I did a similar thing except it was a real interview I went to and then I took that job.
LPT
I did this and it worked wonderfully. I was the only employee trained in performing the job I did and the only person with access to the system within which I worked. This is after 6+ months of begging someone else to be trained on these systems.
Plot twist: I actually had an interview to go to and received a call offering the position to me while my boss was talking with me about what was going on. I politely ended that conversation and put in my two weeks notice. They practically begged me to stay on for one month and train another employee in the data system I managed. I refused. 😊
No one clapped, though. They were actually really upset.
I don’t even ask for raises anymore. My employer either just gives me regular raises or I just go elsewhere. If I have to ask then even if they do give me a raise it still means that they wanted to rip me off. I don’t work for people that want to rip me off.
My job isn’t to haggle, my job is to fix shit. If they want to make me haggle then I’ll just go work for someone who doesn’t.
I once did an even more extreme version of this. I showed up with a contract for a new job that would give me a 30% raise and an opportunity to work from home as much as I want. I told my boss to match that offer or I would sign it.
He took a few days to decide and made me an offer that was significantly worse, so now I have a new job, more money and haven’t seen the inside of a corporate office in months. My old team has been completely dissolved because the old crew left faster than they could train replacements.
Suppose they did match it, you stayed, and then everything fell apart. Or worse, they resented your ultimatum and fired you the moment they had a replacement. I would just always take the new offer.
Never accept a counteroffer, they’re just going to use it to buy time to find your replacement.
Just make an employment contract part of your counteroffer
Contracts only protect you from the honorable, or those you can enforce upon.
If they’re honorable, you don’t need a contract. If you can enforce upon them, its only utility is to gaslight their peers.
They can set their own penalties, but the most common penalty for the business would be paying the full term of agreed employment (so probably 1-2 years) even if they want to fire you early. The most common one for the employee would be repaying any signing bonus and/or all or part of the salary for the full term of the contract.
You can enforce upon any legal and valid contract, but that’s obviously in a perfect world- many people can’t make the choice to take time off of whatever other job they might have found and pay an attorney/stay organized enough to find someone pro bono.
However, if you’re working with a company large enough to have a legal department larger than one overwhelmed lawyer, the contract will likely have a chilling effect on them fucking you over (which is imo the ideal situation for the type of company you need to do this with, they’ll be on their best behavior)
As someone living outside the US, your whole comment and the surrounding ones are absolutely wild.
Here in Germany, work without a contract is absolutely unthinkable. If anyone offered me a job without a contract, I would have to immediately report them to the authorities on the suspicion of tax fraud.
Also, even without a single word about it in my contract, they would have needed to notify me way in advance if they wanted to let me go. The exact duration varies by how long you’ve been there but the minimum is four weeks. For me it would have been four months because I had been there for over ten years. Also, the requirement for an employee to quit can never be stricter than for them to be fired. If you’re interested in the details, I recommend you find a translation of § 622 BGB.
And yes, these rules do get enforced reliably. The mere mention of the word “lawyer” usually gets even the most stubborn boss to comply in these cases because they know that every judge would rule against them within minutes.
Yeah, I live in Germany now and it’s great. I’m technically working without a renewed contract (which in my contract, means that it auto renews with a COLA increase) due to their oversight, but my raises stack on top of that.
The worker’s rights situation in the US is dismal unless you’re both lucky and in a skilled position, in which case it seems like it’s workable, but only as long as your luck holds. It’s still dismal.
Again, youre acting like laws are magic spells, and the best use for the paper they’re written on, the most utility it can provide me, is not to wipe my ass with.
I specifically said that they don’t help you if you don’t have the resources to pursue them, outside of a chilling effect. I expect a little more from my magic spells.
Nah, laws & contracts do get enforced. It’s happened many times before.
When the power differential is close, sure.
But we dont live in a society like you’re thinking of anymore, if we ever did
Even when it’s not: pretending successful lawsuits against governments, major companies, & the wealthy don’t exist in significant numbers is denialism. The US is known as one of the most litigious countries.
And then everyone clapped
This could definitely work if you are doing something that cant easily be replaced. Maybe tell some colleagues about your “interview” as well.
I had to use the phrase “I am going to lose my home without a substantial raise” to get a raise at my last job
My current job is so niche that I straight up told my boss I’d quit without a raise and he made it happen.
I got laid off at the end of last year along with most of the company. It was less than 3 months before I had a contract in hand to return as an independent contractor at a noticeable increase in pay. The company has however been dragging their feet on extending me a job offer. I’ve been continuing to interview on the side for full time employment (and I’ve gotten super close to an offer a couple of times and I’m currently waiting on a recent interview) my plan is to present my job offer to the CTO who it sounds like wants to hire me but hasn’t been pushing too hard on that aspect of the corporate politics and say “hey I’d love to stay and keep doing what I’m doing, but I need benefits and the level of commitment that Full Time Employment would provide to me. Can you get me a job offer or should I accept this one?” and see how that goes
Ehh, loyalty isn’t worth shit to big businesses, and they’ve already fired you once. Keep milking the contractor job while you find a better place.
Its not really loyalty but the fact that I have an awesome boss and this job has better benefits (like remote work and incredible flexibility for time off) than a lot of the jobs I’ve been interviewing for
Good luck, man.
The next week he got
the raisereplacedIn most of the developed world that would be blatantly illegal.
But yeah, unions are a scam, right?
Probably not going to work if you have a non office job, as in an hourly employee, which are the majority of people.
Show up to a construction site, retail, fast food, etc in a suit with a resume folder. 😂
"Look, boss, I could make 135 times what I do here as a trader for that bank. And that’s without the bonuses. So either you match up and I keep on digging your trench, or I’m out of here.’
A polo and some nice chinos would work better in that scenario as it carries more feasibility. (Also, stop by an office supplies store to grab some blank 2x4 labels to write you name on and ‘forget’ to remove from your chest)
This was the kind of surprise twist punchline I was expecting.
I recently did the WFH version of this. It didn’t work.
Kobayashi Maru
