you’ve got time to do those errands later. I like staying in bed long hours after waking up, with the very very good excuse that I’m doing it ‘because I can’.

On the other hand, debt has a stress all its own. And sales is (pretty undoubtedly) where the money is. It would be good to get rid of those student loans before I hit my forties.

And it’s pretty damn cool to have my boss’s boss talking to me about moving not just into a full time place in the company, but way up there on the chain. You know what sales reps who are done being out in the field do? They become marketing managers. And marketing managers become VP’s. And then they do whatever they want, cause they’re just that impressive.

And yet, and yet.

There’s still the thought of Britain that haunts me (literally like a spectre of a Union Jack that floats though my brain at odd moments). If I’m so rootless that sales seems such a possibility, then why do I hesitate with the idea of moving over there? Well, for one, it feels like I’d be abandoning my student loan, which is ridiculous and I know it, I could pay that from England just as easily as I could from here, but part of me still wants to feel FREE…

And I haven’t even tried editorial yet. I don’t want to do another internship after this one, really, I’m ready for the real-thing job now, but going into sales means going for that whole marketing career thing, and I’m still not sure I want that.

Also, I wonder what happened to the trade dream? (Real lit books, like you find in Chapters, not textbooks). That’s what I got into publishing for, wasn’t it? And, if I don’t even try to go there, am I following the money? That’s not like me…

See, I knew I was looped on this subject, and now I’m sitting here typing endlessly, and it’s painfully obvious how looped I am.

And there’s more. I was about to type that I need to talk to Lauren to help me figure all this out (she’s a touchstone), but she and Kev are leaving for the tropics in a couple of days. Good for them, but now I’m thinking of how Laur’s leaving for Australia in a remarkably short time, and that’s just one less root I have holding me..anywhere.

Mom’s the same.

Heck, Kev doesn’t even live in this city, and Hugh’s busy all the time and that’s only going to get worse. The few times he does get off, he likes to go traveling- I’d probably see more of him if he was coming to visit me somewhere else than if we were still living in the same city.

So it comes down to a position, that pays well, comes with som e damn good perks, on my very own silver platter...but, with a lifestyle that I'm not sure is what I want, with a lot of risk of nothing going the least bit well, and with a choice that doesn't really feel like mine.
The world is my oyster, but I don't even know if I like oysters.