Profunksticated

Pro’s been a little busy at the gig. Speaking of gigs, I’m still looking what with my resume’ still out there. I like the firm I’m working for. I really like the people. What I don’t like is the limited responsibility and the pay. I’m really not feeling waiting several months for them to “promote” me while I’m drowning in the deep financial ocean of maintaining two residences. I’ll work out my own promotion, thank you very much.

The “hiring manager” for another tech firm emailed me about a position over a week ago saying she saw my resume (and presumably, my much-higher-than-current salary expectations) on Monster.com. I emailed back a few days later saying sure, I’d like to talk. This person wanted me to come in today. That’s when the fear gripped me. I can’t stand when that happens.

I emailed the manager, saying the soonest I could come in was the last week of December. She emailed back saying, how about Monday Jan. 5, then the holidays will be past and schedules will be clear. I emailed back that’s perfect.

But that damn fear of jumping to another firm had me for a few minutes. I had to look at my perpetually empty checking account statement on line to regain my motivation. Managing proposal development can be a huge, stressful pain in the ass (kind of like herding cats) but I’d rather be stressed by the job than be stressed over having household expenses that outstrip income.

I’m also registering to do an online master’s program in information systems. That also has me somewhat stressed. I should know this week whether I’m being accepted. The enrollment counselor told me to beef up my professional goals statement since my undergrad GPA was something like 2.3 and because I received my degree so long ago.

I wanted to tell him that journalism majors, then and now, generally don’t give a rat’s ass about GPAs. Prospective hiring editors cared about what kind of story clips you could provide, not your GPA. Coursework took a backseat to reporting and writing stories for the school paper, or if you were lucky, a real local newspaper.

After I got my bachelor’s, grad school was not even in my galaxy. To me, going back to school seemed like an expensive luxury when there was some real cash to be made (albeit not much) working for real newspapers. My negative view of grad school was reinforced by watching my wife earn three masters’ degrees, but for years seeing relatively little financial reward for her efforts.

But after leaving journalism and finding myself in my 40s trapped in corporate grunthood, I toyed with the idea of going for an MBA, but I didn’t like the idea of going further into hock for $25 to $50K while struggling to help my kids through undergrad. As you can see, I’ve changed my mind, with some enouragement from The Spouse.

Now it seems like grad school is a requirement for moving up, like the bachelor’s of yesteryear. I ask you all, is the master’s degree really worth it? If you were pushing 50 like me and had only a bachelor’s degree, would you even bother going for the masters? Just wondering.