Non-Medical HELP!!!

[Spiky Bugger]

Quick advice sought.

Our daughter loves working for non-profits...except for the part where they run out of money and do furloughs and reorganize and all that ****.

So last time around, she--with parents' nagging--applied for a very secure, permanent, full-time, lotsa benefits plus retirement job that paid twice what unemployment paid her. Then she got hired part-time somewhere that only paid what unemployment paid.

Then, at that part-time gig, they created a new position and she got promoted. Now she makes three times what unemployment pays. With decent benefits and days off and a flexible schedule, but NO retirement plan, which works for her. But it's still a non-profit...and just as fast as they created that position, they can "reorganize" and un-create it.

Meanwhile, that very secure job called today to chat with her current employer. That chat is non-negotiable. She took the message and is fretting because she doesn't want to leave this job (and doesn't want to get canned for looking elsewhere...although she started this search months before she got hired where she is now.)

Of course, she isn't 40 yet, and doesn't "get" that a secure retirement plan is crucial to old age. So you know where her (retired with pensions) parents stand.

But you are all different ages...so what do YOU think!?!

Tell the secure place thanks, but no thanks...or tell the employer you always have a back-up plan and have (the truth) been on this list before and never accepted a position?

BTW...this isn't a job OFFER, just a final check before they offer. And the secure job thing would be a $1k a month pay CUT to begin but goes up to over $1.5k a month more than she now makes.


ETA the word "NO."

 

[Elizabeth N.]

Tough call. What would current employer think about this since they created a position just for her?

In my experience with NFP's, which is entirely church related, getting involved in that kind of communication would have been the kiss of death for the current position. Church organizations are not known for their professionalism in far too many cases. Perhaps her place is better than that.

 

[kirstabelle]

Would the secure job be doing something she enjoys?

 

[Spiky Bugger]

Would the secure job be doing something she enjoys?

No.

But it would be a civil service job that, once she passes probation, would allow her to move around within a massive organization until she finds something she likes. One of my former civil service employers had jobs for almost every possible taste. One of my former coworkers used to laugh that they had to look UP 15,000 feet but they finally found a job for HIM in a helicopter.

 

[kirstabelle]

Foot in the door and all that. As long as she wouldn't be selling her soul by doing the 'right thing' and there is scope to move into another area then I would encourage her to go for the secure job.

 

[Spiky Bugger]

Tough call. What would current employer think about this since they created a position just for her?

In my experience with NFP's, which is entirely church related, getting involved in that kind of communication would have been the kiss of death for the current position. Church organizations are not known for their professionalism in far too many cases. Perhaps her place is better than that.

They didn't REALLY create it FOR HER. They created it because the highly volatile VP in that dept had an assistant give notice and they needed my kid's half-time gig...plus half of the job the departing asst was doing...being done by one competent person in one place. AND...if they had found someone they liked better, my kid's job was being subsumed into the new position and she would have been history.

 

[shann]

Having just had a mid-life crisis and left a secure job that was sucking my soul away, I could never encourage anyone to leave a job that they love just for security. I'm on the "you never know what tomorrow might bring, but you know that you're miserable right now so do something about it" plan....

 

[DianaCox]

I'm not trusting the current lunatic VP who could fire her at will or at whim. Especially if said VP (and her management) realizes that your daughter could do the VP's job. Your daughter is going to end up the kicking post for VP, sure as ****.

 

[Spiky Bugger]

I'm not trusting the current lunatic VP who could fire her at will or at whim. Especially if said VP (and her management) realizes that your daughter could do the VP's job. Your daughter is going to end up the kicking post for VP, sure as ****.

Current lunatic VP is NEVER going to be booted. She MIGHT leave, but it is unlikely. She was a "founding father" of this organization and is related to other founding fathers. But I share your distrust.

 

[Spiky Bugger]

Having just had a mid-life crisis and left a secure job that was sucking my soul away, I could never encourage anyone to leave a job that they love just for security. I'm on the "you never know what tomorrow might bring, but you know that you're miserable right now so do something about it" plan....

The job she's about to be offered will be soul-sucking. BUT, once she passes probation there, she can go anywhere within that organization...whether up or down the pay scale.

 

[Sheanie]

There is no such thing as a "secure job". I'd go for the work that gave me the most joy. She should work where she gets the most joy. Life is too short and uncertain to live "safe", and plan for retirement. The best man in our wedding had bookoo retirement funds, investments, assets, and grand plans for retirement. He died at 49 of a massive heart attack and was not discovered until two weeks later. He worked his ass off planning for retirement, never married, and was generally miserable at a job he hated.

 

[SHales]

I would say that if she stays at the place she loves, she needs to start her own retirement plan. Personally, I would go for the secure job now but probably would not have at her age.

 

[Terri]

If the secure job would end up paying more and I could end up doing what I love there I would take it. Not to mention at massive organizations if you have a flaky VP you can just transfer and don't end up having to quit, which is what would happen if she gets on the bad side of this VP.

 

[Larra]

This is a tough one. I have met so many people who get stuck at a job that either they never really liked or that started off ok but then changed in some way that now they are miserable, but they can't quit for another, say 5 or 17 years because their retirement would be screwed up. They come to work every day counting the days.
Live should not be spent counting the days and being glad when another day is checked off the list. Each of us only has so many days in us. Of course we all have responsibilities and no job is perfect, but what is the point of being alive if we aren't going to enjoy life?

 

[DianaCox]

On the sixth hand, much of enjoying a job is what YOU put into it.