This past week I had to make one of the toughest decisions I’ve had to make in an extremly long time.
As most of you know life as a production assistant can be pretty tough. You work long hours for not much pay, and you end up having to find a new job every couple of months if you are one of the lucky ones. A lot of your friends and family tend to ask the same questions of “are you sure you don’t want to find a more stable job?” and your response is that you are trying to.
Well this past week one of those stable jobs somewhat fell in my lap. One night as I was scouring the internet for new production jobs and I came across an ad on craigslist (of all places..) for a production coordinator position for a video game. On a whim I thought why not and sent the company over my resume completly thinking that they would laugh that someone who is not in the video game industry is trying to apply for a coordinator position.
To my utter surprise they called me the next day for an interview. To prepare myself, I tried to brush up on my video game knowledge by watching my boyfriend finish playing God of War 3. (Is it obvious yet that I don’t really play that many games besides Harvest Moon? Side note..if you are a girl and have no clue what Harvest Moon is seriously look it up. You will thank me ).
The next day was the interview, and I have to say it was probably one of the most intense interviews I have ever had in my life. The owner of the company seemed very nice at the end of the 2 hour meeting and said that he would contact me in a couple of days. I walked out of there thinking that I bombed the interview and that I would never be hearing from this man again. To my surprise a week later I got a call for a second interview.
At this point I was extremely excited. I started thinking about how amazing it would be to have a stable job, to actually have health benefits and a company matching 401k. Then my mind started to freak out. I thought about all the reasons why I moved out to California (to work in production) and how taking this position would take me on a completely different career path and essentially away from television production.
After the second interview I spoke to everyone I knew for advice. Most of it was somewhat helpful however, everyone kept saying that they couldn’t tell me which path to choose and that I’d have to figure this all out on my own. At this point I was so frustrated with worrying about it that I almost wanted to have someone just tell me which job to take so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it any more.
Later on that night I received the offer letter from the video game company in my email. I was so happy that I got the position, but I was also completely frightened. I stayed up for hours contemplating my decision and it wasn’t until I spoke with my brilliant mother that I finally figured it all out. My mom asked me the one question that made everything clear in my mind. She asked, “Rachel, why has this been such a hard decision for you?” to which I responded “because I’m afraid of walking away from television production.” After a moment of silence she said “well then there is your answer”.
The next morning I called the company and explained to them how terribly sorry I was but I would not be accepting their offer. A huge weight felt like it had been lifted from my shoulders. I now knew exactly what I wanted to do with my career.
I know that some of you are thinking that I am an idiot for turning down a full time position, however, I know in my heart where I need to be. Will it be a struggle? Yes it will, but that’s what makes life interesting right?  I am not saying that my decision is the best one, but it is the best one for me right now. And who knows…in the future the next time a full time position comes my way I may take it, but for now my career path is exactly where it needs to be.
