I’m starting a new job in a couple weeks.  This is the first time I’ve had to deal with counteroffers and the whole thing has left a bittersweet taste in my mouth.  The big takeaway from the experience for me is this:  unless the SOLE reason for looking elsewhere is financial, once you start down the path and give your resignation, there is no going back.  Even then I’d still be wary of accepting a counteroffer from your current employer.  The second you give a hint that you’d leave, you become a liability and a risk.  You’ve demonstrated you are willing and able to walk away from all the investment the business has put into you as an employee.

My reason for leaving was one of wanting more professional development.  The work I’m doing now isn’t very technical in nature, but technical work is what I want to do.  I’m happiest when I’m deep in command lines.  I walked into my boss’s office and let him know my reasons for wanting to leave.  There wasn’t much financial incentive, just the potential for work in things I’m more interested in.  He said he could pull me from my current project and put me on other things that I should find more interesting.  Sounded great to me, so I went to decline the offer from the potential new employer.  They then threw money at the problem and I had to give a lot more weight to the financial aspect of it. 

The next day I went to work prepared to give my boss the bad news.  However, he called me into his office before I went to see him.  He’d been thinking about our conversation and decided that maybe I should take that offer after all.  He didn’t want to have to worry about me being happy all the time.  From his tone and what he was saying, I thought he was going to let me go right then and there.  I let him know the other company countered and I was going to accept their offer then.  We shook hands and I gave a formal 2-week notice letter a day later.  Ultimately, he did make me feel like a cog in a money-making machine, and no, I’m not naïve and I do understand that that’s what a business is supposed to do.

Imagine if the other company did not counteroffer.  I’d have been pretty screwed at that point.  It worked out in my favor this time, but I certainly was not aware of the stakes at that point and what cards each player was holding at the time.

So now I’m in the space in between again.  I don’t really believe the 2-week notice thing anymore and I hate feeling like a lame duck, but here I am.  For now.

On another note, I was looking back at frustrated I was last year just trying to get a job and people are bidding on me now.  It’s funny how things ultimately work out.