^Definitely don't quit yet. Start a blog and do some side projects like patches to a tool or something to make life easier for devs. Open up a github account and share access to them. Those will be your calling card and your interview will be less about rust from your current job and more about your passion for the projects you've started. Also join some meetups for hackfests to gauge how well your coding is received. This will give you an idea of how you'll fare in the coding part of the reviews where it gets more intense. Even though I've been in tech for 5 years, I've shared frustrations of being overworked, underpaid, and unfullfilled, but I was lucky to have a mentor who was a consultant and a hardcore java enthusiast, and I later became a consultant. Push your worries aside and start growing your passion. Stand up a little more at work to get responsibilities offloaded from you. Even if it's a losing battle, it'll help your negotiation and communication skills when it comes to meeting entirely new people rather than the familiar faces you've seen for the last 14 years. Sometimes people don't know until you speak up...then speak up again with solid points lined around why you're doing two jobs in the time of one. Make an appointment to talk to your manager, outline your frustrations, personal goals, and professional needs. If he's cool then he'll make life easier. If not, then you definitely know what you need to do in the future. It removes doubt, relieves stress, and it empowers you. You don't have to work under stress all the time, but if you do, at least make sure it's not because of the people.
Glad you made that point. It is a losing battle and has resulted in a strained relationship with my current manager. This has only added to the stress. Looking back i see how I could have presented my case much better. It is a lesson i can only take with me going forward. My previous manager understood what i was going through even though there wasn't much he could do about it. He quit 6 months ago. Just decided he'd had enough and left.
Update... I stucked it out. It might be the worst 9 months I've ever gone through. I don't know if it's the economy or what but looking for a new job wasn't easy. My interviewing skills were very rusty and its not something I was good at to begin with. To top it off I was just desperate to get any job and people could tell. Anyway, finally see some light. Got informed by one company that I've been accepted for a permanent position but they still need to put together the offer and have it approved. They'll get back to me by 10/21. Then just got another offer for a 6 month contract position. I now have to make some decisions but would like to also hear the collective wisdom. Company A (the permanent one) requires that I relocate, I have told them I want to start in January next year and they seem fine with it. Also I want to see how much they are offering first. Company B's offer actually comes at a good time as I now have some leverage to negotiate with. In the meantime, I don't want to turn down B till I'm sure everything is good to go with A. B wants me to start in November so I have to let them know early next week. The problem is this doesn't give me enough time to see how it goes with A first. I'm thinking I should just go ahead at B and then once A is finalized, quit in December. If things don't work out with A then I can continue at B with none the wiser. I would be screwing B over but given that this is a contract position, they could do the same to me. I'm just not sure if this is the wisest decision. My wife suggested instead that I tell B I'm currently on vacation then ask for more time. There's one last additional twist. There's talk going on in my current company that we may be laying off people in the next 2 weeks. I don't have a good relationship with my manager so wouldn't be surprised if I were on the list.
Join the club. My job stresses me out so bad that I constantly am waking up throughout the night wondering if I helped certain customers. Cant be as bad as mine. We are understaffed and our boss continues to pressure us to hit certain marks when we obviously need 2-3 more people.
Not only is it a contract job, but Texas (which I assume you live) is an at-will state so both parties can end it any time. That's part of the game man, and as long as you don't burn bridges and overinflate expectations of loyalty or your time there, then deep down they'll understand too when you tell them its an offer you can't refuse. It could also very well be the case that neither of you thinks its a good fit. It may take more work than you're used to but if possible, generate a positive lasting impression. Some industries are small wprlds within themselves. Some companies will not like it no matter what, but I assume good managers recognize good help is hard to find...and to keep if the offer isn't spectacular. I wouldn't leverage too much with company A if you're going to B first. Personally. I think it's safer to keep things separate if I'm juggling two similarly competing concerns, but I'm not good at those kind of things.
I think this is your best bet. You have to look out for #1 first and foremost. Don't worry about screwing over B because they would do the same to you in a millisecond. Hell, look what's going on at your current job. Don't be an a-hole about it because you obviously don't want to burn any bridges. But at the same time, you have to look out for yourself and your family before any company. Do what's best for YOU. If B has a problem with you going with a better opportunity at A, well you probably don't want to work for B anyway.
Is Company A and B just two companies that offered you a job? Have you sat and thought about what's important to you in a company, and then do the appropriate work to find if they match your requirements? I would take the approach that it's a two way engagement. They have to fit what you are looking for. If none of the above applies; just wait for the one you want to take and go for it. It's not fun trying to explain a short stint on your resume down the road when you inevitably will be looking for another job.
I found myself in a similar position late last year, miserable at a high stress, low satisfaction job I had been in for over 10 years. I ended up quitting, finishing my bachelor's and taking another position and so far, it's been a good, albeit not easy decision. I've also been working on diversifying my life outside of work as I know a lot my work stress was self inflicted, and not always a result of my environment. Good luck to you and know that sometimes if the grass is truly greener, its because you put in the work to make it so.
I was at ups for 9 miserable years busting my ass thinking I would become a driver. Had a back up plan. Now I work half the month and make 6 times more money. The day I quit ups they called me to see if I wanted to be a driver.
I work in an international non-profit organization (like UN) and the people there are incredibly selfish. Most use the organization as a stepping stone and beef up their resumes. People who worked at my place usually end up at the UN or apply to become diplomats. I don't get the appeal of the UN.
Good post, especially the bolded part. Life is too short to work at a job you don't enjoy. If you have no other choice, at least find something outside of work you enjoy, that way you at least you have something to look forward to when you're not at work. Oh, and try to have a lot of sex with your wife or girlfriend. Shoot for every night if you can. It's a great release... I loved my job until a year ago when my boss left and I took her old job. I hated it and regretted my decision to take the position almost immediately after I accepted it. In my company, you can't post for another position until you've worked your current one for at least a year. So I put my time in and started posting as soon as I was able to. Ended up getting the first position I interviewed for along with a 20% raise. Been at my new position for about a month now and I really like it. Moral of the story is, don't stay in a job you don't like. No job is worth being miserable.
You work at the League of Nations? I thought that place got shut down years ago due to being ineffective.
Yeah, I just want a reasonable offer from A. Not sure what I'm going to get as they haven't mentioned any numbers. I'm just a little worried that I might get a low ball offer. B gives me an option in case that happens. Agree on keeping things separate. I don't want to risk one of them withdrawing their offer. Thanks. I told B today I'm taking their offer. Actually they had made the same offer 3 months ago. After making me wait 3 weeks, they rescinded the offer because of budget issues and told me they could do it in November instead. I thought it was BS at the time but now I don't know as they did keep their word and come back to me. Who knows maybe after 2 months I might actually find I like it there and stay on if there's a possibility this could turn into a long term job. A and B are the only offers I got in 9 months of searching. With my work situation the way it is I cannot afford to turn down anything at this point. Short term A is going to be painful as I have to sell my house and move my family but having A on my resume will be good for my career.
Got the offer from A. It is about 3.5k below what I would consider a no brainer. I want to try negotiate it up to what I want but have no idea how to go about it. In all my previous jobs, I've always taken whatever was offered. Here are the facts: A is not offering any relocation. They have made noises that they also have local candidates lined up. A thinks their offer is comparable to what I currently make adjusted for taxes and cost of living. Based on my calculations it is about 3.5k less/year. Before they made the offer, I asked if it would be negotiable and they said yes. I've pretty much decided A would be the best option for me for the next 2-5 years. Family and friends is advising I just take the offer and then try to find something better later on. How should I go about asking for more but not risk messing it up?
joepu, it seems like you told A how much salary you made. Try to resist giving that information moving forward. You're at a huge disadvantage. Instead of giving a quantifiable value, respond by demonstrating quality. There are other threads on here (and the interwebs) about finding salary band information on your current job. One is through salary.com, glassdoor and possibly quora. What I do is use indeed's job search engine for the listed job and also do a rough salary filter. like "Facebook dev engineer $125,000". Then I have a rough estimate on salary negotiation. It solidifies your expectations and gives you some room to breathe with, though the estimates could be inflated (user provided), so don't rely on those too much. And if you really think this job will help you grow, then that'll outweigh many things. It would've been a factor for me, but I'm not married. Second, use a cost of living calculator to confirm your relocation estimate. Finally, the big questions, you're both pretty much committed. One, you've demonstrated it by waiting 3 months for them to offer. Two, they've clear either space or dead weight in those three months for you to move in. So what you have left under those conditions is either to stick with job B or go with the Good Faith option and pretty much approach the fact that they have you by the balls with enthusiasm. By that I mean tell them the truth. You're excited that you're getting an offer. You appreciate that they came through in three months, but that you think what you will bring to the company merits something higher. With the info you have at hand: -mention relocation but don't bring it up as an excuse or explicit reason. Say you like the opportunity, but whew Houston was cheaper yadda yadda -don't mention the salary bands, that power play is gone once they've extracted your current salary. Instead demonstrate value and willingness to increase that value over time. -Don't overpromise what you'll do years down the line, but show with confidence that you will either through driven self-ambition or genuine company enthusiasm -I consider at this phase that being too hard hitting will explicit points on why you think you deserve a lot more is over, which is what I meant about the Good Faith Option Under all that, give an explicit number on what you'd like to earn. You'd negotiate for say 5k more. Definitely within the range of both of your expectations, though depending on the relation between you and the recruiter, plus your negotiation skills, you could get less. I don't know if you already did that or just imply that their offer is lower by X amount. If it was an implication, when you call back say something like my wife and I went through it, and blah blah the part where it would make you both happy and even more committed with 5k more. Dump in something like "I really feel me working at blahco will be a great decision 2-5 years forward." Your genuine conclusion, no? I'll let you and your family sort out the smooth talking for the yadda yaddas. Because you're both committed and have spent time and energy on getting to this point, you can still juggle these things: -reassure them of your commitment -allow yourselves both an out to save both parties face if negotiations collapse but you both still want to retain commitment -give something concrete with your expectations so they have room to help you out with your desires Also remember: -They can't read your mind -It's not personal, but it can get there if you don't keep the top three in mind -It does not hurt to ask. People think negotiation is one-off or it's zero sum winner v. loser or my way v. highway. Do not approach this too much as game theory and try to recognize that the recruiter could be a cool person willing to get you and the company a satisfiable outcome. You don't have much of a choice, but don't give out that information either. Push that aside and reshift the whole three months thing as: "I'm cool enough to wait for you and I think you're cooler for waiting for me. We're not gonna pretend money doesn't matter, so let's get that settled so we can rock!" So yeah, lesson learned. Don't think about getting rejected now. Put your best foot on and have faith in yourself and your new employer. Your New Employer. Congrats on the job!
