I picked the job with the biggest paycheck. Then I fixed my mistake.
You need a good income to provide for you and your family. I get it, trust me, I have two very needy dogs. :)
But I very recently discovered that income alone cannot be the top priority.
2019 started off pretty rocky for me. In November of 2018, the week before Thanksgiving, the company that I worked for and loved going to every day, laid off about 20 — 25% of the office. It was heartbreaking, but que sera, sera. I’m a frontend developer in Chicago, Illinois and I knew I would find a new position somewhere.
The day after I became a free-agent, I sat down with my resume, updated it and began to send it out at a rapid pace. Very quickly I began to interview and was feeling very good about my chances in getting a new gig by the New Year. I was right. In just a few weeks I started getting offers. I’m not always secure in my skills, but deep down, I know I can do this stuff, and getting multiple offers proved myself right. Now, the question is which job do I take?
I had a random checklist for my next place of employment:
- Salary — how much annual salary will I be making
- Benefits — medical/dental/vision are a must. What kind of vacation days will I get? What other benefits does the company offer?
- Remote flexibility — can I work from home from time to time?
- Dog friendly — can I bring my pooches in on occasion?
- Co-Workers — what does the office atmosphere look like? Are people happy there, and will we work well together?
- Work/Life Balance — Am I going to be eating/sleeping/breathing this job, or is there a good balance for quality of life?
- Room to Learn/Grow — Am I going to be in a hamster wheel doing the same thing over and over or will we be looking to the future and challenging our selves to become better as developers?
This basic checklist had no particular order and I didn’t prioritize one over the other with exception to the salary. That was a mistake.
Make a checklist and prioritize
My list should have looked more like this:
- Work/Life Balance — If you have no time to live your life, you will hate your job, probably get sick, and you’ll be unhappy.
- Co-Workers — If you don’t think you’ll work well together, do you think you’ll enjoy your job? Do you think you’ll do well in that environment?
- Benefits
- Room to Learn/Grow — Becoming better at my job is a must for me. I do not want to get bored. I want to keep growing and becoming better in this field.
- Salary
- Remote flexibility — This shows that your employer has faith in its people and gives people more flexibility in their schedules.
- Dog friendly — This is a nicety, not a deal breaker.
Work/Life Balance is at the top spot. I need to know that I can enjoy my time off and unplug from that world to refresh my batteries. Many companies tend to assume salaried employees work 50+ hour work weeks. I desire to work for a company that shares my need of a work/life balance understanding there is give and take on both sides. Working for an employer who has a genuine concern for the employee’s physical/mental well being only supports the employees desire to work harder.
I put co-workers second because they are hand-in-hand with #1. You are going to spend a good 40 hours a week with these people. I’m not saying that you need to be in their wedding party or at the birth of their children, but if you can’t have a decent conversation with the people that you are around all day, you aren’t going to be comfortable with your work environment, and will affect your work.
Using the above list, I highly recommend placing 1 and 2 at the top of your list. The remaining items can be placed in order of your own preferences.
Keep this list handy and use it as checklist for your interview process.
Interviews are scary and have a measure of pressure that makes you feel like you’re under a heat lamp and you forget everything. You are just hoping that they can see beyond your nerves and take a chance on you. Because of this, companies typically feel that they have the upper-hand, and it’s time to take the power back.
During my interview process, I felt prepared. After a couple of botched interviews, due to nerves, I started getting my feet under me and had more confidence. I knew which places made me feel good and which places gave me a sense of unease.
I had my favorites, now I just had to see if they felt the same. I discovered that when you interview well, it’s not only because you are prepared. It’s also because you feel comfortable with the person interviewing you and before you know it, the interview is more of a conversation.
As I mentioned earlier, I started getting offers. Multiple offers. I had choices, and my list was no where to be found. There were 2 positions specifically that excited me. Talking to them felt good and I always walked away in a good mood. In both places, they were doing things that sounded fun, I knew I’d learn a lot, and I knew that I would enjoy being around them and learning from them every week.
So, which one of those 2 jobs did I take?
Neither.
Ultimately the position I chose, gave me butterflies, and not the good, fun, rollercoaster butterflies. The “I’m walking down a dark alley in the middle of the night” butterflies. During the interview for this position, the interviewer in the room had a really nasty attitude and really nasty body odor. The co-interviewer was via the phone. When I asked “why they like their jobs” he immediately deferred to the woman on the phone. She did answer, however, it felt forced and in the end wasn’t a really good answer. Major red flag. I knew it. I still chose this to be the place I would work.
Why? Why would I pick a job that made me feel uncomfortable?
I let it be about the money. I will say, they offered the most money by a lofty margin. I justified it as a challenge. I justified the nerves as “I didn’t deserve such a big pay day”. I justified picking the wrong job, and I knew it.
Day 1 was bad. No one there was happy. The guy with the bad odor and bad attitude sat right next to me and swore at his computer for practically 8 hours straight. They didn’t have a computer ready for me, so I tried to watch him work to get a sense of their code base, but he said no. He can’t work like that.
To be fair, not everyone in that place was terrible. There were some good people, but I didn’t get to work with most of them on a daily basis. This terrible guy was my anchor. I knew I couldn’t do it, but kept trying to justify staying. I made it about 4 days. I reached out to one of the places I really liked and luckily they had not filled the position because of the holiday season.
I happily accepted their initial offer. My priority checklist has led me to this great new job and I’m happy and growing further as a frontend developer.
The main take away I hope for anyone that reads this is that happiness needs to take precedence over your bank account. This world is in such a hurry to become rich, look better than the next guy and earn bragging rights to the point of killing us.
Let’s make quality of life the mantra of the future.
