Money or Happiness?
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Here is the thing, you have three choices ahead of you. Let's break them down:
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Drop in pay, ephemeral promises of halfway decent money in six months "if things work out." In the meantime you are not an FTE. Warning bells should be going off all over. The only guarantee here is that the next six months are less money. That is the promise. Don't keep saying what will happen in six months, that's not a guarantee, it's not part of the deal. It's marketing, ignore it. High risk from your side (can you excel?), high risk from their side (are they stable?) And don't repeat that they are the fastest growing anything, no one has heard of them, they are paying like a failing business - use logic, you have no proof this is a healthy business.
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Small raise, solid future. This is the guaranteed raise with a job that you know and they know you. No one is taking a chance here, this is success within your grasp. It's the conservative choice. Everything is a 'known', there is essentially no comparative risk.
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Big raise, nothing has been offered, unknown capability. You are untried in the position and don't even know if they will offer it. Less risk than #1 but huge risk compared to #2. More money but big chance of failure.
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@thanksajdotcom said:
Now I told my GM that he can't afford me as the Expert.
This was probably a mistake. Not only can he afford you in that role, but he's offering you 10% more than you have as an offer from anywhere else. And with a stable future, not a paycut for just six months and no offer after that.
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Don't be afraid to negotiate, but do so reasonably. EZTech Expert is $11. You jumped to $17, that's an unreasonable leap. But tell him you need $11.25.... no one is going to lose you, the bird in the hand, the known quantity, over $.25.
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Now I'm not saying to give up on the management track, that might make sense for you. But don't hard negotiate for it, you have no leverage. Build your Staples resume first. You have EZTech Expert experience in your grasp. Don't waste the opportunity. Become the Expert, gain experience, gain leverage. Start getting training or whatever so that becoming the manager is the next obvious step. Talk to the big manager, tell him you want the Expert Job, with $11.25, not $11 flat, and you want to start grooming for the entry level management position and want to be ready to be seriously considered when the time is right.
Don't give ultimatums, no one has more to lose here than you do.
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What makes you happy is pretty much always the answer. You need to get up every morning and be excited about what you do.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Now I'm not saying to give up on the management track, that might make sense for you. But don't hard negotiate for it, you have no leverage. Build your Staples resume first. You have EZTech Expert experience in your grasp. Don't waste the opportunity. Become the Expert, gain experience, gain leverage. Start getting training or whatever so that becoming the manager is the next obvious step. Talk to the big manager, tell him you want the Expert Job, with $11.25, not $11 flat, and you want to start grooming for the entry level management
Management is baby steps. I had worked a temporary job for almost 3 years, and worked around 60hrs a week at the company (Follett Corperation). I was offered a regional management job and they told me to take some time to think about it, I ended up turning it down while it was very nice money, working in management in that way didn't make any sense for my career path. A week later I took a job in IT again. My Boss their as well as most upper management in the company has always been great references as well for me especially because of how long I stayed with them while being a temporary employee.
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@QDesk said:
What makes you happy is pretty much always the answer. You need to get up every morning and be excited about what you do.
So True! Money as long as it pay the bills isn't as important as people make it out to be.
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Stay put. Take the EZ Expert position. It fits you. Management is a headache and you will be responsible for things you have not even thought of yet. The Expert position is something you know and can do well. You are only responsible for results. You have a lot of friends who like you and wish you the best, but when you take on a role you are not ready for, you tend to become over-bearing and rub people the wrong way. Take some time, and learn from others. If you jump before you are ready, you set yourself up for failure. The job offer may look sweet "in six months" but most businesses now also have a 90 day probationary period where you can be let go without a reason. Being late once is all they need to say goodbye. That is extremely risky. Telling Staples goodbye when they have offered you an advancement will mean you can't go back without taking a cut in pay and respect. You need a sure thing for a while. If you want a CCNA, get it on your own. It will be worth more to you then. In all our conversations I have not heard you talk networks, so I am not sure why you are looking at that now.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Now I'm not saying to give up on the management track, that might make sense for you. But don't hard negotiate for it, you have no leverage. Build your Staples resume first. You have EZTech Expert experience in your grasp. Don't waste the opportunity. Become the Expert, gain experience, gain leverage. Start getting training or whatever so that becoming the manager is the next obvious step. Talk to the big manager, tell him you want the Expert Job, with $11.25, not $11 flat, and you want to start grooming for the entry level management position and want to be ready to be seriously considered when the time is right.
Don't give ultimatums, no one has more to lose here than you do.
You bring up some good points Scott. The ET Expert role IS a keyholder position, which would be perfect grooming for sales manager. I'd have pretty much all the same training. Also, after 4 days this week of working one job, another, or both, I have realized I can't do two or more jobs again. Last time I did it for 3-4 months and it burned me out. I have enough going on in my life that I need to focus on one job and just kick ass at it.
I can do the two jobs for about 5 weeks. April 11th, the current Expert's last day, is a Saturday, and the last day of a shift of mine, as my current shifts are Tues-Sat. So that works out. I think that's what I'll do.
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@dengelhardt said:
Stay put. Take the EZ Expert position. It fits you. Management is a headache and you will be responsible for things you have not even thought of yet. The Expert position is something you know and can do well. You are only responsible for results. You have a lot of friends who like you and wish you the best, but when you take on a role you are not ready for, you tend to become over-bearing and rub people the wrong way. Take some time, and learn from others. If you jump before you are ready, you set yourself up for failure. The job offer may look sweet "in six months" but most businesses now also have a 90 day probationary period where you can be let go without a reason. Being late once is all they need to say goodbye. That is extremely risky. Telling Staples goodbye when they have offered you an advancement will mean you can't go back without taking a cut in pay and respect. You need a sure thing for a while. If you want a CCNA, get it on your own. It will be worth more to you then. In all our conversations I have not heard you talk networks, so I am not sure why you are looking at that now.
And, of course, if you get your CCNA that other job is not only still there, but you can go in with that much more negotiating power.... a track record at more money, less on the line and more to bargain with. Go back in a year with EZ Expert under your belt AND a CCNA and demand $18/hr if you want. But do things in the right order.
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@dengelhardt said:
If you want a CCNA, get it on your own. It will be worth more to you then. In all our conversations I have not heard you talk networks, so I am not sure why you are looking at that now.
I didn't get that part as well. If they are looking for a CCNA I'd think they'd want more network support experience as well
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@thanksajdotcom said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Now I'm not saying to give up on the management track, that might make sense for you. But don't hard negotiate for it, you have no leverage. Build your Staples resume first. You have EZTech Expert experience in your grasp. Don't waste the opportunity. Become the Expert, gain experience, gain leverage. Start getting training or whatever so that becoming the manager is the next obvious step. Talk to the big manager, tell him you want the Expert Job, with $11.25, not $11 flat, and you want to start grooming for the entry level management position and want to be ready to be seriously considered when the time is right.
Don't give ultimatums, no one has more to lose here than you do.
You bring up some good points Scott. The ET Expert role IS a keyholder position, which would be perfect grooming for sales manager. I'd have pretty much all the same training. Also, after 4 days this week of working one job, another, or both, I have realized I can't do two or more jobs again. Last time I did it for 3-4 months and it burned me out. I have enough going on in my life that I need to focus on one job and just kick ass at it.
I can do the two jobs for about 5 weeks. April 11th, the current Expert's last day, is a Saturday, and the last day of a shift of mine, as my current shifts are Tues-Sat. So that works out. I think that's what I'll do.
I think that that is a good, safe, conservative choice that Staples will be happy with. Leverage this to make the management position a natural growth step if you want, that might be a perfect way to go. But now that they know it is something that you are interested in, let them bring the idea to you when the time comes. Now you can groom yourself as the stable, reasonable, responsible "almost" manager while the other guy digs his own hole over time.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@dengelhardt said:
If you want a CCNA, get it on your own. It will be worth more to you then. In all our conversations I have not heard you talk networks, so I am not sure why you are looking at that now.
I didn't get that part as well. If they are looking for a CCNA I'd think they'd want more network support experience as well
That's where I fear that the six months at super low pay is a kind of probation where he is not an FTE (not sure what he would be) and they just want to see if he is CCNA material. That makes it that much riskier and scary.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
@dengelhardt said:
If you want a CCNA, get it on your own. It will be worth more to you then. In all our conversations I have not heard you talk networks, so I am not sure why you are looking at that now.
I didn't get that part as well. If they are looking for a CCNA I'd think they'd want more network support experience as well
That's where I fear that the six months at super low pay is a kind of probation where he is not an FTE (not sure what he would be) and they just want to see if he is CCNA material. That makes it that much riskier and scary.
IMO the best way to get experience, not in just IT but in management or whatever is to keep the current role and ask if they can show you (or let you learn) how to do other tasks for the roles you are interested in, this allows you to learn more while the company won't see small mistakes as big problems as much as you will be going above and beyond to to extra and learn more. Where as if it were your primary role it would be expected that you know how to do it and may be terminated during probation for it.
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I should also add, for those who don't know, I was ET Expert my from beginning of Feb 2013-Jun 1, 2013. On my watch, that store saw it's record-setting week and best consecutive 7+ weeks. If we do 3500 in tech and warranties in a week, it's a good week. For at least 7 weeks at the beginning of Q1 2013, I did at least 4K/week in that combo, aka "blend".
I came back into the store and have immediately doubled and tripled business. I know I can do the job. I've done it before and I can do it again.
I'm going to take the Expert job. We'll see what happens from there.
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I grew up extremely poor, and started making lots of money in my late 20s and I have to say: money is happiness. If you don't agree with that, surely you can agree that it at least prevents misery. I'll take more money to do worse work every time, because it pushes you closer to being done, if you're planning things right. I've been unofficially "retired" since 2010, and now making money and running businesses (I hesitate to use the over-used word "entrepreneur") is now both something that I enjoy and a way to get away from my wife complaining I spend too much time doing nothing.
I'd set a goal and work toward it, even if it's no fun. I don't agree with the idea of working for pennies doing what you love, because if you do what you hate well enough, for enough money, you can retire earlier and enjoy your freedom and what you love. I think a lot of time people just lie to themselves about this issue, just look at all the people on Spiceworks talking about how IT is their calling and they'd do it for free -- while it's certainly possible they would, I have a feeling they mean they'd use their free time to mess with computers, not wipe the noses of users.
My point is, do what it takes to make more money now, so you can enjoy your life later. I honestly think from time to time I wish I had worked harder much earlier so I could've gotten more of my late 20s back, but even if it meant in an alternative universe retiring at 50 instead of 70, I'd still work 30 years doing something I hate than working until I'm dead just trying to get by whilst telling myself "yeah, I sure love this". I'd rather be at home, but that's just me.
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@tonyshowoff said:
My point is, do what it takes to make more money now, so you can enjoy your life later.
I don't want to live in the future. I want to enjoy my life all the way through. I didn't pursue very good career options in my 20s but I had the time of my life and wouldn't swap it now. I have a few friends who earn a lot of money, but they have had health problems and rarely see their kids - that's not the life for me. I wouldn't want to be poor, but I've no desire to be rich either.
Having said that, I could do with some more cash at the moment.....
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't want to live in the future. I want to enjoy my life all the way through. I didn't pursue very good career options in my 20s but I had the time of my life and wouldn't swap it now. I have a few friends who earn a lot of money, but they have had health problems and rarely see their kids - that's not the life for me. I wouldn't want to be poor, but I've no desire to be rich either.
Not living in the future is how a lot of people get into debt. You can also maintain a healthy life style and work hard. You're sort of taking a black/white view of either not giving a damn or becoming a workaholic, at least that's what you seem to be implying, though I'm sure that probably isn't your view point. At any rate: work smart, not hard.
Having said that, I could do with some more cash at the moment.....
I think that's true for most people anyway
The very least you can do is consider the future, even if you don't take the extreme options I did of destroying myself in my 20s, you can still retire in your 50s if you play it right (I'm assuming you're in your early 30s). Living cheap helps a lot, even now with complete financial independence I am a cheap bastard, primarily because I got into that habit years ago.
It couldn't hurt to get some advice, if you think you need it or think it could be helpful, from different people who are more experienced. I'd consider, especially, talking to older people. If you want to seriously learn to live cheap, talk to someone who lived through the great depression or came from a communist shit hole country like mine, though full disclosure, people from my homeland are really bad with money because they don't have experience with it, hell, pyramid schemes are huge there like they were in the US in the 80s, but they can tell you how to not spend money or be really cheap, just ask them how they got by in the 80s and early 90s.
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@tonyshowoff said:
you can still retire in your 50s if you play it right (I'm assuming you're in your early 30s).
I wish
I'm 43 next week 
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@tonyshowoff said:
you can still retire in your 50s if you play it right (I'm assuming you're in your early 30s).
I wish
I'm 43 next week I hope you at least have some plan in mind
