Dumb Move

My dumb move or someone else’s? Open question.

So, a little background. I don’t go into work stuff much for good reason–it’s not really anyone’s business–but occasionally something comes along that I feel like talking about. Anyway, the company I work for used to sell a software package and some related hardware by Company A, and we were exclusive distributors for it in Michigan. In the last year, that relationship ended, and Company A began selling the stuff through Company B, both of which are a subsidiary of a Big New York Corporation. But here on the west side of Michigan, we were still the beneficiary of their referrals for IT service and general sales and such.

Well, that ends this month as well. And Tuesday, a muckity muck with Company B called to essentially offer me a job. He didn’t come right out and say so, but he was “gauging interest” for the job. All things being equal, my interest in the job is nil. I don’t like working for big corporations (and yet, I was in the Marines–how ironic) and Company B, as a subsidiary of BNYC, is the epitome of such–uniforms, custom-painted vans, seventeen layers of regional managers and assistant regional managers and assistants to the regional managers and so on. So it was pretty much a non-starter there.

On top of that, there’s the growing bitterness/animosity between our company and Company B. Natural, since we’re becoming competitors where we were not before. But it all started to remind me of a situation I was in back in 2002 when I was working for a competitor of a company that had previously employed me. My previous employer was in… trouble. Mostly, as I understood it, filing for bankruptcy protection to be able to put a supplier at arm’s length in order to get a handle on some double- and triple-billing. But my then-current employer wanted me to dish dirt on the previous employer and help him steal my previous employer’s customers.

Did not want to be in that situation again.

So, yesterday I told my employer about the contact with Company B and this morning called and left a message for one of the people who had been talking to me and let them know I would not be entertaining any job offers from them. (And, it’s possible that the question was moot anyway–I signed a Non-Compete when I started work for my current employer and even if they were made to be broken, I wouldn’t really want to go through the ordeal of breaking it.) It’s definitely nice to have been asked but A) I have few illusions about why I was asked–merely as a convenient pawn in the growing battle between Company B and my employer–and B) I’m not sure they could have really made it worth my while. It was nice to dream for a while that they would go buck wild and offer me $100k per year and effectively end all my current financial troubles (though they are few), but I’m certain that quality of life would have suffered and radically.

If I get laid off soon, or the company evaporates out from under me, I may regret the decision–but for now I’m far happier with the decision I made.

Crossposted with klech.net