Hey guys, little conflicted on what to do here. If you look at my profile, you can read my case study thread, but basically, 25 years old, lots of debt, one of which is a car payment.
I have a job as a car salesman, but that job is in jeopardy. The environment is nice, and the pay is too, but they've threatened to fire me twice now in the last month over trivial things. Add that to 53 1/2 hour work weeks, zero benefits, never two days off in a row, no vacation time, and no Saturdays off no matter what, and it's very frustrating.
I used to have a job at a call center that was VERY stressful. Back-t-back-to-back calls, constant "coaching" for ridiculous things, and a pretty bad environment. The pay was only slightly less than the car dealership (but more with bonuses), 40 hour work weeks, good benefits with time off, weekends off for the first 7 weeks. But don't work until 1:30pm once training is over. The job sucked badly, and I'd miss-out on the massive amounts of free time I have now at the dealership (hell, I'm typing this now at work...), but the call center job would afford me the opportunity to, above all, take time off to be able to take civil service exams/fitness tests for PD/FD.
Those are two jobs I'd love to make a career out of, and at this current job, I'd probably get fired before I could take 2 Saturdays off for these tests. I have a test coming up on April 21, and a few Saturdays after that I anticipate the rest of the steps for both PD and FD will be. This new job, for the next 7 weeks, will have me start at 4pm each weekday, so there should be very few, in any, scheduling conflicts, with this new job, unlike my current job.
And with these next few weekends off, I'd like to do a few things: take my MSF course to learn basic riding skills and lower insurance. Once I do that, I'll be selling my car, and riding a Honda Shadow as my daily driver to save me about $300/mo. or so than with my current vehicle. These courses' riding tests are on Saturdays, and, as I said, you can NEVER take Saturdays off at the dealership. Additionally, the Saturday after that, I'd like to recertify as First Aid/CPR/AED to help me chances of getting an FD job (my ultimate, lifelong goal).
Additionally, it may allow me to do volunteer firefighting work on weekends (though, not sure if that's a thing, but one of my coworkers last time at this call center had the time to do VFD).
My only concern is getting this stressful call center job, take the tests, and even if I pass them, having to wait 2-3 years before I'm even hired (more likely with the local FD than the PD, unfortunately).
I was offered the job, and will start Monday unless I decline the offer. I'm thinking about quitting at the end of today. I'd miss out on a few days of pay, but I'd use my 5 days off to travel for once, as I NEVER get to.
What would you guys do? Staying here ensures I won't get the PD/FD jobs. Going to the call center gives me a good chances, but if it doesn't work out, is a million times worse, environment-wise. At the same time, if PD/FD don't work out, I could just start looking again, as bad as that is.
Advice?
