What would you do?

I just made a really hard decision. Perhaps as you read this, you'll think I'm naive and inexperienced in life's choices, and that's probably true. It doesn't negate the fact that this was really hard for me.

As most of you know, Brian and I moved to Pittsburgh about a month ago. I just graduated from BYU in August, and my major (International Relations) isn't very employable unless I have a Master's (and honestly, even then I don't know what I'd do). My minor is slightly more employable, and ideally I would have found a job in Pittsburgh that included an editing role. The past month involved applying for too many jobs to count, and most were jobs that someone without a college degree could perform, which was humbling and frustrating. I finally got asked to interview at the Everest Institute in downtown Pittsburgh. My understanding is that they're basically a trade school: students of all ages pick what they want to do from a list of programs (massage therapy, paralegal, pharmacy technician, etc) and they receive specific training to successfully perform job requirements. Many students are the first generation of college goers in their family and come from difficult home situations and did not do well in high school. It would be my job to contact the high school demographic of potential students and inform them about the programs and, if interested, get them to commit to Everest for the fall. I would then follow up with them, give them tours of the campus, and help them (albeit in a minor role) until they graduated nine months later. The man who was my liaison with the school was very up front with me: despite the official job title of high school admissions representative, I'd be a sales rep. I was selling the school to these high school kids, and I could make upwards of 200 phone calls a day. I'd live on the phone while I was at work. He had done the same job before, and he said it was really hard. What really impressed me about him and everyone else I talked to at Everest was their passion for helping people. It was energizing and empowering. My hours would be 8-5 M and W, 11-8 T and Th, and half days F and S. I would get paid $38.5k and have benefits. I would drive the twenty minutes to a parking lot outside of downtown, pay the $5/day to park there, take a free bus into downtown, and work in the middle of bustling Pittsburgh, on the 12th floor of a building off of Forbes.

Right after my final interview with Everest, I received an email from one of the nannying jobs I had applied for. I would nanny for a sweet six-week-old infant girl named Mila, whose parents lived about a mile from my house on a street right next to Highland Park, where I run to almost every morning. The parents were extremely welcoming and, despite my lack of documented or formal experience with infants, thought I was the perfect fit for their family. I would help sleep train the baby and was welcome to any and all of the food in the house. A cute little dog named Atea would accompany Mila and I on walks around the park. I would get paid $13/hr ($2 more than the average for nannys in the area), have paid vacation time, and would work M-Th either 8-5 or 9-5 depending on the mom's schedule. Having Fridays off would enable me to much more vigorously pursue freelance editing, which would result in income while Brian and I were in Portugal in a couple of years.

Maybe you already know which one you would pick. My purpose in looking for a job was to supplement our family's income and allow us to save for our future family and expenses. I also really wanted a job where I could help people, which is a vague way to make up for what I don't always get out of editing. Editing is great and I love it, but the results are less obviously bettering people's lives than other careers, such as a teacher. Both jobs wanted me to start this week.

What would you do?