# Job Search Question: Can a Salary Offer be Too High?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/job-search-question-can-a-salary-offer-be-too-high/368218
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [August 10, 2006, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/job-search-question-can-a-salary-offer-be-too-high/368218 "2006-08-10T22:20:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2006, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/job-search-question-can-a-salary-offer-be-too-high/368218/21 "2006-08-11T16:02:14Z")
I was headhunted for a similar job and offered about half again what I earn now- but like the OP- it was in NYC. NYC seems to have higher paying jobs in some professions. However, I saw what the COL was like and I demurred. Besides, I have never lived off the West Coast, and can’t see adjusting easily at my age.
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### Author:  [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2006, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/job-search-question-can-a-salary-offer-be-too-high/368218/22 "2006-08-11T16:37:28Z")
Yes.
I’ve had two friends who were lured to new jobs by absurdly high offers. Both instances, the bosses were psycho, one dangerously so. These were bosses who believed the extra in your salary made the worker their personal whipping boy. Both instances, they learned that money is not necessarily everything.
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### Author:  [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2006, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/job-search-question-can-a-salary-offer-be-too-high/368218/23 "2006-08-12T11:32:57Z")
> [@What Exit?](#):
>
> The prices Barbarian was joking about is for Manhattan of course.
Joking? I was totally serious. I know people who do both.
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### Author:  [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2006, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/job-search-question-can-a-salary-offer-be-too-high/368218/24 "2006-08-12T12:29:33Z")
Make sure you can do everything listed in the job description. And if you can’t, make sure they know that before you take the offer.
I was recently offerer (and accepted) a position for what I thought was WAY too much money. Part of this is that the client already knew me and claims that they wanted to get me in the door no matter what, but I was worried because the JD called for some skills that I don’t have. Hell, there were some big words in there that I didn’t even know 😃
I made damn sure to bring this up during my interview with both the consulting firm and the client so that there wouldn’t be any suprises down the road when the client claims to be dissatisfied with my inability to do a, b and c.
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### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2006, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/job-search-question-can-a-salary-offer-be-too-high/368218/25 "2006-08-12T16:06:06Z")
> [@Barbarian](#):
>
> Joking? I was totally serious. I know people who do both.
Indeed. Not only is paying “$850/month to sleep on a couch” unremarkable (or at least not uncommon), there was a column in the NY Times recently about some guys rooming together in an apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (best known as where _A Tree Grows In Brooklyn_ takes place, and a newly “rediscovered” neighborhood for yuppies) who put in a listing on craigslist for another roommate:
> [@](#):
>
> So you think your place is small? One night recently, a group of architecture students staying up late in a loft in Brooklyn took to amusing themselves by stuffing a mattress into a hole cut into the wall above a bedroom door. Then they tried the mattress out for comfort. Not half bad! It occurred to one of them, Nick Freeman, that people might pay money to call that elevated mattress home.
>
> So Mr. Freeman posted an ad on the Web site Craigslist: ‘’$35 – elevated mattress-sized space between rooms.’’ He used a minimalist pitch. ‘‘Opening between hall and room available for long/short-term use, accessible by ladder, sheets and pillows not provided.’’ The ad went up around noon, and by the end of that day, Mr. Freeman had a dozen potential takers.
The article went on to describe how increasingly, young people looking to share space with strangers are offering services in lieu of money in the search for affordable housing. (not that… well, not openly, even on craigslist… More like cooking, doing 100% of the housework, or massages without the quote-marks).
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2006, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/job-search-question-can-a-salary-offer-be-too-high/368218/26 "2006-08-12T17:09:45Z")
> [@Barbarian](#):
>
> Joking? I was totally serious. I know people who do both.
Really, 4 people living in a one-bedroom apartment for $2,500 a month? Are they that desperate to live in Manhattan?
I’m sorry that looked like a joke, because I was incapable of believe people could be that stupid when they could just live in the outer borough. That is more than my mortgage & taxes and I could commute to NYC from where I live and my neighbor does. My Brother-in-Law apartment is in the $2500 range, but it is just the 2 of them. The live for the culture of NYC, but why would a family of four choose to live in a one bedroom?
Jim
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### Author:  [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2006, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/job-search-question-can-a-salary-offer-be-too-high/368218/27 "2006-08-12T18:16:27Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#):
>
> Yes.
>
> I’ve had two friends who were lured to new jobs by absurdly high offers. Both instances, the bosses were psycho, one dangerously so. These were bosses who believed the extra in your salary made the worker their personal whipping boy. Both instances, they learned that money is not necessarily everything.
Actually they were not being paid too much. Rather they were being paid too little to put up with the boss’s shit.
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### Author:  [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2006, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/job-search-question-can-a-salary-offer-be-too-high/368218/28 "2006-08-13T01:21:01Z")
> [@What Exit?](#):
>
> I’m sorry that looked like a joke, because I was incapable of believe people could be that stupid when they could just live in the outer borough.
I know two families that do this – both have people working on PhD’s or post-docs, so they’re certainly not _stupid_. They’ve got apartments right next to their lab, so they can go back and forth at all hours of the day and night, seven days a week.
If they lived in Queens or Brooklyn, they’d save on rent, but would easily spend 20 hours a week commuting. Or they could just spend 16-18 hours a day in the lab, because they wouldn’t have enough time to go home before they’d need to go back.
This way they spend more money, but it’s actually feasible to work 60-80 hours a week, see their families and eat home-cooked meals.
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### Author:  [@Phatlewt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phatlewt)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2006, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/job-search-question-can-a-salary-offer-be-too-high/368218/29 "2006-08-13T01:28:38Z")
Just FYI, I accepted a job offer with another company, for less money, but better benefits and less on-call. It was a tough desicion, and I guess I’ll never know if I made the right one. Thanks for all your input.
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### Author:  [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2006, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/job-search-question-can-a-salary-offer-be-too-high/368218/30 "2006-08-13T01:43:52Z")
Congrats on the new job. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Unix\_Geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unix_Geek)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2006, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/job-search-question-can-a-salary-offer-be-too-high/368218/31 "2006-08-13T02:18:14Z")
Another SA checking in. Even though the amount was high, it clearly wasn’t enough to get you to say yes. The next guy in the chute will probably get an even higher offer. I know quite a few folks working the NYC market. $100K to $120K is not unusual. If they have to pay for a contractor in the mean time, they are probably paying upwards of $250K a year. And I know I would give a few thousand back to get less on call.
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