I just passed on a tech job offer. It’s not a bad job and I would have been good at it, too, but its just not what I want to do.
will I regret this after my other applications fall through? Yeah. I would also regret it if I had to work 40 hours a week doing that job.
I know lots of people working jobs they hate, so what am I doing turning a good one down, right?
Man. I don’t know. i followed my instinct on that one. My instinct is fallible as fuck
After bouncing around between dozens of different jobs in my “professional” career all I can say is that you should never settle for a job you hate. It doesn’t matter how well you’re paid if you’re absolutely miserable, that misery will permeate all other aspects of your life and crush you. If you’re dancing on the knife’s edge of precarity it can make sense to take a bad job short term but do NOT settle, apply for other positions on the clock. My previous job was absolute hell but I needed the money to survive, kept applying and doing interviews for other positions until I eventually found one that was pretty decent.
Your instincts here are good, you are a valuable person that can offer a lot to a company willing to compensate you appropriately and treat you well. We are pressured into accepting the first offer that comes our way regardless of how bad it may be but if you know your own worth and have patience you will eventually find something worthwhile. Don’t feel bad about it, feel proud that you have the self confidence to say “no”