Real-Life Decision Making -- Solution
You take the new job.
You weigh the option of taking the new job against staying with your current job, and you decide that the increased pay and better benefits will probably be worth losing the atmosphere you have at Markham Studios. After all, with the benefits you will be able to save for the future, and the pay increase will make your life outside work more comfortable.
So you call the other studio and tell them you will take the job. You make the arrangements to start in about three weeks, when you finish the project you are working on for Markham Studios. Then you schedule a meeting with your current supervisor to tell him your intentions.
During the meeting with your supervisor at Markham Studios, your boss seems distraught that you are leaving even though you have planned to see your current project through to the finish. It seems that there is another very large project scheduled as soon as this one is complete.
Your boss offers you a raise, though he can't give you better benefits because the company doesn't have them in place. But you stick to your decision to move on, despite the increase in money.
When you start at your new job, everyone is very reserved, but you assume it is because you are new. But after several months no one has warmed up, and you boldly decide to find out why. When you question your co-workers, you learn that you replaced someone that they all liked very much who was fired because of a difference of opinion.
As hard as you try, you can't get the other people in the office to warm. And after a while you stop trying, resigning yourself to working in an office that you don't like.
After about a year, you hate to go to the job so much that you begin to look for other work. Markham Studios has long since filled your position, and every other job opening is at a lower salary. You'll either have to stay in an environment you hate or take less money. You wish you had just stayed put at Markham Studios.
"I was once asked to join an office across town at another studio, and the salary and job security initially looked better than what I currently had," says Victor Sagerquist, a music copyist in Los Angeles. "I discussed it with my employer, who made a counteroffer to keep me in the fold. I accepted the counteroffer and stayed where I was.
"Initially I was happy with the decision, but I won't know if it was the right decision until I am too old to work. Things change constantly in the business, and if you try to chase the changes you get left behind."