Originally posted by: Nightfall
Personally, I would never accept a counteroffer from the same company if I turned in my letter of resignation. Mainly because if you say you are leaving, most people in the company see that you are not loyal to them anymore. Most of the time, counteroffers are mainly looked at as a "temporary" fix to the problem. Just to get you to stay for 2-6 months until a proper replacement has been found or a convenient time for the company to let you go so they aren't in a bind. I know some people haven't been treated like that, but a majority of them have and I wouldn't want to even be put in that situation.
Just my .02 cents! Good luck!
I agree. Here's a breakdown of my "resignations" with this VP and P:
Exhibit A (2001): I don't work for free (at least not always)
I had been working for a previous company for 3 years and my boss (who was then the Director of a relatively small dept) for a little over a year. We had gone through countless rounds of layoffs and I was one of two Java developers spared. My salary sucked (~$37k) compared to the market and I severely questioned my job security. Layoffs were getting to the point where managers had no say in who went, so even if my boss realized he needed me, it wouldn't matter if HR made up his mind for him. So, I quit.
They offered me a stepped pay increase over the following two years (to $60k/year) with an immediate hike to $45k. I trusted their verbal commitment to not laying me off. There was little reason to just try to "buy time" while they replace me, since we all knew that even with my stepped increase, they were getting a bargain. I stayed and figured meh, if I get laid off, at least I increased my value in the process.
Staying paid off in the long run, and I'm glad I did.
Exhibit B (2006): You guys have no clue who is contributing what, or if they're contributing anything at all!
Still working for VP and P, but now at a new company. Boss was not forthcoming with me regarding company's financial situation when I joined in 2005. Things were a MESS financially, morally, etc. The place was and still is a total trainwreck. What bothered me most at the time, however, were two things: the degree to which I was micromanaged and the fact that my boss had hired an incompetent jackass to my team - simply because he got an MBA from the same (apparently defunct) program that my boss did - without allowing anyone with a technical background interview him (it didn't even have to be me). Before he was finally "forced out" in January, his ass kissing and utter incompetency was permitted to run rampant, and it was quite a destructive force on my team.
So I quit. My boss was very surprised, so we talked it all out. The move I was making was a lateral one and, honestly, I wasn't that crazy about it... but it was a way out. I told my boss that I needed room to breathe and maneuver because too much of my time was being consumed by having to document and explain (to countless people in management) what I was doing every minute of the day. I couldn't tell him much about my problem with the new employee because I was certain they were taking turns blowing each other, but I did try to drop as many subtle hints as possible without looking like a whiny brat.
My boss promised to officially promote me to Team Lead (since that was the capacity in which I had been working since day one, anyway), give me a small raise (money wasn't really the problem, but why turn it down), and make a few other minor structural changes to the department.
Let's get one thing straight: my boss LOVES to re-org. In fact, it's pretty much his only fscking strategy to any problem. He even told me once that his MBA program taught that most problems can be solved by simply striking the perfect organizational balance. What a load of sh*t. I've been here for 18 months, and I've seen 4 re-orgs. Prior to my arrival (he had been here 18 months before I got here), he had re-org'ed 5 other times. In 3 years, he has re-org'ed the place
9 times. It's insanely frustrating for people, because they moment a team starts to get in a rhythm, he blasts them apart, promotes one guy, demotes another, etc. It's in a constant state of change, and people won't buy into their work because they know they probably won't be doing it next week.
Anywho, he made the structure changes immediately (of course... it's easy and fun for him). The other promises, however, NEVER HAPPENED. You see, I did decide to stay because, based on what we went through in 2001, he demonstrated that I could trust his word.
Exhibit C (2007): I see you no longer keep your word...
Instead, every time I approached him between last April and this January, I was totally blown off.
Me: Can we finalize what we talked about X months ago?
Boss: Well, give some thought to the job title you want and we'll sit down and talk about it.
Me: No thought needed. We decided 'Team Lead' last April, and I'm still very interested in that. That's the role I've been operating in since I got here, and I'm eager to make it official.
Boss: Well, give some thought to it and get back to me.
Me: [WTGDF]
We had that discussion 4 or 5 times since April, and I only grew angrier and angrier... plus the aforementioned employee was growing more troublesome every day. My boss takes well to severe ass kissing (more so than most bosses... I for one won't tolerate it), and everyone knew it, but Mr. MBA took advantage of it to the fullest extent. That really compounded problems.
Well, not long after I started my job search in December, Mr. MBA was finally exposed after I assigned him to a task that required direct, daily status updates directly to the VP (I figured it was the only way it would all come out). The VP quickly saw the flaws I had been hinting at for so long, and it became clear to Mr. MBA that he needed to seek employment elsewhere, so he quit.
Only when Mr. MBA quit did I get the rest of what I was promised. It became obvious to me at that time that my boss had kept me at bay because Mr. MBA had expressed similar interests, and my boss didn't want to do anything to cause Mr. MBA to quit... that is, until recently.
But, a great situation came up a few weeks ago (right after Mr. MBA quit), and my boss - after trying to play both sides to that little game - finds himself without either of us.
Sorry for all of the longs posts, but there's so much history to all of this that I could write a miniseries.
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