[mack23]

Fellow zoo posters and those who play or have played online for a living:

I was laid off from my $16/hr job in HR on 12/23/04. I was actually happy about this as I could no longer stand the job, was able to collect unemployment, and finally give online poker a shot as income. After a frustrating Jan and first half of Feb where bonus/rakeback made up the majority of my profit (avg $15/hr total profit during that time), I have taken off the last 6 weeks (avg $40/hr). The one setback to my play has been inconsistency, I'm only averaging about 23 hours per week. I think part of this has to do with the fact that when you combine unemployement checks with part-time poker income, I'm making comfortably more than I was at the old job. One other note is that I have not addressed the lack of benefits issue as of yet.

So this week out of nowhere I land a job interview and 2 days later an offer. It was honestly the first ad I've responded to in the 3 months since the lay off. It would be the next step up in the HR world, starting at $20/hr, so it's a significant increase over the old job. Great benefits. I should be thrilled and ready to go... But thoughts of an ugly commute and the potential of hating the job after 6 months combined with my recent jump in success playing online make this a difficult decision. I mean, just 2 days ago I had a record day online with $450 over 6 hours. I've only had 3 negative days in my last 25.

So..... for those of you who have been there and done that, can you please give some advice here? Any chance I will be happy going back into the corporate world? Can any of you still play enough for most bonuses along with a full time job? If I've left out any essential info that's needed to give an opinion just let me know. Thanks a ton for your advice!

-Mack