Compromising vs. giving up

What is the difference between compromising and giving up? I swore to myself when I was at school that I would hold out for a great job: I was a good student and I'm personable and friendly, which are good qualities in firms, and I know I deserve to work at the kind of place I want. I swore I wouldn't take a joe job: I'd been at school for too long to take a job that I wasn't crazy about.

Well, I still don't have a job yet. Not only that, I haven't even had an interview or an expression of interest from a firm that I really want to work for. What happens now? I need a job to pay my rent, but I can't take something and leave a few months later: if I don't stay at least a year I'll get labelled a flake and have trouble finding something. I only sent my stuff out about three weeks ago, but I thought I would have heard more by now.

So if I take the job that I've been offered, at a firm close to where I live, that pays well and seems like a bunch of people who might be nice, is it a compromise, or am I giving up? In some ways, it feels like capitulation. I'm abandoning my fine notions of high design just for the money. In some ways though, it feels like a compromise. Work for a year in a firm that is not so great so I can learn something, and in a year, take that knowlege and try again.

I have another interview this afternoon, but this firm is notoriously tough on employees with a high turnover, and I really don't think I want to work there. They aren't going to pay very well (which, as an aside doesn't matter very much because of the money, but more because chronically underpaying employees is disrespectful and indicates other issues there may be in the firm) and while I have friends that work there, they are summer students and will leave in the fall. It would suck if I took the job to hang out with them and they took all the fun with them in September.

I hate the thought of giving up, and even the word compromise reeks of failure: I am who and where I am because I don't give up, for good or bad, and I live alone because I didn't want to compromise any more. And it seems like more and more, the things I swore I would never do again when I left for Montreal are happening. My personal and professional life feel messy and out of control, and I wonder if accepting a job that doesn't excite me would exacerbate this, or make it feel better.

One of the great things about architecture is that I'm not too smart or too good for it: I have to work my very hardest just to get by and I think that makes me a better person. I like to work hard, and I wanted to find a job that would keep me on my toes for a while. I don't get this feeling from what I've been offered... but if I don't accept it by the end of this week, I won't even have the option of taking it.

I guess what I really want is to give myself permission to wait for that great job. My financial backers have given me until the beginning of July to find something, and although I don't much like being unemployed, if I knew the offered job would be waiting for me Jul 2 if I wanted it, I would be a lot more comfortable. But that isn't the case, and I don't know if I should wait for my ship to come in, or take the money and run.