It's not exactly the same, but I did even a little worse for an internal transfer just recently. We have had a lot of turnover, and I was needed in another department to do work that I've done before, but don't want to do long-term. The manager asked if I could transfer to finish up a project. I needed some work, so I took the assignment. I worked on that job for two weeks, and another manager called with a better assignment, more in-line with my career path, and wanted me to start immediately. I let my then current manager (of two weeks) know that I was going to take the new assignment. I've been helping him part-time to try to bridge until he can find someone else, but that work is getting behind. Generally, he's pretty upset with me. It's obviously different, because unless he leaves (not unlikely), I'll be working with him in the future, but I really wish I could have handled it differently. If I would have known the second assignment would have come along so quickly, I wouldn't have taken the first.
Happened to me twice so far. First time, I was working as co-op for one company when a second company wanted me to come co-op with them. I explained to them that I've already accepted a position and could not entertain their offer at the time. (Note: still wonder what my career trajectory would've been like had I started at the other company instead of the one I stuck with). I also shifted the blamed to my co-op program stating that they wouldn't want us starting on co-op job and then switching as that would make the program look bad. The second time, I accepted a job during grad school on-campus recruiting (two semesters before I graduated), and I kept working at my then-current employer for 7 months before putting in my notice that "I was taking my talents" elsewhere. My then-current employer came through with a counter-offer (but not before I told them I was leaving even though they knew I was getting ready to graduate that summer), but I told them I couldn't accept the offer but I appreciated them trying to keep me. I also shifted some blame to my fiance (now wife) saying that she wanted to live in a different city. Moral of the story: don't renege on your promises, and always find someone else to blame :grin:
Agree. Say 2 weeks from now, this company you decided to be loyal to suffers a setback and they have to lay people off, on a last-hired-first-fired basis. Do you think they'll give a rat's ass about the promises they made to you? Take the job you want. The first employer will just call their runner-up; no big deal. Be polite about it; be apologetic; but get the job you want most. Oh, and don't tell this dream-job employer that you just ditched another company 3 days in to work for them. They might think you were unreliable.
That might get tricky in a scenario when the dream job starts interviewing you and either point blank asks you Are you working right now, where? Or they start doing their background/employment check and they find out the last employment you put down that you no longer work there, and now you have to either explain your supposed present unemployment or some other reason for your current job status.
