OIALO: Laurent-speak for “Once in a Lifetime Opportunity.” As you may recall, he challenged me back in April to find an even bigger OIALO to trump Cape Town, if I were going to say no to the exchange. As you may also recall, this was one of the arguments that tipped the scale for me, and I ultimately said YES to The Cape Town OIALO (because staying in BCN, while cool, could not compete in the heavyweight “once-in-a-lifetime” class of CT).
So why, now, am I revisiting this theme, nearly 6 months later? Well, unless you’ve been living under a rock or have an aversion to the 24-hour-news-cycle (though, in fairness, don’t we all??) these last two weeks, you will have heard that our country just suffered its worst week in finance since (gasp!) 1929. Which means that work has been busy. Really really busy. Crazy insane I-never-saw-THIS-coming busy. (The super-boring job I wrote about in my last blog? A distant, and now precious, memory.) Which brings me to yesterday, when I sat down with my boss and told him that, if he felt like they could really use my help, I could probably find a way to stay through the end of the year.
The implications of this offer are various, and mostly quite obvious. Firstly, and most obviously, I would be delaying my graduation by one term, and perhaps less obviously, forgoing the much-anticipated Cape Town OIALO (turns out it’s only available, well, NOW). However, it also means that I’m putting myself in a MUCH better position to, at a minimum, acquire and outstanding reference — and (again very obviously) at a maximum, a job offer (though this, admittedly, is a rather remote possibility, given the now-over-analyzed-and-over-discussed Horrific Market Conditions). Unfortunately, this gets even MORE ambiguous, as today I learned that I’m only guaranteed work through the end of October — after that, they’ll reassess, I’m told. (Interestingly, in either scenario, I end up with November and December off — unless they have work to give me here, of course. If I believed in God, I would start to think She was sending me a message about the last two months of this year…)
Which brings me to tomorrow: my theoretical Last Day of Work. I have Thursday off to wrap up my life in NYC and then head to CA on Friday, then on to CT about 10 days later (of COURSE I don’t have my plane ticket yet — c’mon, have you MET me??). However, were I to continue working, well, I’d work on Thursday, fly to CA on Friday, and be back at my desk at 7am on Monday (I get tired just thinking about that possibility, I have to admit — and I’d have to give up playing golf with my dad on Monday, which is a total drag).
So the question is: which of these opportunities is MORE “Once in a Lifetime”??? Which will pack a heftier OIALO punch?? And what do I DO with these two amazing opportunities??? Either way, I know I’m one hell of a lucky girl — but that doesn’t make the decision any easier.
So, Tribal Council: OIALO Cape Town, or OIALO New York??? Cast your votes quickly! I only have a few hours to decide!!!
