Strange things happening at work today. I was plugging away when Peter came into my little shared office and asked if he could talk to me for a few minutes. He motioned me to follow him into the techies’ room. Once there, he closed the door and began by saying that this was a “confidential” conversation. After the brief exchange we’d had over Kali and the linking tool, I was fairly sure it had something to do with that. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

To put it bluntly, he offered me a job. He knows that my knowledge of Visual Basic and programming in general is non-existent (though I think/fear he believes that I’m simply being modest when I say, “I don’t know any of this stuff.”), but he’s willing to train me/have me trained. He feels that I would be more of an asset to the company working on the tech side.

I really didn’t know what to say. It was like being offered a job to translate Russian literature: it’s something I’m interested in, but I don’t know the language in either case. And of course there’s the issue of abandoning Rob. First, I don’t want to because that would be immoral. And Peter expressed qualms about this as well, wondering aloud how quickly another editor could be hired. Second, I don’t know that I want to stop working on this side of the religion project. It’s really starting to take shape and it’s exciting to be see it happening. Third, I don’t know which would be better for my future plans. I want to get back into teaching at some point, and I don’t know which would be more advantageous for such a goal — most likely, my present job.

I still haven’t talked to Rob about this. I was going to mention it today — this afternoon, after we’d talked about modules — but I didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to. I know he’s not going to be thrilled that I’m even considering it, even if I explain that I’m going to be working extra.

And that’s my initial answer: I want to do some overtime and perhaps work two or three hours a day (or more) on tech stuff after fulfilling all my editorial responsibilities. I talked to Peter briefly about coming in this weekend to begin learning a little Visual Basic, and he seemed to indicate that Sunday would be possible. So I might end up working six days a week, ten or more hours a day.

But let’s assume I do that. That would be twenty hours a week extra, and compensation for that would certainly be greater than the $15 an hour I was getting while working part time as an editor. Let’s say it’s $20 an hour. Then that’s an additional $400 a week (before taxes) which would wind up being something like $1,200 more a month. I could handle that. If I could keep up such a furious pace that long, I could pay off my entire undergrad loan in a year — or less, possibly. If it’s $25 an hour then that’s $500 a week, or $1,600 more a month (after taxes). At that rate, I would pay off my loan in a little more than six months! Who knows how long I could keep such a pace up, though.

This morning I woke up and I was barely able to think, let alone read, so I wrote a letter to Lidka and Bogusia — and I wrote it by hand, something I haven’t done in ages. I’ve been thinking that I should write to Halina again because I don’t really know if I answered her question, or rather, whether I gave her adequate advice as she asked for. Anyway, I was thinking about writing that letter by hand as well. What’s this world coming to, anyway? Gary, of all people, writing letters by hand?