I don’t have polling software, so please respond in comments. Here’s the question: do I work at a pharmaceuticals advertising co. this summer, or a summer camp?
Pros of pharma co.: Opportunities to learn more about this fascinating (‘hem.) field which will probably feed into and inspire work I do in the fall, officemates I know I can tolerate for three months, supervisors who think I am a genius, more chances to pad my resume as a copy editor, lots of free brainspace for dreaming up writing projects.
Pros of summer camp: Fun work, pretty neighborhood, ostensibly reasonable management, not sitting at a desk all day, get to feel like an important member of a loving community, will feed into and possibly inspire work I do in the fall, will build on prior experience in teamwork especially.
Cons of pharma co: EVIL. May stain the soul or eventually corrode my mood about working there.
Cons of summer camp: The commute is an absolute bitch (Washington Heights from Sunnyside?! An hour and twenty minutes!) and I would be required to be “on” for eight hours a day with a bunch of kids, as the most senior member of a classroom team. Plus my resume already has more than enough of this kind of work on it, and I don’t want to be typecast.
Salaries are pretty much equivalent, and this is only for three months. Please respond by right away, the pharma co. wants me deciding Wednesday.
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Glyph has already weighed in via AIM! He says: “I hate children: pharmaceuticals kill them, summer camps make them happy. The choice is easy.” What do YOU think?
I say take the Wet Hot New York Summer route. I’ve whored out my writing skills to two lobbies in my career (the pharmaceutical industry and the restaurant industry) and what I learned from it is, I’m a decent person — because I still feel soiled and guilty. Unless you’re soulless (and you’re not) you’ll have a hard time reconciling yourself to it, even after the fact. Now, if it was a means to a career end, I’d say hold your nose and do it anyway, but since it seems negligible, do the camp gig.
Summer camp. A long commute is reading time, with people-watching as an alternative pastime.
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