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.