Need Career Advice/To Vent

[Tedium]

As some of you may recall, I'm the Front Desk Manager at a hotel. I've been actively looking for new work for the past year or so. One of the things that I don't like is that I don't have any benefits in my position. I also don't get paid a heck of a lot. And, to top it all off, this job really interferes with my studies and any sort of volunteer work, because I never know when a clerk will call in and I'll have to cover the shift. If I can't plan my down time, I can't get a whole lot done, you know? It's been that way for the 6 1/2 years I've been working hotels. I have also reached a plateau when it comes to advancement. It's an independent hotel, and the next position up is general manager, and I don't see my current boss leaving anytime soon.

I took and passed the civil service exam in my state and have been applying to different state-level jobs since September. I even applied to jobs with an hour or more commute, to show you how badly I wanted out of the hotel industry. Well, I finally found a job in my town, and I have a phone interview scheduled at the end of the month. I am one of the 8 that got narrowed down from 54 applicants. If I do well, me and two other applicants have a face-to-face interview the next day. It's for an admin. coordinator position making $1.35 less per hour than I was making at the time I applied, but with full state benefits, a set schedule, PTO, and since it's at a community college, after a year I can get a 6 credit per semester tuition waiver for any community college in the state. Not that I'll really need the waiver with a BA, but it may be useful to take some business courses, if only just to help my overall GPA and take care of pre-reqs for graduate school. Plus, after 6 months, I can move to another job within the state system and there is forgiveness of student loans after 10 years. Sounds like a no brainer, right? Not so much.

Unknown to me, my GM surprised me for the new year with a raise of $2.50 per hour, because of the good job I'm doing. So now the salary difference is a little harder for me to swallow. $3.85/hour extra may not be a lot to some people, but it is to me. I can get on my wife's insurance, in March I believe, so that's not a huge issue. I was more in love with the state job because of the freedom it would afford me to get on with graduate school and my life in general. Seven years ago, the hours working at a hotel did not bother me, but they definitely do now.

So, I'm at a loss for what to do. Do I take this step back in order to move forward at some undetermined time in the future? I told my wife I didn't mind doing that because I could move around to other open positions once I got my foot in the door with the state, after 6 months. That was when the step back was not so far, though. Or do I suck it up for a while longer, wait for something better to come along so the pay cut won't hurt so much? Hospitality was always going to be a temporary industry for me. It just happens that it's taken me a long time to figure out where I want to go in life.

What do you guys think about all of this?