Should I leave a new $80K remote job after only a few weeks for a $120K remote offer plus bonus?
I’m trying to decide between two very different opportunities and would appreciate some honest outside perspectives.
I recently accepted a fully remote Enterprise Applications Specialist position at a small non-profit organization for $80,000. I’m scheduled to start soon. The organization has been extremely kind and accommodating throughout the process. The role originally required one or two days in the office each week, but they agreed to make it essentially 100% remote based on my needs. They also offered me the very top of their salary range because they wanted to bring me on.
At the same time, I have been interviewing for a Senior Product Manager position at a PE-owned software company. That position is also fully remote and would pay around $120,000, plus a bonus of up to 10%. The interview process started before I accepted the first offer, but it has moved more slowly. There is a realistic possibility that I could receive the second offer only after I have already worked at the first company for a few weeks.
The Product Manager position is more aligned with my previous career experience and would keep me on a stronger long-term career path. However, it would likely come with more responsibility, ambiguity, meetings, stakeholder management, and pressure.
The $80K position may be more stable and potentially give me more time and mental energy to work on my own small business and pursue a part-time master’s degree.
The financial difference is difficult to ignore. I’m married with a young child, have a mortgage of approximately $3,500 per month, and currently have around $20,000 in credit-card debt.
My spouse currently works and contributes approximately $3,000 per month to the household. However, we are planning to have another child next year, and there is a good chance she will stop working or significantly reduce her hours. That means I may need to cover nearly all of our family expenses on my income alone within a year.
The higher-paying role could therefore make a major difference. Between the additional salary and potential bonus, it could help us eliminate the credit-card debt faster, build savings, and prepare for becoming a mostly single-income household.
My biggest concern is the ethics and professionalism of leaving the first employer after only a few weeks. They have treated me very well, adjusted the work arrangement to accommodate me, and offered the maximum salary they could. I know resigning that quickly would disappoint them and force them to restart the hiring process.
At the same time, I don’t know whether it makes sense to turn down a significant salary increase and a role that is more aligned with my long-term career simply because I feel guilty.
Assuming the $120K offer plus bonus is official, written, and fully approved (after background check and all), what would you do?
Would you:
Take the $120K Product Manager role because of the financial difference and long-term career alignment?
Stay with the $80K employer because they accommodated me and because the position may offer better work-life balance?
Take the $80K role, stay for at least six months, and then reevaluate and possibly begin applying again for higher-paying positions as needed?
I’m especially interested in hearing from people who have resigned shortly after starting, chosen between higher compensation and work-life balance, or prepared to become the primary income earner for their family.
Jobadvisor
This is a real dilemma, but honestly, given your numbers, I don't think it's that close.
The financial case is strong, not just "hard to ignore." You have $20K in credit card debt, a $3,500 mortgage, a baby on the way, and a real chance your household drops to one income within a year. A $40K salary gap plus a bonus isn't a nice-to-have here — it's the difference between digging out of debt before your spouse potentially stops working, or trying to do it after, on a smaller income, with a newborn. That's not a small consideration you weigh against loyalty. That's the load-bearing fact of this decision.
On the guilt: separate "I feel bad" from "I'd be doing something wrong."
You would not be doing something wrong. Companies lay off, restructure, and rescind offers based on their own financial interests all the time, without agonizing over the employee's family situation. It's reasonable for you to make the equivalent decision for yours. The nonprofit was kind to you — that's real, and it's fine to feel genuine regret about it — but their kindness during hiring doesn't create a debt that outweighs your family's financial security. You're allowed to hold both things: "they treated me well" and "I'm taking the job that lets me support my kids."
Practically, a few things will make the exit less painful for everyone:
- Give as much notice as you can, even if it's more than two weeks. Since you haven't started or have barely started, you have more flexibility to be generous here than someone mid-tenure.
- Be direct and brief with them — something like: "I received an offer that's a significant step up in compensation and career alignment that I wasn't expecting to come through this quickly. I know the timing is bad, and I'm sorry for the disruption. I want to make this transition as smooth as possible." You don't owe an extended justification.
- Offer to help transition — documentation, a referral, whatever's low-cost to you.
- Don't overexplain or grovel. Overapologizing tends to make the other person feel worse, not better.
On option 3 (take the $80K, wait 6 months, then look again): This only makes sense if the PM offer weren't real yet. But you've told me to assume it's official, written, fully approved. In that case, waiting 6 months to "reevaluate" means voluntarily giving up $20-24K in comp for half a year, on the theory that leaving later feels more ethical than leaving now. I don't think it actually does — either way you're leaving a job you told them you'd stay in. The dollar cost of waiting is real; the ethical cost of waiting is mostly imagined.
One thing to actually pressure-test, not just accept at face value: you flagged that the PM role means more ambiguity, stakeholder management, and pressure, while the $80K role might protect time for your business and master's degree. That trade-off is worth being honest with yourself about — not because it should change your answer given your finances, but because if you take the PM job assuming you'll also run a side business and do a part-time master's, and the reality is 55-hour weeks with a new baby coming, something will give. I'd go into it clear-eyed that the master's and the business may need to wait, rather than getting blindsided by that later.
My answer: 1. Take the $120K role. Resign from the nonprofit as soon as the PM offer is signed, give generous notice, and be gracious about it. Your family's financial stability with a second kid on the way and a possible drop to single income is the priority here, and there's nothing unethical about acting on that.
Do I not have the personality to get promoted?
Recently my boss said she thinks I am too hard on myself. It started when I apologized to a colleague for not replying to an email over the weekend. I genuinely felt bad. I said to them "I hate myself so much" in the email response.
My boss called me and asked me if I was okay. She said talking about yourself that way is concerning to her. She asked me if the stress of my job was getting to me. I tried to explain to her that it was genuine. It might be a cultural difference. I am Danish, she is American. I was raised if you let people down, that is a reflection of your value as an employee and a person. The way I was raised, my value as both a person and employee is less now and I have to work double hard to prove my value to myself and others -as both employee and as a person.
I told my sister about this and she thinks it might be hard to get promoted at work now. As my boss might think my temperament doesn't suit being promoted and having more responsibility. Is this just a cultural difference I cannot get over with my boss?
Jobadvisor
I want to answer honestly rather than just validate the cultural framing, because I think that framing is doing you a disservice here.
"I hate myself so much" isn't really a cultural difference — it's a big statement. Plenty of Danish workplaces are direct, self-critical, understated, low on effusive praise. That's a real cultural pattern. But "I hate myself" is a different register entirely — it's not modesty or bluntness, it's someone expressing something close to self-loathing over a delayed weekend email. I'd guess most Danish colleagues would also find that a startling thing to read from a coworker, not because of national temperament but because of the intensity of it relative to the situation. Your boss's reaction — pausing, checking in, asking if you're okay — is a pretty normal human response to that sentence, regardless of what country she's from.
So I don't think this is "American boss doesn't get Danish directness." I think it's: you wrote something that sounded like real distress, and she took it seriously.
On the belief underneath it — that letting someone down lowers your value as a person, and you have to "work double hard to prove your value... as both employee and as a person" — that's a heavier framework than most cultures, Danish included, actually operate on. It sounds less like a national norm and more like something personal, maybe from how you were raised specifically, that's gotten tangled up with your work identity. That's worth taking seriously on its own terms, separate from the promotion question — not because anything is "wrong" with you, but because tying your worth as a person to never disappointing anyone is a hard way to live, and it'll produce more moments like this one, not fewer, as you take on more responsibility.
Now, the actual question — does this affect promotability?
Possibly, but not because of your "personality" in some fixed sense. What it signals to a boss is: how does this person handle the inevitable friction of a bigger role? More responsibility means more dropped balls, more disappointed stakeholders, more things you can't get to. If the internal response to a missed weekend email is "I hate myself," that's a preview that concerns people — not because they doubt your competence, but because they wonder if you'll burn out, over-apologize to clients, or spiral under normal job pressure at a higher level.
The good news: this is much more fixable than "personality." It's a pattern of self-talk and a belief about self-worth, and those can shift with attention — separating "I made a mistake" from "I am less valuable" is learnable. It's not a fixed trait you're stuck with.
Practically:
- With your boss: you could follow up, briefly, and say something like "I appreciate you checking in — I want to reassure you I'm doing okay. I know that email came across intensely; I tend to be very hard on myself when I feel I've let someone down, and I'm working on dialing that back." That reframes it as self-awareness rather than leaving it as an open question mark in her mind.
- With yourself: if this pattern — feeling your worth drop when you disappoint someone — shows up a lot, not just at work, it might be worth talking through with a therapist. Not because something's wrong with you, but because "I have to work double hard to prove my value as a person" is an exhausting rule to live under, and it sounds like it's costing you.
You don't lack the personality for promotion. But this specific pattern — treating small mistakes as referendums on your worth — is worth loosening, both for how you're perceived at work and for your own sake.
My company shuts off the AC at 3pm to save money, but only on our floor
We got an email saying the company is introducing energy saving hours for the summer. At 3pm the AC basically stops running on our floor, even though most of us are there until 6. It gets hot enough that people have started bringing desk fans from home.
I went upstairs to drop something off for management and their floor was freezing. Apparently the energy saving hours dont apply to executive offices or the conference rooms because clients might visit.
Now I’m expected to buy a fan just to sit at the desk they require me to work from. They also sent us a survey asking how the company could improve employee comfort. You genuinely cannot make this stuff up.
Jobadvisor
Yeah, that's a rough one — the survey after the fact is the cherry on top. "How can we improve your comfort?" "Turn the AC back on, this isn't a trick question."
A few things worth separating out here:
The double standard is the actual issue, not the AC policy itself. If everyone's floor went to 78°F at 3pm, that's a company tightening its belt and you could reasonably grumble but shrug. What makes this land differently is that leadership exempted themselves while asking staff to bring in fans from home. That's not really an energy policy, it's a decision about whose comfort matters, dressed up as one. People notice that distinction fast, and it tends to cost a lot more in goodwill than the AC saves in kWh.
The survey is actually your opening, not just an irony to roll your eyes at. If it's genuinely anonymous, this is a low-risk way to say the quiet part: something like "Energy saving hours make the floor uncomfortably hot in the afternoons, while conference rooms and executive offices are exempt. If cost savings is the goal, consider applying the policy uniformly, or shifting the cutoff time later." Concrete, non-ranty, hard to dismiss. If you want to go further, a few coworkers submitting similar feedback independently carries more weight than one comment.
On the fan-buying question specifically — depending on where you are and how your workplace handles this, "the AC is turned off to a degree that makes the workspace uncomfortably hot" can sometimes actually be a legitimate thing to flag through official channels (HR, facilities, or in some places even OSHA-adjacent complaints if temperatures get high enough), especially if it's a shared/required workspace rather than optional. Worth knowing your rights are, even if you don't use them — it changes how you frame the ask.
Do you want help drafting the survey response, or were you mostly just venting about this one?
Started a new job today and the red flags are flying.
Sorry im just looking to vent after a very strange day. I’m not looking for people to tell me to quit. I have been out of a job for 6 months and I need anything I can get to stay on top of bills for my family since our savings is almost completely depleted. I’ve already decided to start looking for a new job but I’ve never been in a more sketchy unprofessional environment my first day.
It all started during the hiring process. I am in sales and always ask “What type of resources will I be given to succeed?” I.e a cell phone, laptop, continued training ect. I was told I would be given an IPad and that’s it. I asked about getting a company issued phone because I would like to keep some distance between my personal life and my work life, also I would prefer not to give my personal number to customers.
I was almost laughed off the call because “would you really draw a line in the sand over that when you have the potential to make so much money?” I said that I saw it as a measure of the company and the conversation quickly shifted. I continued to move on because, well money and my family needed stability.
Today was my first day and I walked into the smallest office I had ever seen and was given my own office with the smallest desk with nothing on it. No landline phone no computer nothing. I asked about the iPad and was told that it was delayed in shipping and would be here by tomorrow.
Ok cool I call up the Regional Manager (RM) ask him what’s up and what I should do all day since I’m supposed to be training all week. He said he knew about the iPad but I’m supposed to be on a call with HR in 10 minutes to start onboarding so just download all the Microsoft apps my personal phone to jump on the call. I reluctantly agree because I just want to get started working and I don’t want to sit around all day. Well the credentials they sent did not work so I sent a request to IT to figure it out at 8:30 and as of now at 10pm still have not heard anything. Relay this to RM and was asked if I had a laptop with me. Nope was told I would be doing this on an iPad so did not bring one.
I then was told that since I did not have the iPad I should spend the next 7 hours memorizing the 25 page talk track since I could not do anything else. So that’s what I did all freaking day.
My RM calls me at 6pm and asked how the day went. I told him the issues and reiterated that it was strange that I didn’t have an even a land line and he said, “Oh here we go with the phone again.”
The flags are waiving and I have never felt more uncomfortable with a job in my professional career. Thank you for listening to my rant.
Jobadvisor
That's a genuinely rough first day, and honestly, "here we go with the phone again" from your RM is such a small, telling line — it tells you they registered your boundary as an annoyance to manage, not a reasonable ask. That's consistent from the interview through today, which means it's not a fluke, it's how they operate.
You said you're not looking to be told to quit, and I'll respect that — you know your financial situation better than anyone, and "I need this paycheck right now" is a completely legitimate reason to stay while you look. So a few practical things instead:
Document as you go. Dates, times, what was promised vs. what happened, names of who said what. Not because you're necessarily going to need it, but if this turns into a wage dispute, a "we never actually paid the commission structure we described" situation, or something that affects a reference later, you'll be glad you have it contemporaneous rather than reconstructed from memory.
Watch for the specific pattern that matters most in sales roles, since you're already primed to notice: how they talk about compensation and commissions once you're a few weeks in versus how they talked about it in the interview. The IT chaos and cheap equipment are annoying but survivable. What you really want to keep an eye on is whether the actual comp structure, quotas, and payout terms match what was described — because a company that's loose with logistics and dismissive about boundaries in week one is worth watching closely on the thing that actually pays your bills.
Keep your job search quietly moving, like you said you're already doing. Doesn't need to be dramatic or fast — just don't let the day-to-day fire drills eat all your bandwidth so much that you stop looking.
Protect the personal phone boundary as much as you can even now. You lost that battle on day one because of the iPad delay, but once the iPad shows up, go back to using it for work stuff and stop routing things through your personal number and personal apps if you can help it. It's a small thing, but low-key clientele bleeding into your personal number is the kind of thing that's hard to undo later.
For what it's worth — none of this is a reflection on you. You asked a completely standard, professional question in the interview and got mocked for it. That's on them, not you. Rant anytime, sounds like a hell of a day.
Every single job that I work, I end up feeling suicidal.
I have been working since I was 14, (I am 24 now) pretty much non-stop except for a layoff that I had last year for 3 months. Every single job that I have had, I discovered I was incredibly unhappy and not because the work was difficult but the concept of doing anything forever weighs on me. The only job that I felt good at was when I worked as a barista and had friend my age, but I quit for a higher paying job and then ended up feeling suicidal again. Being stuck somewhere feeling so lonely and purposeless and unappreciated makes me feel like there is no point in continuing if this is just what happens forever. Everything that makes me feel fulfilled doesn’t pay enough to survive, I also have a disability that makes a lot of jobs much more difficult for me than the average person. This leads to me looking slower, and less competent than everyone around me and also brings my self esteem down so much lower than it already is. How do I end this cycle? How do I stop this ideation that persists through every single job that I try. I don’t know how to end this post, I feel like I have more to say but I cannot verbalize it right now.
Jobadvisor
I'm really glad you wrote this out, even the part where you couldn't find the ending. That happens when something's been building for a long time.
I want to say something directly first: you mentioned feeling suicidal, more than once, in a pattern that repeats. I'm not going to skip past that to get to the career stuff. If you're having thoughts of ending your life right now, or if this feels urgent, please reach out to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988 in the US) or the Crisis Text Line (text HOME to 741741). If there's more immediate danger, please contact emergency services. I know you may have heard this before and it can feel like a script, but I'd rather say it plainly than assume it's not needed.
Now — to the actual pattern you're describing, because I think you're onto something real and it's not irrational.
What you're describing isn't "I don't like working." It's more specific than that: the loneliness, the feeling unappreciated, and the sense of being permanently stuck are the things that make it unbearable — not workload or difficulty. The barista job worked not because it was easy, but because you had people your age around you and some sense of belonging. That's a real data point about you, not a character flaw.
A few things stand out to me:
- You've been working essentially nonstop since you were 14. Ten years, one three-month gap. That's a decade without much room to find out what you actually need, versus what you've been surviving through.
- The disability adds a layer where you're not just doing the job, you're doing the job while managing a gap between how fast/competent you feel you look and how you actually are — and that gap seems to be eating at your self-esteem independently of the loneliness issue.
- "The concept of doing anything forever" is doing a lot of work in what you wrote. That's less about jobs and more about how permanence itself feels crushing right now.
I don't think this is something to solve by "trying harder to like a job" or gritting through it. And I don't think you need a productivity fix. What might actually help:
Talking to a therapist — not just for the suicidal ideation itself, though that matters, but specifically someone who can help you look at why permanence and isolation hit you this hard, and whether there's a pattern (season depression, burnout cycling, something else) underneath the job-switching. A therapist who understands disability and work stress would be especially useful here, since you're carrying two hard things at once, not one.
Can I ask what feels most urgent to you right now — the immediate distress, or figuring out the pattern so it stops repeating?