Welcome to my site. How you got here, I’ll never know………. unless I sent you the link, in which case I know EXACTLY how you got here 😉
I’m a 29-year old cool chick working in Boston in the corporate world. Over the past 7 years I have acquired many a story of working in this environment, but I never wrote a blog about them out of sheer fear of being found out and fired.
Well, thanks to the wonders of the first amendment, the fact that I’m using fake names, and my constant need to say what is on my mind, I have decided to just let it all out here.
Right now you are catching me in the process of getting a new job. I have been working for this company since my junior year internship, and I think it’s time to part ways. You see, I came to Boston only 4 years ago to live close to family, only to realize that working at a satellite office is not all it’s cracked up to be. I can work from home any day I want, but, after having tried it for over a month (seeing as there was NOBODY in my office who actually worked there more than 2 days a week), I have to say it’s not for me. I don’t know if it’s the darkness, the sitting on the couch all day, or the feeling that Frasier and Niles Crane are more my work peers than real people are, but it just did not work out. But I digress. The point is that I can’t stand working with just a computer and a phone all day long, and I need a new challenge!
The two companies I’m interviewing with are very different. One is a multinational software company that makes software for health care systems, and the other is a major hospital in the area. One is a for-profit corporation with plenty of money to go around, and the other is a non-profit with just a promise of working so close to the medical field you can taste the blood (ok, that was gross, but probably not far from accurate). My heart is with the hospital, given as I have been obsessed with the medical profession ever since I got hooked on ER ( ♥ Dr Greene ♥ , dreamy) back in 2004. However, they are offering me a considerable pay cut that I can’t ignore, while the multinational is offering me a little bit more than I make right now, plus a signing bonus.
After talking to everyone under the sun, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot afford to take such a great pay cut, especially if I end up not liking the job and I have to put myself out in the market again at a lower salary position. I have an MBA, for God’s sake, why would I take a pay cut the same year I graduated from business school??? I am the first to say that money isn’t everything, and if your happiness costs several thousand dollars less a year, then so be it! But I can’t even guarantee that this job will be the solution to all my problems. It’s a huge risk, and I have to be smart about it. The alternative is not that bad: the job at the multinational company will allow me to get back to my computer science roots by teaching me how to program a very sophisticated health care application, and will have opportunities for growth to travel to South America and Europe. They’ll even pay for language classes! (I know Spanish, but they think it would be nifty if I knew Portuguese also). So, really, I am not losing either way. It would just kill me to reject a potentially AMAZING opportunity at the hospital just because of a few cents (or thousands of dollars).
I called HR at the hospital this morning and asked them if I could meet the team. We have been doing interviews since September 1st, but I still have not met my peers. I’ll make a decision after that. Most likely, I’ll ask for only a small pay cut, and see how they react. If they can’t match me, I’ll just have to say goodbye and accept the multinational job, which is slated to start in January.
Choices Choices… it’s a good problem to have, though, isn’t it?
abi