Career Horror Stories: I Don’t Want to Nickel and Dime

“I was at my old job, sitting on break eating lunch in my car when I saw the offer letter come through on my email. It was from that agency with the fun office and I remember feeling so relieved!

“We are pleased to offer you employment in the position of Account Executive…

“I remember what was going through my head. The student loans. The credit cards. I finally might be able to make some progress paying them down. And I swear if I had to fill out one more online job application I was going to die.

“But then I read down a little further and saw the salary they were giving me. With taxes, it was going to work out to be only a little more than I was making before. So OK, I thought, maybe I won’t be able to make that much progress, but a little bit is better than nothing, right? And they said that most people start out in 90-day ‘probation’ period which makes sense. I understand they need me to prove my worth by working hard before I can start asking for more. Plus the benefits are awesome!

“So of course I accepted it. It’s a really cool company with a really cute cafe that has a Nespresso machine right there in the office. They even let people bring dogs to work and let us out an hour early on Fridays during the summer.

“I know I technically should have asked for more money. I can’t pay my rent with espresso. But something about the way the offer was worded made me think that wouldn’t work. I didn’t want to push my luck. What if I’m not as good as I think I’ll be at this job? I wouldn’t want them to think they were overpaying me.

“Besides, if they’re spending all this money on great benefits like this, it would probably seem super ungrateful of me to start questioning the salary. And I know like 3 people who still don’t have jobs right now. Why would I be greedy?

“It’s just not in my nature to nickel and dime. So I’m going to take this job and hope for a raise next year.”