I accepted a job offer for a temp role (3 months temp to hire career appointment). I have a vacation coming up (2.5 week trip out of the country). Brought this up during initial interview, hiring manager said no problem at all.
Fast forward a week, I sign a job offer and begin the onboarding process, have a set start date on the books, 1 week before my 2.5 week vacation. I realize if I start 1 week before I leave for vacation, I will lose 3.5 days of PTO I was planning on using for the vacation. (My company offers 3.5 days of personal holiday each year that is not paid out if you resign as it is not accrued).
I reach out to hiring manager and explain this, ask if it’s possible to push out the start date to after I return from planned vacation. He says that’s fine, and will let me know if I need to resign a new offer letter with an adjusted start date.
Two days later he emails me this:
“Rxxxx,
After our phone call this week, I thought more about my decision to hire you as a temp and decided to withdraw the offer not just because of your availability, but because you were tentative about our initial offer and tried to negotiate the salary up and beyond several of our admin staff members, which as a temp starting your first gig at UCSF in my opinion isn't a good way to start. UCSF is all about seniority/equity and you left a negative first impression. You also reminded me when we spoke that you were willing to take a lower salary, but with the expectation that it would be ok for you to start when it suited your schedule and not mine?
It’s not fair for me to ask you to change your vacation dates, since you planned those months back, but it's also not fair for me to have to wait another month to have the Arthroplasty desk covered forcing me to work two desks. That's where I will not be flexible; I need a temp who is available and ready to work. While I stressed that in our interview, I was willing to be flexible when you initially were upfront about your vacation. When we spoke this week you caught me off guard with your current job issue and put me in a position where I would feel bad if I asked you to forfeit your vacation days or payout so you could start next week. I had no choice but to say ok at the time, and now after Sara's email you are ready to work on Monday. Too much inconsistency for me.
And for the record, there's no misunderstanding or miscommunication here. I made the decision to withdraw the offer based on what I mentioned above.
Perhaps you can pursue a temp job at UCSF when you aren't still working another job or have a vacation lined up, i.e., when you are truly ready to start a new job.
Nick “