It never rains, but it pours.

I got two job offers today. The first was from an employment agency that I met with just yesterday. The job is something or other to do with using machinery at a company that produces direct mailings. It pays $9 per hour, there will be mandatory overtime, and it's in Rutland, which is a full hour's drive away. About the overtime - well, my reflex was to count that as a drawback, but really, so what? What else would I do with my time? Play computer games or read or get some exercise, but if the overtime is so much that it cuts into my two or three visits a week (if that) with friends, I would be very surprised. I could use the money and I have almost no other commitments, so why worry about the overtime? They were ready for me to start at this job tomorrow, but I asked for one extra day so I could go to the second job interview and see how it went.

And it went well, except for one thing. It's at a restaurant which is under construction. It's in Brandon, which is only half as far from me as Rutland. The owner and his wife look like nice people, they offered me the job right there, and working in a restaurant would probably be easy and fun for me, since I've done it before. It pays $7.50 to start, and they were willing to accept the fact that I'd be going back to school at the end of August, assuming I'd be back to help out over Christmas break and next summer. The problem is, the restaurant is now under construction. It's not expected to open until the second week of August. So I'd have two weeks of work before leaving. The owner - Steve, I think his name was? Damn, I hope I can remember it by the time I call him back - thought he could probably get me some work helping out with the process of moving in - cleaning and carrying kitchen stuff and so on. But he needed to talk to his personnel guy first about paying me under the table, so he wasn't sure.

So that's the conundrum. Do I take the inconvenient, dead-end, and probably uninteresting job which pays better, or do I take the job which pays less and can't promise any work at all for three weeks?

Hell, that's too pessimistic, turn it around. Should I take the higher-paying job that's a sure thing, or the convenient and fun job?

Of course, what I should do, what I'll probably wind up doing, is getting rid of the "sure/unsure" part. The restaurant guy said he could probably let me know about work before opening by tomorrow afternoon, and tomorrow is my deadline for the Rutland job. So I'll call Steve (?) around 3 p.m. or so, and if he says he can find stuff for me to do and can pay me for it, then I'll probably take that job, and if the answer to either of those questions is "no" then I probably won't.

Thoughts, anyone? Something important I've forgot?