Bolded is so true. Plus imagine how long it takes for a new to company person to learn the lay of the land. What if the new hire doesn't work out? Everyone's replaceable but don't expect it to be a 1:1 replacement.
I'm 114 miles away and I miss my family everyday. I only see them on the weekends and have recently accepted a remote job to go back to Houston. As far as the small house I bought here in Port Neches I'm not sure what to do with it. Maybe rent it or sell it but I'm ecstatic to be back with my people come November 1st.
If you're not going to accept the counter I wouldn't worry about what they do at this point. I accepted a counter offer I wasn't expecting at a company I had grown to resent and while it ended up lucrative for the short time I remained there, I'd have been emotionally happier had I moved on. Learned a lesson from that on balancing financial wellness with happiness.
Congrats! I would also miss my family terribly if I were away 4-5 nights a week. If you're going to rent that house, get a management company or at least find a reliable that will work closely with you to deal with fiddly bullshit. It really sucks to drive hours each way to deal with rent house issues. If the house is already old, has old appliances, hot water heater, etc, you should replace that stuff first. Run a background and credit check and get references on any potential tenants, and meet them if possible. For the above reason, getting a tenant who will do work on the house themselves is huge. Tax breaks on investment property are very nice, too. Depreciation is magic. Personally, I would just sell it, though. Not sure how much equity you have. If it's a 'small' house you may be able to unload it to some investors for a lower price but with very little closing costs and no commissions paid to agents. Sometimes it's better to put this stuff to bed and be done with it. There's a lot to be said for quality of life vs a big paycheck. Commuting, eating out daily (or the hassle of packing a lunch), wear and tear on your vehicle, fuel, work office bullshit, etc, etc....Sometimes the net gain of working from home is worth a cut in pay. I WFH 97% of the time and I get more sleep, drive less than 5k miles a year, can eat healthy food and work out at home. I can get up and walk around when I need a break. Play with the dog. Be with my family when they're home for school holidays. I wear tank tops and gym shorts 10 months out of the year, and in the 'cold' months I wear a tee and joggers. I can run errands when I need to. The only downside is networking in-company. I don't see my teams and they don't see me so we don't develop that shorthand and subconscious understanding that you get when you are shoulder to shoulder with people over months and years.
It's crazy how I'm the opposite of this. I'm not a boomer, 36 years old, but I have always preferred being in the office, and the majority of my team appears to be the same. I am a super flexible with my team and do allow them to work from home when needed, or even have some arranged to be WFH 1-2 times a week, but overall, we have a great atmosphere here. I'm a civil engineering consultant, so being hands on helps a lot. The commute does suck though, but I find myself being less productive at home since I'm easily distracted.
From what I know of civil engineering, it's a hybrid job by nature with the need to be on site, correct? And if you're a consultant then the expectation is probably higher from the client to make appearances. The distraction is something that takes some discipline to get used to. I have an office at home, so I have a 'work' environment to sit in and can close the door when my family is around. If you're setting the tone by being the manager in the office, your subordinates will be there too. You may be assuming they're all happy when in fact some may not. I would take a closer look to make sure they're satisfied. Happy people are better contributors.
A salary should be meaningless to the employer. The job getting done is far more important. Pay people whatever they want. It just doesn't matter. Which means if they aren't willing to pay a strong employee, leave. Same goes for Bregman.
cive consultant here as well, 2 days in the office, 3 days at home, i hated going in 5 days a week...with Teams, its ez to keep track of the team
Unfortunately on our end we did see a loss of productivity being remote. Our company was set up to go remote from the start of the pandemic, but we definitely saw a drop in profits due to lack of productivity. I don't know, I know many companies are navigating this differently. If my particular group had constant turnover, I'd definitely be changing up the approach, but my group alone is now 25 people and we have kept our team in tact for at least almost 5 years now. We had a few interns over the summer and they all talked to their friends in other companies and those individuals felt pretty happy being in our team, we even have more recommendations from them and are in another growth period. I'm definitely not the type to want to keep something that isn't working, but I've personally always made it a point to check up on people, make sure things are going well, whether they are happy, etc and we really have no complaints to our approach. Once again, we are pretty damn flexible, so is not as if we don't allow individuals to work from home, but we don't necessarily encourage it.
i can see that, engineers are conservative by nature and very loyal workers, sometimes, too loyal lol....also it depends on the team for sure, we work efficiently and i put an emphasis on mentoring and info sharing so that i maximize their productivity, this efficiency creates additional time which we use on leisure instead of using it for more work, for me Time > Money, might be an immigrant thing
I may be too late to pile on, but the old advice was never accept a counter offer from your current employer. You are now considered "tainted" as in you're willing to leave, so they'll just lay you off the next time. That was the old theory. I have heard, recently, however, that accepting counter offers and staying is becoming more common, especially with younger workers. In my humble opinion, you should pursue the new job and don't bother with a counter. Its actually strange to me that your management would ask for an offer to make a counter, and not just pay you more, or at least negotiate a raise in good faith. It seems to me a glib response from management to say "bring me an offer and I'll see what I can do", which means they either don't care if you leave OR they don't think you're good enough to get an offer. But I may be reading too much into it.
This was basically me when I was working. It was easier to get things done in a "community" environment. The drive sucked, but I could overlook that. At least at 2 of the companies I worked at, work quality and teamwork seemed to suffer when we started allowing WFH (and that was before COVID).
Update: been since Monday and I still haven't heard a counter offer. I sent a message to my boss today and said I'd like to hear something by mid day tomorrow. His response was simply "I told them the sooner, the better.", which is not an adequate response, in my opinion. I leave for vacation tomorrow around 4. I plan on telling them around 1, whether I have a counter or not, that I've accepted the other offer. Doesn't seem like it should take a week to get a counter offer together if you value an employee, as they say they do. I think they're jerking my chain and trying to make it seem as if I'm the bad guy. Their loss.
When i submitted my two weeks notice (technically 3 weeks) I had a counter offer within a couple of hours which I didn't even ask for anyways. I was ready to leave.
I'm not sure why you gave them all that time to FAFO. Are they expecting you to give them a solid two weeks after the "official resignation?" These relationships can get messy like the previously mentioned divorce. It's best to be upfront and take the lead on your choices rather than be passive and open up misunderstandings. I think you're either too nice or letting them exploit your guilt for leaving. Professional courtesy is two weeks. I would not have told them my counter offer, but I'm the type that wants to confirm how much they value me first. If you like them or want a reliable contact, make them acknowledge the favor before doing them a favor with your time and knowledge and extending. If they want you to extend your departure beyond next week, it feels like you've been manipulated into extending your two week notice. Better have a professional line to account for them "feeling lead on". At least chatgpt is around for that...
Why do you care about a counter offer when you have already decided to reject it? Just leave on good terms in a professional manner and enjoy the new opportunity. This seems bizarre
I put in a 4 weeks, as is standard in my profession. Next week I'm on vacation. I am typically "too nice" in general. It's a character flaw, really. I need to learn to be more direct. They don't know what kind of offer is accept, but it would have to beat the other company by a couple percentage point margin for me to take it, and there's no way it will. I don't even expect them to match. That's how this company works. It's bottom line above all else, no matter who leaves. Everyone knows it. Part of my thought process is to lead them on a bit, as they have me, a few times, in the past. It also helps me keep that bridge intact if I ever need it, which I shouldn't. I'll make my decision today, before I leave for vacation, and then I won't think about it next week while spending time with my family. I've been proceeding as if I'm starting with the other company the entire time, as there's a far less than 1% chance I would even consider their counter. They just don't know this. Jokes on them. You get what you give. FAFO, as you said.
