Not sure what to do...

[scoobysoo]

I had an inteview for a part-time job. It's a fantastic job, which I would love to do, but they said that they planned to increase the hours to full-time over the course of a year and needed a lot of commitment, and offered me the job. I said although I would love the job, I can't pretend that I will be able to commit to full-time as I plan to start a family next year, and will only want to work part-time, so didn't want to end up leaving them in the lurch, so I turned it down. I then got offered a different job. Much more realistic hours but nowhere near as exciting. The first job has now called to say they want to try to work something out so I can fit the job around my future plans. However, they nee to think about the details, and this could take a while. In the meantime I don't know what to do about the other job I've been offered, which is to start asap! Should I forget the 2nd job and hope they come up with something for the 1st one or take the job that I have a firm offer on?

[Whoever]

Difficult one for you, but if you don't know how long your "ideal" employers are going to take before making up their minds, maybe the bird in the bush is better than the bird in the hand. Could you try phoning your "preferred prospective employ" and telling them while they're ditheringt, you need to earn a salary to pay your bills, so you are thinking of taking the job offering your preffered working hours, but will be available if they still want to offer you the job later? This may seem disloyal but what you don't want to do is lose both jobs because of indecision. Take what's definitely on offer. The other company may not be able to come up with a firm deal. If it were that easy to compromise on working hours, they would probably have done so when you appeared a suitable candidate for interview.