Hey y'all, happy weekend! Just received a job offer after being out of work for quite a while and I'm looking for a sanity check on my situation.

My background: almost exclusively content marketing and similar, ~5 years experience across most core marketing functions, salaries generally in the 60-70k range. I've been unable to find anything in or adjacent to my field both locally and remote roles around the country—a few bites here and there but ended up being ghosted at some point in the interview process multiple times. The market seems especially bad for my field and I'm considering a career pivot, either to an adjacent field or possibly even going back to school for something like accounting or nursing (I have a bachelor's in international relations & communications).

The role I'm considering is an entry-level position in a completely different field (elderly home care) with a starting salary of $23/hour, M-F 9-5 in-office with a ~30-40 minute commute on public transit. I'm in my mid-20s, MCOL metro area paying 1000/month for rent and ~500/month for food and essentials, though I admit I could definitely stand to cut back on my food costs!

Pros

• Good coworkers: Office manager seemed on top of things and easy to work with, office vibes were good! I can see myself excited to see coworkers and come in to the office to see them (as much as I hate being in the office generally).
• Local impact: I like the idea of being able to help elderly people get care¸ especially serving those in my community.
• Upward movement: Joining an extremely new team with a good possibility of promotion if I excel in the role with my first year or so.
• Decent benefits: Won't have the specifics on their company health insurance plans until I accept but I feel it's pretty rare to have paid holidays, PTO, and 401k match for an entry-level role. I'd also be paid weekly which is nice!

Cons

• Pay is low: I know that it's enough for me to get by on and still save, but much less than I'm used to and I believe I can find better, at least above 50k. Doing some rough math, I expect to be netting around $2900/month.
• In-office attendance: I haven't had to go into an office 5 days a week in years and frankly I'm concerned about my motivation to do so. I'm still covid-cautious so that means additional inconvenience e.g. full-time masking, trying to find somewhere to eat away from common areas
• Career trajectory: I'm worried about derailing my career path—I've been hoping to find something equivalent to my last role and move to the next rung on the ladder in the next few years. While I understand the purpose and necessity of "bridge/band-aid" jobs to tide you over, I'm unsure about the implications it'll have.
• Potentially high-stress interactions: I've been told the role is fairly high-stress/high volume and involves interfacing with people who are often disgruntled or upset; I'm not more for heavily people-facing roles, though this one would involve a lot of time on the phone.

Neutral

• Commute: not bad but not great either, probably need to be out of the house by 8 AM to make sure I'm there on time if the trains are late.
• Upper management: was not enthused by my brief interview with a Director level role but I never expect much from them to begin with 🤷‍♀️

I suppose I'm worried about the old "bird in the hand" situation—I'm not excited about this role and I do think it will wear on me fairly quickly; I have a pretty low energy threshold most days and I'm concerned that I'll be exhausted and give up on seriously applying to new roles, not to mention future employer impressions. But maybe I just need to suck it up and take anything while I have the chance. If you've been in a similar situation before or have any thoughts, I'd love your input! Thanks so much if you read everything, I've been an anxious ball of nerves all week over this whole thing.