Job offer

Did I mention that I love, love, love my job? If I didn't, I should have. I can hardly wait to get to work in the morning, and if it wasn't for the family, I'd have to be chased out at the end of the day.

Of, course, when you're not looking for it, you get all these job offers. I already declined a rather attractive job offer. It wasn't an easy decision. The week after I declined that offer, I received another one. The principal investigator (PI) who made the offer is relatively new to the department, and wanted a presence in the lab, to make sure the lab space wasn't lost because of lack of use. The research subject wasn't quite my thing, and I didn't think it fair to accept the job for three reasons:

1. Being a new faculty member, the PI really needed a post-doc who could get results soon. Since it wasn't my exact field of expertise, I would face too steep a learning curve to satisfy those requirements.
2. I can't guarantee being in the lab early in the morning to late afternoon. With 3 kids, at some frequency I'm going to be called out for picking up children that are ill, and I'll have to stay home with them until they get better. I wasn't about to make promises I knew for a fact I couldn't keep.
3. Points 1 and 2 would end up disappointing the PI who I like and respect.

So,I declined. Again, it wasn't easy. After benefits, the job would have paid $11,000 more than what I currently make. That's not insignificant, and I've wondered whether I made the right decision ever since.

Meanwhile the PI hired someone else, and has been wondering the same thing, whether the right decision was made. I suppose I'm a known evil, compared to the unknown evil of the incoming post-doc. Now the PI seems determined to hire me one way or the other. E-mailing other researchers to try to come up with joint research proposals that would fund my position, and even asking me if we should maybe write a proposal together.

I must say, I'm flattered. In my dreams, I had always imagined a position that would allow me to visit home once a year or so. The most recent ideas would involve me being *required* to go home for work at least once a year. I can live with that.

Really, I love, love, love my job. But as I've discovered, there are limits to my loyalty. $11k wasn't enough. But $11k with mandatory trips back home, might be impossible to resist.