From “We Can’t Lose!” to “Welp, at Least We Didn’t Lose Anything!”

The Family’s move from the American Midwest to the country’s Mountain West a few years back was 100% driven by me. That said, I sought—and got—buy-in from The Missus, Thing One (The Elder) and Thing Two (The Younger) before we actually decided to move. 

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. 

Thing One soon backslid on her initial “yes-I’m-down-with-this.” response. Worse, she’s never warmed up to our new city/state. That’s weighed heavily on my conscience. 

And The Missus, while happy in our new place, also would have been happy just staying put. That’s in part due to the fact that she loved her job and employer in the Midwest. 

And, objectively speaking, The Missus did have a thing going. She worked mostly with great people, and served a community for which she has a deep affection, had worked her way up to a leadership position, earned a pretty good salary, and had fantastic employee benefits. 

Seek and ye shall find?

The Missus looked for a job in our new city before we moved. But she couldn’t find anything. No worries, I thought. There’ll be loads of jobs/opportunities and once we’re on the ground in our new city, which is both dynamic and fast-growing. Surely, she’ll be able to quickly secure something great. 

Well . . . again . . . you know what they say about the best laid plans. 

Turned out that our new city wasn’t as dynamic or full of jobs in the areas that The Missus had worked in and in which she hoped to stay. It took her months to find a job. That job, on top of offering a salary a good chunk lower than what she’d been making in our old city, turned out to be a disaster because the organization was a complete mess. 

The Missus started looking for a new gig about four months into that job. Ultimately, she secured two offers and chose the one that appealed more to her. The Missus generally likes her job and the organization but took a further salary cut in taking it. 

As I came to read and have told her, your job/employer loves you until it doesn’t. As she works in nonprofit, and things for all organizations in that sector are precarious because of ‘rona-related effects on donations, I suggested it’d be worth hedging her bets by at least testing the job market. 

Unfortunately, the market for ideal jobs for her is about what it was when we moved. Which is to say, far from great. The Missus has thrown her hat in the ring for a few jobs over the last year or two, but had no success. Until recently. 

Stranger things

About two months ago, The Missus applied for a potentially excellent job. As it ultimately turned out, the position wasn’t ideal, but would have the huge advantage of allowing The Missus to be an insider in a great organization and the community she’s passionate about. That’d all but surely help in getting a different and/or better job in the organization/community more easily. What’s more, the job posting listed a salary range, the high end of which was much higher than what The Missus makes now. Given The Missus’ experience and qualifications, it appeared to me that she’d be able to credibly argue that she should be paid at or near the high end. On balance, this job looked like a winner.

Well . . . yet again . . . you know what they say about the best laid plans. 

The Missus provided the potential new employer a few references, one of whom is a current co-worker. However, when the hiring manager for the new position called The Missus’ employer, she ended up leaving a message with someone else in the organization: The Missus’ boss. D’oh!

The Missus’ boss subsequently asked to speak with The Missus. During that uuummm, uncomfortable conversation, The Missus confirmed that she’d been offered a job but said that she’d not yet accepted it for a few reasons, one of which was because the salary hadn’t yet been agreed upon. Keen to keep The Missus, her boss told her to circle back once details for the position with the new organization were available. The unstated presumption was that the current employer would bump up The Missus’ salary in order to keep her.

Informed of this sequence of events, I told the Missus, “You’re in a no-lose situation! At best, you take a good job with a great organization and get a salary bump. And at worst, your current employer bumps up your salary and you stay there.” Hooray!

Yeah, about those best laid plans again.

Benefits costs analysis

Along the way, I advised The Missus to do what probably very few people do: get more details about the new organization’s employee benefits. I was sure they’d be far cheaper and more generous than that from her current employer, but wanted to get the full story.

A few days later, things came into sharp focus . . . in a surprisingly bad way. First, the new organization’s health/dental/vision benefits package not only wasn’t any more generous than what The Missus currently has, it’d cost her double the relatively eye-watering amount we currently pay. On top of that, the new organization wouldn’t offer a salary higher than the low end of its range, which represented only a small increase from what The Missus currently makes. 

The long and short is that notwithstanding the salary bump, her overall compensation package with the potential new employer would be significantly less than she’s currently getting. And that’s without any raise that the current employer might provide.

Given that The Missus wasn’t unequivocally thrilled by the new position, it seemed that there were few compelling reasons to take it. But I told The Missus, at least you’re likely to get a pay bump and probably some new opportunities for growth at your current employer! So, let’s see what they come back with. 

A day later, we had our answer: zippo. Given that planning and budgets for 2022 already had been set, the current employer wouldn’t offer anything new to The Missus. That was a bit of a kick in the teeth. 

If you’re keeping score at home—and I know you are, Dear Reader—The Missus once seemed on track to have a great job, for a great organization, and to get a substantial pay bump in the process, or to stay put and be paid more for doing so. Instead, she found herself declining the new job because she’d end up with a far lower overall compensation package if she took it, and getting no pay bump for staying put. The Missus found herself not in a no-lose situation, but rather in a position in which she at least didn’t lose anything. 

I’ll tell you what though. My financial education over the last few years was of great value. In the before times, there’s a good chance I’d not even have thought to consider the comparative cost of employee benefits. Sure, you should can call me an idiot for that. And you’d be right. But now I question many more things. In this instance, it thankfully translated to an interest in the comparative cost of employee benefits. That saved The Missus from making a costly decision, even if taking the new job would have been worth it notwithstanding.

And in the end . . . 

So, after a topsy-turvy series of events, The Missus is right back to where she started from. That’s not a bad place to be. But it’s been quite an interesting ride.