Should I accept this promotion, and move to, Texas, for $.50 more per hour?
The details: -I make $16/HR doing customer service at a laboratory in California. I like this company. -New job (same company) pays $16.50/HR for assisting with company website at sales center in Texas. -They will give me 1500 to move and pay 1 months rent when I get there. I am single 30 and male. Own very little stuff. -I live in California and would need to move to Texas. Cost of living is significantly less there. -My sisters/nieces/nephews are here in LA -My main goal is to pay off my student loans of $30k as soon as possible. The breakdown: I already made a counter offer that I wanted $22/HR to make the move. They are sticking to their original offer. Houston has no state tax so I'd take home 2250/mo. instead of 2000/mo. I'd basically make slightly more money, I'd have the opportunity to "move over to the sales side" and maybe in 6 months get a job as a sales rep and make more $, let's say $20-25 hour. I'd also get experience for my resume, and would live in an apartment instead of renting a room. The downside: I'm moving away from my nieces and nephews, I'm only making a little more $/month to do a lot more work, and I'm moving away from the beach (avid surfer who prefers small room near ocean instead of big apartment away from it). Importantly there are no promises about me receiving formal training to do sales, and it's unclear if I'll be able to pay off my student loans faster as a result of this new job. I hate turning down a chance to get good work experience, but I'm leaning towards a "no thank you". Could you please provide an opinion? It would be appreciated. Thank you.
ImpatienceI have many friends and acquaintances who want to become future tech leaders and one thing most of them are absolutely doing wrong is starting without skills.No, really.Many young “entrepreneurs” today have zero skills and are already doing “startups”. What skills am I talking about?Coding.Writing.Speaking.Basic understanding of economics.Basic/intermediate understanding of finance.Very good understanding of how businesses work.Management.etc.These are just at the top of my head. *For instance, to code a good, maintainable website you would probably need at least half a year of experience. To be able to market your business you need stunning writing/speaking skills. To pitch your idea you need good presentation and negotiation skills. And so on and on and on.So why many ambitious entrepreneurs choose to directly dwell into starting businesses is beyond me.One reason I think is that of the super-popular advice “the sooner you start doing business the sooner you will succeed.”While I see where this advice is coming from, I still feel it is dangerous. It’s like giving a 6th grader the Schrodinger’s equations and asking him to solve them. What would this 6th grader do?Scenario 1:Try to solve them without having any mathematical or physical foundations. What would likely happen is that this guy would waste 10 years of their time in confusion and eventually hopelessness.Scenario 2:He builds his mathematical skills and studies basic physics first. Step by step. He wouldn’t succeed right away but he would get closer and closer.This is similar to entrepreneurship: you need to understand how things work to have the basic framework in your mind. Afterward, you can try your startup and this would be a more effective approach.Sure, you could say “I can learn all those skills while doing a startup” but I highly disagree. Not only you will not have mentorship (in general, say for coding) but also you will learn those skills in a breadth-way i.e. learning skills would be your side-effect, not your goal which is, in general, not a productive way to learn something.So what do you need to do?Learn skills. Precise skills which would help your startup. Do not learn “history of coffee”. Learn to code. Learn writing. Learn how the human mind works. And do it fast.*Obviously, you may not need all of them as you may have a cofounder but, even so, these are still important.
How to talk to boss about pay raise?
I am a in house web & graphic designer for a company of about 50 employees, the company has about 10 different company's and services in it. My boss and entire company use me for all departments plus my boss & his wife use me for personal use so I'm always very busy. When I started with the company they had never had a in house designer and they were on a tight budget so he started me out at only 2,000 a month to get things moving no benefits, bonuses or anything, the nations average for someone with my exact skill and experience is 5,000 a month. I have only been with the company for 3 months and Have found it next to impossible to survive living in southern california where I work and have always lived. Basically I know I'm being way under paid do I say something or continue to bight the bullet for a little longer?
An addendum to the politics and stack ranking BS - I once was the only PM in a large team to deliver my product on time and with quality. This was inside Vista, and the feature I designed is still one of the only features from that release that has persisted for all subsequent versions with continued support from customers. Everyone else in my large department failed to meet the deadlines, and their products were in terrible condition. In the subsequent review period, the Director put me at the bottom of the stack. He explained to me that since my project was complete and was in stunning condition, he didn't need me anymore. The rest of the department was frustrated and ready to leave if they received a bad score, leaving him with incomplete projects. So he was giving them the good scores, and he wasn't worried about making me angry because my project was done, so I got the shaft. If I had dragged my feet and delivered late, I would have been at the top of the stack with the other people who made Vista what it was. This is my own example of how the stack rank process is slowly killing what was once a great company.Any non-MS person should also take note of how many commentators in this thread have chosen to remain anonymous. Even now, we are convinced that legitimate criticism which could make the company better will be met with negative repercussions.