Lucky me, I am leaving a good position at a good place of employ so I can dedicate my full attention to a consulting firm that I started and has taken off.
Today, the president of the company countered with an offer that isn’t so bad…
Limiting factors: The person I would continue to work under is incompetent, and I believe was not fully honest on her resume. She’s been in mediation with another coworker [after only being here 3 months] and has fired several very competent workers simply because they had a personality conflict.
As for the new job, it is very lucrative, I get to be in front of a lot of people helping them build stronger, healthier organizations and the office is at home - with a baby on the way in 2 mos, I kinda like the opportunity to work from home and be present for the baby. I won’t be fully present as I’ll be busy, but…still - I’m reeling from this counter offer!!!
What would you do? What have you done in the past?
Insurance is not a factor because I will be paying out of my pocket for same coverage I have now.
Never a good idea to stay. By announcing your intention to leave, you have shown yourself to be disloyal. (in the eyes of TPTB). They will keep you on while they work on replacing you at their leisure.
In most situations a counter-offer is almost always a bad idea to accept, it isn’t necessarily that you are always seen as “disloyal” (although you often will be), but even employers that are totally understanding of the move will still view you as “on the way out” if you accept that counter offer. Which means it is very likely they will be continuously looking for a way to replace you as soon as they possibly can.
A counter offer is basically just, very often, a way of the company trying to insure you leave at a somewhat later date on their terms. Obviously some counter offers can lead to you coming back and making more money and them just being grateful to have you, there is 100% no way to tell for certain what type of counter offer you have, and the latter example is more unlikely in my opinion.
Is there any chance you could offer to work for them on a consulting basis? That way you actually get some more business for your consulting firm :).
It’s usually never a good idea to stay. But the key is now to go on good terms.
Make sure you convey to your old boss how much you value his offer and how flattered you are. You never know in this economy when things won’t work out and you may need him for a reference or more, someday.
Without knowing more details, I’d be inclined to go along with Markxxx, here.
I’d also suggest (tentatively, because you know your relationship with the company president, and his/her relationship with the person you’re currently under, better than I do) the possibility of explaining to the president what you’ve said here – that money isn’t the only factor, and that your immediate superior is one of the factors in your departure.
As far as I can see, the worst that can happen is that he rejects your opinion (in which case you’re well out of it, and since you’re planning on going anyway, you’ve lost nothing) and the best is that he offers you your current boss’s job (and what you do about that is up to you).
Having lunch with him on Monday. And yes, that is exactly correct. I have never really been in this situation before, in fact, it is kind of interesting to have the tables turned so quickly. I have some compassion for the woman I am currently working under for the next week, but she did this to herself. “This” being to take a job that she was not qualified for. I know she saw the $$$ and jumped…but the hiring committee who hired her had three “issues” with her that they chose to overlook, and those three issues are exactly the problems right now.
I am going to be honest with the Prez, but not going to bash anyone. And I really like the idea of them hiring me back as a consultant, then they can pay be 3 times what I am currently making for a short period of time of course.
In the situation you have described, I would not entertain the counter no matter how enticing it was. You have a good job lined up, and more money isn’t going to make your existing problems go away – and, given what you’ve described, it seems likely you could be fired for capricious reasons at your current job anyway, let alone now that they’re offering to pay you a lot more.
In general, my opinion is that accepting a counter offer is not a good idea. I’m sure there are exceptions – say, if you knew other people had taken counter offers and it had worked out with the organization, there was no history of retaliation or bad management, and there were significant negatives to the new job. However, in this specific case I’d say get out now.
In your situation, I wouldn’t accept the counter. Why do you think it is the company wants you to stay? Is this something you can turn in to a possible consulting opportunity, so they get what they need and you move on?
I once accepted a counter. I had been offered a job with a government agency at just above my regular salary and with good benefits. Told my boss and he asked me to sit tight for a day. They came back the next day and offered a promotion and large salary increase. Then my boss had a talk with me about working for the government. I accepted the counter and stayed for another four years. But, in this case, I was relatively young (24 - 25) and my boss and I were close. It trusted his professional advice and reasons to keep me.
I had a similar situation and chose to stay, actually. Things seem pretty good at least for now, but I was in a particular situation where we weren’t getting much work (as a consultant, if we don’t have work we don’t get paid), so my boss didn’t think me disloyal for looking for another spot, and when I made the decision a huge amount of work came in, so that wasn’t a factor anymore.
That being said, I strongly think you should leave, because work environment is really important (and one of the reasons I chose to stay – the job I was offered didn’t have such a good enviornment). If you have issues with your supervisor you’re going to be annoyed more and more anyway.
That is a possibility. However, “their leisure” may actually be “never” if they like you and you continue to add value.
Really it’s more important to think about the reasons that are prompting you to leave in the first place. Even if they give you more money, if you still report to the same shitty boss with the same annoying coworkers, peforming work you hate, you are going to have the same problems in a few weeks.
In Phlosphr’s case, he is starting a consulting firm and it has taken off apparently. While there are certainly risks, why would you stay at your current job when you can run your own show?
What about using your previous employer as a client instead of staying on as a full-time employee?
I tend to agree with others here. The problem is when you straight up tell the boss that you are quitting so that you can do X, but he offers you more money, better work environment, etc. and you stay, you are both now in an awkward position.
You are kind of pissed off because there was no reason that the boss shouldn’t have been giving you this before. It took you throwing down the gauntlet for him to pay you this money and you feel like he has taken advantage of you for XXX of years.
The boss is upset for the reasons stated above. How much longer will you work there? Can they count on you to be part of the team? Are you really worth this extra money or would losing you right now be too tough? Better keep his distance.
It’s almost like making a marriage work again after adultery.
That is exactly what my 11:30 was for this morning…and I picked up another client! I’ll be here for another week, and then I’ll be a “contractor” at a considerably higher rate.
I agree with this. Especially since you do not like the supervisor who has fired competent co-workers for insufficient reason. A company that would let a 3 month new hire fire good workers is a company that is making bad decisions. You need to become an outside consultant where the higher pay will justify kissing the ass of this idiot supervisor.
I would never under any circumstance take a counter-offer. If a company got me concerned enough that I was looking for, interviewed, found, and signed up for another job, then I would have to have serious problems with them.
I may be the one person who shouldn’t have heeded this advice, though. I used to work for a nice mid-sized company that one fine day got acquired by a huge company (Accenture), which freaked me out. Aside from the fact that it was unclear they would keep me on in a business development position because they no doubt had their own people for that, I opted to go to another small company that offered me a 20% raise. I took it and then Accenture asked if they could counter. I said no on principal. Then after being at the new company a year and a half, I was told they were lowering my salary 25% while working me to death, basically…because they could and because that’s what the market was paying. I ended up in a good place after that for a bit more money than I was making at Accenture, and I would have done anything to get out of the other small company, but in the long run, I’m still glad I didn’t let them counter offer.
Given that Accenture has had layoff in this economy, I’m sure I would have been one of the first ones out the door given my ‘disloyalty’ if I had stayed on.
Same here. I have never sought another job strictly because of money. It’s always been a combination of money, how I got along with my supervisors, whether I felt like I had a future there, etc., etc. Counter-offers always assume the issue is money. Money is one issue, but seldom the only one.
In the words of Arnold Schwarzenegger while sitting in a flaming truck, “Get Out.”
She won’t be done til that department is in flames, the stock has dropped 25%, and HR is up to their asses in lawyers. Be nice. Be courteous. But if you’re smart, Be Gone.
I don’t think I have enough information to really offer anything constructive here.
However, here’s a little piece of advice that may be helpful. When I was contemplating whether to leave one job for another, I decided that I could only really plan for the next 5 years. Anything beyond that is too speculative and amorphous to really plan in fine detail. So, IMHO it may be easier to decide what to do if you think only about the next 5 years.
Maybe this only really works at a certain point in your career, and of course this would be horrible advice for certain situations (e.g., whether to go to college or work), but it worked for me at a time that sounds somewhat similar to what you are thinking about.
for a short period of time of course.