how much should you listen to your gut in a job interview?

by Alison Green on November 11, 2016

A reader writes:

Today I met with a hiring manager who is looking for a specific area of experience that I have. I was excited about the role before the meeting, but now that we’ve talked — and even though she seemed very nice and capable — I feel like I should run screaming in the other direction. I can identify a few concrete reasons, such as upheaval in their staffing arrangements, but my reasons don’t seem like they’re good enough to justify how strongly I feel about it — and it would otherwise be great in terms of hours and pay. It would also likely only be a 6-8 month contract, so a part of me thinks I should just go for it and stick it out if it’s bad.

I have always tended to listen to my instincts when I have such a strong response to situations, even if I can’t entirely work out why — but I feel like there is more at stake here. I’m afraid it’s a huge mistake to turn down the opportunity to go straight into new employment with no gap, and that it would make me look bad to the hiring manager and also to the person who recommended me. Obviously I can’t count on an offer being made — maybe they had the same reaction to me! — but my impression is that they’re likely to want to go ahead with it. Should I be trying to work past my strong negative reaction, or go with my gut?

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

You may also like:
{ 62 comments }

{ 62 comments… read them below }

    2. learnfromme*

      Trust your gut. Don’t take it no matter how desperate. I didn’t listen to my gut and I had to quit twice without a job lined up because the people made my life hell. Now I’m also in the same situation because I took the first job that came my way to avoid unemployment from ending contract despite signs that it will be a bad place. I didn’t listen to Alison advice to think it more through cause I was desperate. Learn from me it takes time to find the right job and if there is any sign of red flags run immediately. Working at a good company until they lay you off is better than panicking to go into a bad company that will make life hell for you just because you think it means avoiding unemployment. Plus interview the team too despite if managers are good. If team doesn’t like you and you find out later when you get there, it will be worse.

  2. Biff*

    I can’t agree more. I’ve taken a few jobs where my spidey senses tingled at the interview, and while I’ve come out on top, it was hell.

  3. AndersonDarling*

    This is tricky. I just had a situation where I had a super powerful gut feeling that I was making the wrong decision, but I was wrong. I was just paranoid. Everything turned out perfectly.

      1. Bibliovore*

        False positive here:
        My present position is in the dream job and for the most part my “spidey sense” was way off.
        I came out of the interview thinking even if these people wanted me, there is no way I wanted them.
        The interview meetings were rote and joyless. My future peers and supervisors came off overly impressed with the importance and ranking of the University. They did not at all ask or inquire about my field of study or work. No kidding, zero interest.
        That said- it was a tremendous opportunity that would not come again.
        The competition for the position was fierce.
        And maybe they were right about the “prestige” of the place.
        What I did- I called (no email trail) everyone I knew who had any knowledge of the work environment and culture. These people urged me to take the position if offered.
        That calmed me down a bit. The coldness and non-connection feelings I had turned out to be because of nature of fair interview technique and…
        turns out All Candidates were exceptional in my field and that it would have been a waste of time to talk about that.

      2. J.*

        For me, it was because
        a) I had worked at a very dysfunctional competitor on a temporary basis several months previously;
        b) I had had massive personal issues (think along the lines of the loss of a parent, sibling or child) that had kept me out of work, and at that stage even the thought of getting out of bed, getting dressed and leaving the house was completely overwhelming.

        It turns out that dysfunctional competitor is well-known within the industry for being dysfunctional, and I don’t think “only” being an agency worker there helped my standing (although it helped massively in getting the new job as it allowed me to circumvent the no-compete rule).

        And obviously grief can make it almost impossible to make clear, rational decisions. I actually wrote in earlier this year and my letter was published… maybe it’s time for an update!

      3. Cordelia Naismith*

        I had a false positive for my current job. I took it because I really needed a job pretty badly, but my impression of my boss at the interview was just not good. He seemed really old-fashioned and out-of-touch. It turns out he is pretty old-fashioned, but mostly in a good way — old-fashioned in the sense of trusting his reports to be professionals and to do their jobs without micromanagement, and in the sense of taking care of and supporting his people. He has a few quirks that I could do without — I think we might be the only department on campus that still uses paper forms for certain student records instead of electronic ones — but on the whole it’s been a really positive experience.

        1. babblemouth*

          I got a completely wrong impression of my future boss at my job interview. He came across as very bureaucractic and corporate, while I have a very relaxed and go-with-the-flow appraoch to work. I took the job anyway because on all other levels, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
          He turned out to be the Best Boss I’ve Ever Had – he is super approachable, and the bureaucractic side of him just means that if I have a deep issue with processes, I can go to him and he’ll sort out red tape for me. It’s wonderful.

      4. Elliot*

        I also had a false positive. It was an entry-level bottom-of-the-barrel retail position that I felt was far beneath me. The work sounded really boring, I assumed scheduling would be sporadic and the work would be unreliable, and I walked in assuming the company would treat its workers terribly. I took it because I desperately needed a job and the wage was somewhat competitive. I quickly switched to moonlighter status as soon as I found a full-time job in my field, keeping a minimal schedule because it was easy cash.

        Flash forward a couple years, and I just quit my full-time job to accept a promotion there. My half-time schedule is so flexible I can actually earn near what I did working full-time by pulling my son out of daycare, freelancing from home while he’s in bed, and working when he is with his other parent. I have never had a day off denied and I genuinely look forward to going to work. I have a great boss, enjoy my customers, and have a better work-life balance than I’ve had at any point in my adult life. I don’t foresee myself staying for years on end, but I’m glad I was desperate enough to give the job a chance.

        I don’t know where I’m going anymore. I might eventually return to the field I originally worked in as I’m experienced and very passionate about that line of work, or I might take advantage of our generous tuition reimbursement benefit to continue my education or try something new. I might go out for management if I can make the scheduling work. Or I might just focus on landing more lucrative freelance projects and keep doing what I’m doing. Who knows? For now, I am paying my bills while spending a lot of time with my son and living a healthier, happier, lower-stress, more rested life. I’m fine with that.

  4. Tammy*

    In the book “The Gift of Fear”, Gavin de Becker essentially says that your intuition might not always respond to the right things, and it might not always respond in the right way, but there are two things you can absolutely count on. Your intuition always has your best interests at heart, and it is never responding to nothing.

    Our brains are highly optimized for pattern recognition, and our intuition is our subconscious pattern recognition engines telling us they think they’ve spotted something we should know about. So whatever decision you make, it’s worth taking some time to try to identify what stimuli your intuition was responding to in suggesting you run screaming. At the very least, if you can figure out what you were picking up on, it’ll help refine your knowledge base for the future and also help you trust your gut feelings.

    2. neverjaunty*

      This is perfectly put.

      Figuring out why you are having that reaction is helpful and weeds out the false positives – but never ignore a feeling that you should run away screaming.

    3. fposte*

      A counterpoint, though, is that we are therefore hugely subject to apophenia and prone to imposing patterns where none exist. Our brains are very complicated.

      1. Tammy*

        Absolutely. The book “You Are Not So Smart” by David McRaney is a good one that talks about a lot of the ways our brains (predictably) go awry.

        The evolutionary downside of having brains that are adapted by millenia of evolution toward pattern recognition is that they don’t always do the right things when the pattern is nonexistent or obscured by noise.

      2. Elizabeth West*

        Yes, and that could be a sign to fish further. So if you can’t tell why you’re seeing / feeling something, it might be a good idea to get more information about the situation if you can.

  5. Beth2076*

    My situation wasn’t a paying position, but a volunteer for a non-profit. After completing the project, I said never again. Well, a year later, I volunteered again. After much dissatisfaction (again) with the non-profit, a friend said to me, “You should listen to yourself,” meaning I should have trusted my instincts after the first time. I will now listen to myself.

      1. SJ*

        YES. I’ve met (and dated) perfectly nice men on OkCupid and Tinder, but I always haaaaaate the whole process, even though I go into it with an open mind. I’m the kind of person who ends up developing romantic “I want to date you” feelings after meeting someone organically, knowing someone for a while, and really learning them, so trying to pick out people online to go out with is honestly a nightmare for me, even though most of my dates end up okay and I’ve met cool people. I just don’t work that way. But about once a year I decide something is just wrong with me and that online dating is fine, and I try it again and end up dreading it all over.

  6. Stonkle*

    My gut is usually right about these things. For example, in one interview I asked how they’d describe their work culture and was told, “We put our heads down and work!” I needed the job so I took it, but my gut was right, the place was humourless, stingy, mean, and inflexible. I recently had an interview where the position supervisor sighed and rolled her eyes repeatedly when I answered a question. Nooooope. Nope nope.

  7. Anonathon*

    I’m not sure if this is relevant to OP specifically but it may be to some readers. If you have a history of trauma–whether it be interpersonal abuse, a highly dysfunctional work environment, whatever–it may feel like your “gut” is screaming at you all the time that Something Bad is About to Happen. Does anyone have advice on how to handle “gut feelings” in that context, with regards to work?

    Because I think sometimes the knee-jerk answer is to ignore the bad feeling and carry on regardless, which is 1) a coping strategy from the traumatic scenario and 2) not good if you want to avoid yet another bad situation.

    This is coming up for me because I had several bad work situations and now I am scared that any workplace will be as bad. Example: in ToxicJob, “having a sense of humor” meant “being ok with all kinds of inappropriate jokes in the workplace.” Now I cringe whenever i see a job application that includes “a sense of humor” in what they see in the ideal candidate–even though intellectually I know it probably is harmless.

    How do you deal with your “gut” when you’re hypersensitive to bad signs?

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      One thing that helps is to break down your reactions and figure out what they’re being triggered by.

      For example, loads of perfectly functional places list “sense of humor” in their ads. As you note, you know that intellectually. So when you feel yourself having a reaction to that, you talk yourself through it by reminding yourself what you know to actually be true in that case.

      But another time, you might realize that your bad feeling is tied to the condescending way the interviewer talked to you or the negative vibe you got as you walked through their offices. Looking at those intellectually, you can see how they’re legitimate signs of bad things. So you trust those, because you can see that they’re coming from somewhere that makes logical sense.

      1. Anonathon*

        Thanks! It helps to look at where stuff comes from, and to be validated that yeah, sometimes it’s ok to back out of an application process.

        I think talking to others in my industry helps as well–often there are patterns of red flags others recognize as well.

        1. Undine*

          I think making a list of what’s important to you beforehand can help, and then trying to ask questions about that. Like, “I see in your description you say I should have a sense of humor. Getting along with my coworkers is important to me too. What else do you do to encourage collegiality in the workplace?” Of course things will come up that you won’t be able to respond to in the moment, but if you come to know your triggers, you can come up with standard questions to dig deeper into them.

        2. Hellanon*

          A friend once said that because her family had been so dysfunctional, where other people saw red flags, she tended to see a parade…

      2. pacman*

        I try so hard to do this, but the illogical half of my brain wins a LOT. It’s just louder and more convincing than the logical half. I can say, “Hey, calm down, you know this isn’t actually true” and then the illogical part chimes in saying, “BUT IT IS IT IS OH MY GOD IT’S THE TRUEST THING EVER!”

        So I know what steps I’m supposed to take to fix this, but the steps aren’t working. It’s exhausting.

    2. Anonymous for this*

      My hot button is a boss saying “I’m concerned”. It will make my heart rate pick up, even when it’s followed by “… about something that has nothing at all to do with you.”

      What helped me the most was therapy and medication. Specifically I went looking for a therapist who specialized in PTSD treatment – not because I have full-blown PTSD, but because I needed someone who knew exactly how to go about untangling a brain that is stuck on high alert. I also grew up with a parent that was abusive and managed to pick a string of bosses that replayed that abuse, so it was pretty deeply ingrained for me. If you’re dealing with an isolated bad experience, it usually gets better with time, though talking to someone is generally helpful too.

      I had to learn to distinguish between the adrenaline rush of a scary situation, and my gut feelings about people during interviews. The first is usually lying to me (making copies is not actually scary!), the second is usually right.

      I’ve finally realized that a certain sense of familiarity and comfort actually means that the person I’m talking to is the same type of abusive as other people in my past. They’re currently trying to make a good impression on me, so some part of my brain is going “hey, they’re like that horrible person I grew up with, but without the horrible parts!” Yeah, the horrible parts are totally there, just temporarily hidden. If I catch myself slipping into appeasement behavior – for me that’s a certain type of smile and laugh – that’s a huge red flag. When I come out of an interview or first meeting feeling like I don’t really have a handle on what makes someone tick, and my brain is kind of going ???, that’s a good sign – it means they’re not falling comfortably into the old patterns that I’m so familiar with, and odds are much better that they’re not a horrible person.

      So there’s possibly too much info on how I’ve dealt with a hypersensitive warning system, and my personal theory on why people tend to repeat abuse cycles. Good luck – it’s entirely possible to overcome this stuff, it’s just slow.

      1. Brogrammer*

        This is very insightful. Especially the bit about watching your own behavior to see if you’re falling into old, toxic patterns. That’s an important warning sign that can be difficult to get a handle on, since it’s your own habits that are doing the talking. But it’s very useful information.

      2. JM in England*

        Due to working in previous toxic workplaces, I’ll always associate the boss saying “I would like a word” with getting a chewing-out :-(

    3. orchidsandtea*

      Honestly, the two things that have helped me most are 1) EMDR therapy so that it doesn’t feel like it’s happening right now, and 2) not generalising based on specifics.

      Your example about “sense of humor” is perfect. There’s no need to avoid all job postings that talk about humor — that would be generalising a specific in a way that doesn’t help you. Inappropriate workplace behavior and abusive “jokes” would be toxic, but a genuine culture of warm good humor would be lovely. When you see “have a sense of humor”, you don’t know which type they mean. So you can look at that as a temporarily-yellow flag, not a red flag: when you get to the interview you’ll be attentive to signs that it’s either green (they all love nerdy puns) or red (they make gross jokes and chide people who don’t laugh). But you don’t know yet. You do know that you don’t have to stress about it, because you’re on top of things and you’ll evaluate it when you get there.

    4. TootsNYC*

      If you can identify the “bad sign” (the example of “sense of humor” in the ad, for example), you can research. “I saw the note about sense of humor. Tell me about one of the department in-jokes.”

      Or finding people to ask about it.

  8. Expat*

    My gut has a terrible track record, which is why I feel profoundly frustrated every time someone brings up “The Gift of Fear”. If I peaced out of every situation that filled me with nameless dread, I’d never go outside. Hell, I would probably never get out of bed.

    Listening to your gut is only useful advice if you don’t suffer from chronic anxiety. I am really glad Allison made this point in her response. Even without clinical anxiety, I think people mistake irrational fear for “intuition” much more often than they realize.

    1. Anonathon*

      This is part of what I was getting at above. I didn’t mention it in that comment but I also am a survivor of domestic violence and if I avoided every situation that reminded me of my ex, I wouldn’t get out much. Anxiety often means having to recalibrate your sense of danger/threat and hearing “just listen to your gut” is the opposite of helpful in that situation. So advice like Alison’s is helpful because it has some explicit guidelines instead of just saying “you know, do the thing that everyone already knows how to do.”

      1. Expat*

        Your post and her reply appeared while I was still slowly tapping out mine, but yeah, analyzing the circumstances is the only way I can distinguish between actual cause for concern and brain frizzle. That, and running the details by someone I trust.

    2. neverjaunty*

      But it’s not about peaceing out any time you feel nameless dread – it’s about considering why you have that reaction rather than dismissing it out of hand as silly. And you’re absolutely right that sometimes the reason is “because I have an anxiety disorder” and therefore you shouldn’t peace out, but should try to take other actions to deal with the fear.

      (Which, honestly, is one of the main points of his thesis – that to the degree we can, it’s important not to go around in a state of fear or anxiety all the time because that makes it very difficult to treat fear as the real danger signal it its.)

    3. Lissa*

      The Gift Of Fear is fascinating to me, because I really resisted reading it for years because of how many people used it basically to say “bad feeling? Gift of Fear! Run Away” on the internet. Then I actually read it…and he isn’t saying that at all. I was kind of shocked and ended up really enjoying the book and agreeing with a lot of it.

      1. TootsNYC*

        People had a similar reaction to “Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems” by Richard Ferber. My kids were little when it first came out, and I had friend who said, “how cruel, how mean, destroying the child’s self-esteem.” But when I read his whole book (not just the chapter on getting healthy kids to go to sleep, and sleep through the night), I saw how deeply he loves children. And when I read that chapter, I saw the nuances that other people ignored.

      2. Expat*

        Hmm, from what I recall, that sort of is de Becker’s message: the idea that the unconscious mind processes worrying details faster than the conscious mind can, so that gut feelings should be prioritized over rational assessments. It’s been a few years though; perhaps I should reread it.

        Regardless of what the book actually says, the comment section interpretation has definitely been “Bad feeling? Run away!” In general, I don’t think this is a great strategy, so I tend to take exception to the blanket application of this advice.

        1. Lissa*

          Your first paragraph — I read it a few months ago so can’t remember anything specific, but I remember being really surprised after having been turned off the idea of reading it by the way it had been characterised.

          Re; your second paragraph, definitely. I think “your gut is always right” can lead to some weird places too. What if my gut feeling is that your gut feeling is wrong? Then one of us has to be wrong…but we can’t be wrong . . . because gut feelings are always right! (I know I’m getting a little silly, sorry.)

        2. neverjaunty*

          It’s not that the gut should be prioritized; it’s that we have a tendency to rationalize away “unconscious” reactions as being untrustworthy. Sometimes they are wrong, and sometimes they’re right but warning us about the wrong thing.

          1. Expat*

            This is a much more reasonable message. It’s totally possibly that what people say about the book has overwritten my memory of the actual book, so I really will see if I can get around to rereading it.

      3. Anonymous for this*

        Yeah, it’s definitely not “your gut is always right, trust your gut over reason”. It’s more like “gut feelings are important, here’s what they may be trying to tell you.” Predators and abusers tend to be quite good at keeping a mask of plausible deniability in place, and gut feelings are one of the more reliable signals that someone is trying to pull that with you. The book is full of stories where someone ‘just knows’ something and it saves their bacon. But in further conversation they’re able to explain exactly what warning signs their gut was picking up on… usually while dismissing said warning signs, because they want to believe the best about everyone, or it would have been rude to say no, or something similar.

        Usual caveat: The author’s experience as a child leads him to buy into the ‘first time you’re a victim, second time you’re a volunteer’ nonsense about domestic violence. Ignore that part. He’s an expert at dealing with stalking and interpersonal violence, not at making moral judgements.

        1. JessaB*

          Yeh, I’d really like him to put out a second edition and rewrite that whole chapter, considering we’ve come a long way since the book came out in dealing with that kind of stuff.

  9. Lissa*

    I am a big believer in listening to your instincts, but not listening to them blindly, as stated by several people above — it’s not infallible I love that there has been such a push in the last few years for people to listen to their instincts, but I have seen some people take that really far, basically going straight from “this person gives me a bad vibe” to “this is A Bad Person.” In low stakes situations, this is fine. You wait for the next elevator. You don’t go on a second date with OkCupid guy/gal. But in situations that are either high stakes, like a job, or involve other people (telling your friend their new SO gives you “a bad vibe” so they are terrible and should be immediately dumped . . ) it shouldn’t be used as a hammer. Also what if one person’s gut says something about person/situation but another person’s says the opposite?

    When it comes to a job, if the only red flag was something unidentifiable, I personally would probably take the job unless I had another offer at the same time. That’s just me. I know that I have anxiety, and it sometimes does flare up with no real cause. I’d rather take the risk, because I personally would otherwise kick myself for not doing it.

    I find that mostly “gut feelings/instincts” come from somewhere, but figuring out if it’s picking up on something subconsciously bad, or if it’s your own brain attacking you, is not so easy. Sometimes my brain just attacks me and tells me everything is poison, like an autoimmune response or something.

    Also! False positives can be hard to identify when it comes to people, because there’s no way to prove that that person you had a really bad feeling about isn’t actually evil, unless you stay in close contact with them, which most people probably aren’t gonna…so we remember the “yikes” reaction we had to the person who was later found to have all kinds of unsavory activities, but maybe not the reaction we had to the coworker who stuck around for a month and quit. Who might have bodies in the basement, or not.

    1. fposte*

      This is a really good overview, Lissa, especially the point about us tending to lack confirmation one way or another.

      1. Lissa*

        Thanks! it’s something I think about a lot lately, because the overwhelming thing now on most sites I frequent seems to be not just “listen to your gut” but “do whatever it tells you” which I just can’t get behind all the time. Listen, yes! But listen to other evidence too.

  10. bopper*

    Always listen to your gut. All of you reading this right now go out and buy the book “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin DeBecker…it explains why you should and why you tend to override your gut.

  11. sssssssssss*

    After interviewing on a nearly weekly basis for over a year, I believed I was getting a good gut feel for how interviews turned out and I was doing it so often, I was no longer nervous; I would walk in, answer questions with confidence, shake hands, walk out.

    One interview, after it was done, I left the building thinking, well, that one won’t go anywhere. Turns out, after I left, they looked at each other and said, she’s the one and made me an offer. I took it as I needed a full time job after temping for two years.

    It was the right decision. I was there four years, growing in the job and learning new things. It was great for my career and a good fit. My gut feeling about the interview was off. I’m glad it was.

  12. Artemesia*

    For my first big post grad degree job hunt I received an excellent offer. Any job I was going to take required uprooting my husband’s career and moving the family. There was something about the process at this organization that had my spidey sense tingling although the offer looked great. I declined. A friend of mine also on the job market was later hired. What he found was a CEO with his hand in the till, totally trashed local relationships for the major project which involved working with community organizations and just general awfulness. My friend had just divorced and so spending a year doing what he could and looking for another job worked for him; it would have devastated me to move into this, make the family sacrifices and discover I was in deep yogurt. When your gut speaks — listen.

  13. The Old Crone*

    Always.

    In my 45 years of working, I failed to listen to my gut several times. Each time, it was a mistake. I left several secure situations for what seemed to bring in more money, etc., but turned out to be bad fits or hellush work cultures.

  14. Seal*

    Fifteen or so years ago, I took a series of improv classes from a local improv theater. The best piece of advice I took away from there was “go with your gut”. Ironically enough, at the time my gut was telling me that the people who owned the theater were abusive scam artists, so I stopped taking classes shortly thereafter.

  15. Geneva*

    Yes, definitely pay attention! A few years ago, I was in the running for a marketing job at a small agency. Red flag #1 The interview process was more in-depth than normal for an entry-level position – 4 phone interviews, 2 in-person interviews, 6 writing tests of about 500 words each, etc. Red flag #2, I was frequently asked how I handled strong personalities. They offered me the job, I DID NOT want to take it, but I had rent to pay, so I did. Bad decision.

    That “strong personality” they were talking about was the owner. Imagine a toddler in a 50-year-old man’s body. He loved to yell and occasionally throw things. I was out of there in less than 3 months. Lesson learned.

  16. Debbie Downer*

    I’ve only had one really great job in my life and it ended when there was a major change in the organization’s leadership, followed by a massive shakeup and layoffs.

    Most of the time my gut tells me that I don’t really have any good choices and that I need to take the least worst option and that’s what I end up doing. It’s sort of like voting.

  17. Mrs. Fenris*

    I had an interview about a year ago that felt a bit off. I didn’t get the job, but I had mostly decided I didn’t want it anyway. There was really nothing overly wrong with it. It was a great facility with good staff and everyone was perfectly nice. Working interviews are common in my industry so after the initial interview I spent half a day there. I’m not sure everyone would have picked up on it, but the place was falling into a well-known time suck in my industry. I repair a type of teapot with absolutely no user-serviceable parts. The owners of said teapots call anyway to ask several different ways what might be wrong and how to fix it, and this has to be politely headed off by the staff. At this place, the repair techs were expected to spend an astounding amount of time on the phone and answering emails. They barely had time to do their actual work.

    (I was lucky…I was trying to bolt from my job because I thought some major drama was about to hit. It turned out to be minor drama and I stayed.)

  18. San Brickell*

    I have the same situation, after a long interview process that would involve moving from Salt Lake to New York and sharing my current salary and how much more expensive is NY in terms of taxes and living expenses, I got a job offer, with the same salary. I kind of know the company and it has room for negotiation but it would imply a 30%-40% offer raise, which I am not sure I will get nor if I want to negotiate because it will be long, what would you do? Would you follow your guts or keep fighting?

    1. Chaordic One*

      If you are at all interested and serious about the job in New York, I would at least make the effort to get the substantial raise that would make the job worthwhile. If they don’t want to make a decent offer or if the negotiation process bogs down and becomes difficult, you can always tell them, “no deal.” The 30% raise as the absolute minimum you would accept sounds completely reasonable, but shoot for something higher, say start at 50% and work you way down.

      Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  19. MsCHX*

    I held one job where my gut said RUN and I didn’t listen. I left there in 2005 and I still complain about the place when the thought crosses my mind. A few months ago I was out getting lunch at a salad bar and saw my old manager from there (she didn’t see me). I reacted physically to seeing her (stomach turned, flash of heat, etc). I promised myself to listen to the WHY when my gut is leading me.

    So I would say to examine what it is you’re reacting to. For me it was the rudeness from the manager to the lead during the interview. And the lead was basically in lap-dog territory. Well manager did in fact lead the team like a tiny little tyrant. Yelling, screaming, monitoring emails (for no real reason), asking you to “come by” when you call in sick (presumably so she can determine if you looked sick enough). My then fiance suffered acute kidney failure and I had to pretty much beg her to leave work to meet him at the hospital. And even then she wanted some kind of proof that he was sick.

    :shudder:

Comments are closed.