Hey, all.
I won't get into much detail, but I'm looking for a new job, and one looks promising. I'm exhausted, and hoping my current job pays out my PTO when I leave (I tried checking the employee handbook and came to a dead end). If that's the case, I should be able to take a couple weeks off with pay.
When I started this job, my boss and I agreed on a start date. A few days later, I got a call from him asking me to start almost immediately after quiting the job I was at. I wondered if this was a small red flag, but chalked it up to my personal stress (I was dealing with a very difficult co-worker at the time, and just finished a very intense semester of graduate school). I was looking forward to a much needed break and was not expecting to be put on the spot at all, so I obviously haven't crafted a reasonable excuse to keep the original start date. On top of that, I didn't want to start the new job on the wrong foot, so I reluctantly agreed.
Anyway, say your prospective employer wants you to start on said date, but you want to push it back a week or two. Bad idea from the start, or do uou already have a reason on hand that could work?