looooong story time, TLDR at the bottom
I'm a mechanical engineer and loved everything about my job. The first job in a long time where I had the chilliest boss ever and meaningful work I was excited about most of the time. He would have been top 3 out of the 5 reasons why I loved my job.i learned so much from him and I would have stayed there working for him for a long time. It was a small engineering firm that makes big custom machines for making plastic pouches, and my boss had been in that industry a looooong time and was the smartest man in the building by a long shot. He was really important around the office, everyone relied on him for a lot of things and he also handled most of the computer and IT problems.
But a tragedy happened, just after returning from the Xmas holidays, the best boss I ever had passed away suddenly from a heart attack over a weekend in January, I got a call that Monday with the shocking news telling me to take a couple days off. It was pretty rough for everyone for a week or two. I was def bawling my eyes in my cube for a couple of days. He was the funniest one in the office and could always eliviate the tension in a room and I've def been missing him a lot.
Our tiny company was just acquired by a larger one that gave us all new benefits and was a really promising new path. But we did only get 5% raises last October, (more like a paycut now) we were still transitioning from the old owner leaving and my engineering boss taking over as the big boss and all of that got cut short and all that responsibility got transferred to the head of the machine shop who I was never the biggest fan of but we got along fine enough.
The engineering team was rudderless for a bit, but it was decided our controls engineer would become the engineering manager. But he has zero manager experience and it went downhill pretty quick for me.
Now I was technically the newest hire out of the three mechanical engineers and only been at the company nearly 2 years but my old boss who passed away treated me as an equal, gave me giant new design projects and I had some skill sets that were better than the other 2 but my new manager the controls guy knows none of this. I was essentially demoted to new hire, treated like I know nothing about any major stations and handed all the grunt bullshit work.
Now my old boss never cared if I was 15-20 even 30 minutes late, I just stayed a little later to make up the time. No big deal nothing ever mentioned, except maybe once during my review. Within a week, and I mean literally that same week of my boss passing away my new boss and engineering manager both talked to me about being late and needed to be there on time.
Bullshit paperwork and zero chill had me looking for new jobs real quick. My new engineering manager the controls guy was just rubbing me the wrong way with everything he did. One week he thought I messed something up, without even investigating he brought the other 2 mechanical engineers to my cubicle to confront me about leaving a database open and that's why we had a duplicate issue. I felt attacked and had to defend myself, so unnecessary and no manager with experience would handle it like that Not even 2 minutes into investing, turns out my other coworker made a simple mistake and had nothing to do with me at all.
The last straw was when in a meeting to divide all the new design work for a new machine, one engineer got 4 major stations while I had 2 minor stations that would take 2 seconds of work.
I always apply to indeed jobs every now and then to see what's out there, I see a senior mechanical engineering position on indeed and was like yeah, maybe. I couldn't believe I made it through 2 phone interviews and a half day onsite interview for theeeee major engineering company in my city.
Now was definitely the time to look!!!! I was making 57k a year which while not bad, kinda low for how far I was into my engineering career (I did briefly stop working as an engineer to get a culinary degree but that's a different story) I was asking only 65k at most jobs till my buddy convinced me I should be asking for 80k. It is the best job market I've ever seen, never saw this many positions open after I graduated from college at the worst possible time 5 years after the 2008 crash.
I was shocked and stunned when they offered me more at 83.5k!!! I was such a perfect fit, the recruiter told me she had never seen that engineering manager use so many exclamation points in an email before LOL
Fast forward a week after accepting and finishing pre-employment screenings, the background check email tips of the boss. He takes me outside and asks me how I'm feeling and if I still like it here still, basically got me to confess about the new job offer before I could submit my 2 weeks. He was kinda shocked I was interested in leaving, he relied on me to handle IT stuff since my coworkers are older and break their computers alot. He starts going on about the bright future we have with our new owners and how they make record profits last year and in the same breath was like I can see you pretty much already made up your mind so I'm not going to offer you more. If I offer you more and you don't take it and still leave than it's awkward
NO MOTHERFUCKER YOU NOT OFFERING TO PAY ME MORE AFTER TALKING ABOUT RECORD PROFITS IS THE AWKWARD PART BUB (I scream in my head)
Anyways his face after he asked how much they offered me was priceless. I knew no way he would make that 40% raise happen. He put a job posting for my position the next day and a day later I put in my 2 weeks. The entire time I'm still there he's like you know you want to stay, that's a big company they just treat you like a number. Wow just wow, you really wanted me to stay, and I probably would have if you matched and def if you offered more. But not getting offered anything was just insulting
I only lasted 1 week out of the 2 before using my paid time off for a weeks vacation I'm currently on!!!! I tried to stick it out but the controls guy treated me like a brand new hire one last time and I was out of there.
Still left on good terms and the big boss as I was walking out the door said if it doesn't work out to give him a call and I could come back if I wanted. Told him Id keep that in mind LOL hope I never have to make that commute aaaaaagain.
TLDR: best boss I ever had passed away suddenly and new boss and new manager who take over have zero chill and treat me like a brand new hire. Get an amazing job offer and even though I'm heavily relied on for certain things and repeatedly asked to stay, no matching over was given even after bragging about companies record profits the previous year.
So excited to start my new job on Monday!!!! Watching the Godfather recently had me telling coworkers my new job made me an offer I couldn't refuse LOL