Here's another "chick" responding. Three years ago, I left a job I'd had in graphic design. I had been with the company over 10 years. I really liked the work, but the gossip, backstabbling, incompetent people, etc., etc., were unbearable. I've been working for over two years now at something totally different. The job is not as challenging as I would like, but the atmosphere is so much better. If there is a problem, I talk to my boss and things happen ....... fast!!! I make less money too, but I'm getting by and I'm not all stressed out all the time. For me, the change was worth it. Good luck to you on your decision, kickycan.
I just re-read -- "tentative"? Prolly make sure it's solid before doing anything.
It's got to be at least a little you, a big job market means a lot of openings but a TON of applicants, too. (I regularly check New York craigslist for writing/ editing/ telecommuting stuff, and while there are a lot of openings, they are filled but quick...)
Chai Tea wrote:Like the other chicks, my first gut reaction was to say...go with the good environment, don't worry about the $.
but, it depends on how bad the hours are stressing you....
what's worse to you...sh!tty hours or sh!tty people?
Just kinda throwing it out there, but you said you don't have the opportunity to be social during the week. Well, most people I know don't do near as much during the week as on weekends.
Of course neither one of us has kids, so that's not in the way. but for me, I'm more of a homebody. I like being home in the evening.
I guess it depends on the crowd you run with.
hmmmm. if you make 20% more money, being a guy and all, you'll probably spend 20% going out during the week. Then go into a corporate environment maybe hung over, really starting to hate the people.
Tell me, how bad are the hours? How many hours are you putting in a week? Are you salary or overtime?
Benefits?
I don't know, liking the people you live with all day means a lot.
When I was in my 20's everyone talked about getting ahead in their careers, all that, and I'd feel like a failure sometimes because I didn't want to admit it, but being on top really wasn't that important to me. I sometimes tried to make what "they" said was the goal my goal too...but it never really stuck.
Now, I'm like pfffffffhtt.
hey yeah, we all miss you here. it's not the same. take the corp job so you can fool around here.
I can't decide. I'm thinking that maybe I'll find friends where ever I go. The thing is that I'm at that point right now where I'm really starting to click with people. You know how it usually takes about three months or so to start to feel comfortable in a new environment? I'm right there, and even though it is stressful and crazy, I feel like I'm in a real team here. BUT, I have exactly two friends right now. I need to be able to have time to take Italian classes, go out to bars...you know, DO stuff, so I can meet some new people! I don't know...
By the way, you gave me all this great advice in the first part of your post, and then you totally contradict it all with that last sentence. I oughtta kick you right in the labonza...
soozoo wrote:Here's another "chick" responding. Three years ago, I left a job I'd had in graphic design. I had been with the company over 10 years. I really liked the work, but the gossip, backstabbling, incompetent people, etc., etc., were unbearable. I've been working for over two years now at something totally different. The job is not as challenging as I would like, but the atmosphere is so much better. If there is a problem, I talk to my boss and things happen ....... fast!!! I make less money too, but I'm getting by and I'm not all stressed out all the time. For me, the change was worth it. Good luck to you on your decision, kickycan.
Thanks for the input. I'll consider it. Last year I left a horrible corporate environment too, and I definitely know what that is about, but I need the money, and I'm not totally sure this is going to be a horrible environment.
By the way, welcome to A2K, you sexy-lookin' shoe...
Do you definitely know that the people in the new job are shitty? Sometimes even in a corporate environment the people you actually work with can be great. Is that something you could check out at all? Not coming up with any non-lame ideas myself, some kind of shadowing something...? :-?
sozobe wrote:I just re-read -- "tentative"? Prolly make sure it's solid before doing anything.
Of course. It looks like it's going to happen though. At the end of the day today the guy from the agency told me they are just ironing out the start date. But I know it could all fall through. I should know for sure by Tuesday though, maybe Monday.
All day I was negotiating with the agency by e-mail. I got them to give me so much more than they first offered, because I really didn't care if I got the job or not. It really is a lot easier to negotiate when you don't care if you get the thing you're negotiating for.
I'm actually kind of glad it's not totally for sure yet, so I can get some time to think about it.
Sounds promising all around, congrats! Hope the offer does get solidified, if only for the opportunities to sweeten your current position (worst-case, they know that you're a hot commodity and even if you choose to stay now without additional benefits they'll have to keep you happy if they want to keep you...)
Kickycan wrote:I'm thinking that maybe I'll find friends where ever I go.
I wouldn't put too much stock into that.
No, Soz, I actually have no reason at all to think the people at the new place are going to be a-holes. The guy I interviewed with (my prospective boss) seemed to actually be a pretty good guy, with an advertising background. I went to the first interview with him after pulling an all-nighter at the ad agency--I think he liked that, even though I looked like a zombie.
The other people seemed to be the usual corporate peeps. I can't really tell how they will be to work with.
The thing with the place I'm at now is that when I went for the interview, the guy who interviewed me pulled no punches, and he peppered his speech with liberal usage of the word "****." I knew right then I was going to get along with him.
With an unbridled passion.
Do what ya want.
Just don't complain about it if you discover corporate doesn't work for you.
The gloves'll come off.
A few things (and if these have already been covered, my apologies) -
1) Let's look at what 20% more $$ does for you. I'm going to assume you'd be in the same tax bracket. Essentially, what it means is that 40 weeks of work makes you as much money as 50 weeks does now. 8 hours makes the same amount of money as 10. 6 1/2 hours the same as 8. You get the idea. And, the flip side is, 20% more for retirement, necessities, luxuries. More savings for what you want, now and later.
2) A good working environment is a good working environment. I've been places I've loved, places I've hated, places that turned from the former to the latter over time, and places that made me shrug. The shrug or love places are what you want. Work need not be a complete love fest in order to be satisfying and low stress. But it does mean that you would need to cultivate more relationships (friendships, generally) outside of work. That's not necessarily a bad or difficult thing. Bad places, though, are awful. They are soul-killing. And, no matter what you're making, you never get that time back. A special time (a good one, that is), is great, but a bad time trumps that and is hard to recover from.
3) Speaking of time, crazy long hours make you run down and can really do a number on your health, in the short and long runs. You eat crap because you don't have time to cook or shop or make better choices, you don't exercise except for running around the office, and you neglect making appointments with health care professionals because you have no time.
4) And time never comes back. Salary might, but time never, ever does. This is also an argument against a huge commute. Personally, I'd rather buy or rent a much more expensive (closer) home than have a monster commute, because that is more stress and more time and you'll never see that time again. At least at work you are being paid for the time. But a 10-hour day means that work (usually, for an average commute) dominates over half of the day, what with not just being at the office, but also the round-trip commute and the prep time involved in showering, dressing, perhaps making a lunch or grabbing breakfast on the way, laying out clothes the night before, etc. That time turns into 12 - 14 hours for a lot of people. This means that dinner (assuming you don't eat at work, which may very well be happening), TV and sleep are crammed into 10 - 12 hours. Sleep, you'll find, will fill any gaps and dominate the time. You won't have much choice in the matter, if such hours continue. This doesn't mean that people can't do it. It is certainly possible and people do it all the time. But it is hard to maintain and, the older you get, the worse it is.
5) Stressful jobs and places where you work your butt off tend to mean that you need major league escape vacations. A day or two here and there tends to not be enough and, instead, you are more interested in either getting far away or being away for a while. And, of course, you come back to the pile of junk on your desk. That was what I used to dread the most. I'd hit a good stride and make it to work equilibrium, and then we'd go on a short (as in half a week) vacation, and I'd stress out the night before returning because I knew how much crap would be waiting for me. The first week or two after vacation, when you're supposed to be relaxed, were often stressfests for me.
6) Having unpredictable hours stinks. Welcome to the world of practicing law, the world of being a legal auditor, the world of being a voice recognition engineer. Well, you get the idea. Lots of folks have jobs like this. Used to be, my folks would call -- I swear this is true -- 6 months in advance if they wanted to plan anything with us, because it was only then that I could order my schedule. It was an awful way to live.
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All of that being said, here's what I would do. I'd talk to my current boss. Explain the money deal. Explain the hours deal. Explain that you're not even exactly doing what you like. And see if any accommodations can be made. I doubt that the hours will improve much and you may find that that's enough to sway your decision away from the place. Or, you may find that efficiencies start to kick in and there really is a bit less time spent there. Or the good people you like start to leave. Or you're offered more money, so the gap isn't as wide. But I'd start by giving them a chance to bend more to you, seeing as you've bent so much to them.
And, I'd do some looking around, on my own (since time is tight, this means Internet searches and also spending some vacation days on this), for another position. You can still be friends with the people you now know. Some will stay in your life and many won't. That's human nature. But in the meantime it's possible that the situation there has hit a stalemate because everyone else is too busy to look for something better. Who knows? You might be a part of a leaving/looking trend. Plus, there've got to be more than two places where you can work. There may be a happy medium out there for you.
Jespah, I have to say, that is quite an impressive and thoughtful post. I really appreciate it, and I basically went through all of the things you just mentioned tonight as I tossed both of the jobs around with my parents for the past few hours.
I am almost positive I am going to stay at the job I'm at now, and not take the corporate job. The more I thought about it, the more I was leaning towards staying at the ad agency, basically because I left my last job thinking that I needed to try something different. With that in mind, going back to another corporate hellhole doesn't seem like the right thing for me right now.
And then I remembered something that pushed me all the way over to the "stay with the ad agency" side. It was something that just slipped by without me even noticing the significance of it.
When I first started negotiating for this job, I told the agency guy that I wanted X amount of money to do the job. He called me back and told me that he could get that amount for me, but I'd have to work a 4:00 PM to 10:00 PM shift. I told him no, the negotiating then started in earnest, and I basically forgot about it.
But I didn't really think about why they would offer me that shift! They want someone to work late hours! They're as busy as hell too! I would be giving up the ad agency with it's unpredictable crazy hours for a corporate ****-ass environment with a good chance of STILL having those unpredictable crazy hours!
Unless someone here can convince me that there is some other reason they would offer me a late shift like that, I'm sticking with the superfantastic environment and the unpredictable hours of the ad agency for the time being. And even if you can convince me, I still think I'm giving the ad agency the nod, just because I've done the corporate hellhole thing already. It's too early to go back to that kind of suckfest, even if the money is excellent.
Maybe there is a better job out there, and I'll still keep my eyes open for it, but this one ain't it.
Thanks for the help everyone. Molto apprezzamento.
I tend to go with my heart a lot re jobs....
The way I look at it, it is a massive amount of your life that you spend there, and a good working environment, with great people, where I can be creative and such, feeds my heart and my life.
Money isn't worth hating your life for...I believe. Especially when we may die tomorrow...
IF one could work a few uears at a hated job, then be free not to do so again, well, mebbe that is worth it.
Therefore, I guess I am saying "On ya, Kicky!"
Looks like I'll really have to spring for a drink or two for the Kixter.
kickycan wrote:Jespah, I have to say, that is quite an impressive and thoughtful post....
... I'd have to work a 4:00 PM to 10:00 PM shift. I told him no, the negotiating then started in earnest, and I basically forgot about it.
But I didn't really think about why they would offer me that shift! They want someone to work late hours! They're as busy as hell too! I would be giving up the ad agency with it's unpredictable crazy hours for a corporate ****-ass environment with a good chance of STILL having those unpredictable crazy hours!....
My pleasure. And I'm sure you're absolutely right. Most corporate places don't offer shift work unless it's either (a) something that requires 24/7 coverage, such as being a Database Administrator or (b) the land o' busy-ness. Most folks in corporate land go home after a while, certainly by 8 or 10 PM and it tends to not be a constant thing. Hence it's also possible that they just can't get the work done in the alloted time period. Well, why not? Can't every other company bang out the work in the alloted time?
So a late shift either means they're busy or they are the most inefficient place on the planet. Or, they are grossly understaffed and will glom onto any live body they see. I suspect that's the case here, since they are throwing a chunk of money around. In any event, you don't need that aggravation.
Sounds good, kicky.
I haven't ever really been in a corporate environment -- closest I ever came, my superiors gave me pretty much complete freedom to do my thing. So I don't have the automatic corporate=evil reaction that a lot of people do, but sounds like they have that reaction for good reason.
What dlowan said....
I'm glad you made that choice kicky.
Working somewhere like a corp environment if that's not where your heart is will cause major soul sickness.
As trite as it sounds, money is not everything.
I'd support you if you changed your mind right now, but I'd be worried about your happiness.
I love you man.
