Takethejobtakethejobtakethejob!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Grinding teeth in frustration.

G/F doesn’t dig her current job that much. The commute is hellacious (for those of you in the Bay Area, think Berkeley to San Jose and back each day), it’s a small non-profit so the pay is not great, and she’s kinda topped out in terms of what she can accomplish there.

She’s been getting her name and resume out there, looking for something better. She’s smart as a whip, she’s had to learn everything by herself very fast (this was the IT equivalent of being tossed into the deep end of the pool to learn how to swim) and I know she can find a job that is better and that she’ll like more.

Placement agency calls her with a contract offer. Job is a few miles from her house (so no hideous commute, she can get more sleep, save $$$), it sounds like it offers more room to grow and it’s a 50% raise. They need her to start in a week.

And she blinks. Wants to give two weeks notice instead of one week. Emails me.

I practically burn up my keyboard responding - call them back, take the job. Take it take it take it!

By the time she calls them back they have gone with someone else. That fast.

Fuck. It’s a self-confidence thing and I hate to see her not have that faith in herself. I hate seeing her stay in a job that she doesn’t like, there will be other great opportunities but they don’t come along every five minutes so you’ve got to snag them and sink your teeth in deep when they DO show up.

How much notice to give isn’t the real issue…she’s having a hard time recognizing that she’s good and smart and worth so much more (I’ve had other friends do the same thing, stay woefully underpaid because they feel that if they leave they won’t find work - people with those non-marketable skills like “email admin” and “UNIX wiz”). I’m helping how I can with encouragement and the like but she won’t fly until she decides to flap her wings. It’ll come but damn that’s frustrating.

I guess the silver lining is that she knows how it feels to stub her toe like this and hopefully she won’t do it the next time.

Honey if you are reading this you know that I’m your biggest booster, I just want to see you charge forward and do right for yourself.

Grr.

2

Valgard, I know you’re frustrated, but I’m thinking the ensuing discussion in this thread will be better suited to MPSIMS than the Pit.

3

I sympathize with your frustration, but I don’t see a Pitting here. Off to MPSIMS.

4

Also: Berkeley to San Jose?? That’s messed up.

5

Ha HA!

6

Darn it!

7

I’m sure fluidruid can empathize with your G/F.

8

Wow, a simul-move!

9

Back on topic… Wanting to give reasonable notice is a good thing, not a bad thing, generally speaking. Particularly if she is the primary IT resource for the company, they might be screwed without her. Of course, if that’s the case, they should be taking better care of her, especially if she can command a 50% raise with a job switch.

IMO, she needs to be mentally prepared to make the move. It sounds like she wasn’t quite ready. I hope she will be ready for the next one – but not so ready she jumps at any offer, even one that is not as good as the one that got away.

10

Agreed, she paused at the last second before making that leap. Not the end of the world but a pisser nonetheless.

Like I said, it’s a non-profit and so she isn’t earning a lot. 50% more isn’t going to make her wealthy but it’ll be much more in line with what her skills are worth, and I know that she can use the money. I’ve been there myself and I hate to see someone I care about in the same position.

11

Oh yeah. You want to see some Pit-worthy language? Ask me about when I had to commute from Berkeley to Menlo Park every day. Turned me into a six-year old throwing temper tantrums in my car.

12

So if two mods try to move a thread simultaneously… does it make a noise?

13

Something I have learned over the years.
If the company that is hiring you won’t wait for you to give a two week notice, run away! Run fast run far, they will be assholes to work for.

14

Seconded…and I am an employer. I’ve had quite a few employees leave without notice (knowing that I would rehire them if they had given me a two week notice)…about half of those who left with little or no notice came back asking for their old job, and regretting what they have done.

Of course on the other side, if a person wanted to give their current employer two weeks notice before taking our job, we always granted that.

15

Not always; sometimes they really do just need someone right away. I was offered a job that was critical to the company at the time - the key thing was whether I could start right away or not. I told them I hated to do it, that I didn’t want to leave my current employer hanging, and they said that they understood that, but that they simply couldn’t wait another week. I bit the bullet and took the job. One of the best jobs I ever had.

I hate to leave a job without giving two weeks notice, but I had to do what was best for me. Loyalty to a company you’re about to leave is almost worthless, in my opinion, if you end up shooting yourself in the foot to achieve it.

16

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that she should just hop jobs every time that she feels like it, but some things to keep in mind are:

  1. This is an “employment at will” state or whatever the phrasing is - your employer is basically free to tell you that you don’t work there any more, with no notice. That works both ways. 2 weeks notice is nice but it’s not a requirement.

  2. She hates the commute. Dunno where you’re located but in this area the commute can make or break a job, it’s that bad.

  3. She could really use the (large) increase in salary.

  4. She’d have much more room to grow.

She needs to do what is right for her. You can leave a company on short notice and still maintain good relations - a boss who doesn’t understand why someone would leave for that kind of raise and change in commute is nuts. If I was the boss and one of my employees came in and said “I can’t afford to NOT take this offer” I’d understand it - I might not like it but I’d survive.

The non-profit has had something like 50% turnover in the last 12 months, and not just trivial positions (her boss just left the other month, for example). If she left tomorrow they wouldn’t think much about it in a few months. I just don’t want her to cut off her nose to spite her face.

17

When my dad first started teaching, we were living in Orinda and he was teaching at Gavilan College in Gilroy. 40,000 miles just commuting to work in one year…

18

Just in case I wasn’t clear - I agree completely with you.

19

I agree that it’s quite possibly a blessing that she didn’t take the job, if (a) they wouldn’t allow her another week to start, and (b) they didn’t wait very long - after giving her an offer - to see if she accepts.

When my husband was looking for work a few years ago, he had a lot of jobs as a contract employee; many of which wanted him to start anywhere from the next month to the next day. It does all depend on the situation, but it seemed that the ones who were most willing to flex on start date, etc, were the most pleasant to work for. The job he has now (which was a permanent hire, not contract) held the position for almost 2 months for him because of a family situation. He felt it showed that they were interested in him specifically as an employee, not a warm body to do his job. He’s been there quite a while, and is very happy with how he’s been treated all along.

(Oh, my commuting hell: For 3 years I lived in Pittsburgh, PA and commuted to a Cleveland, OH suburb. 6.5 driving hours a day, 4 days a week, 10 hour shifts. It was a million laughs.)

20

MAybe what she needs to do is give her notice and then start looking. Nothing gets the fire under your ass going like the knowledge that you won’t have a paycheck soon.