The last in a series on why a bad first job is good for you and subsequent events. Check out the earlier posts by going to my site. I would offer links but I'm still working on that.
Early Thursday morning Margot called the medical support company but missed the HR person. Left a message. About 11:00am the HR person called again and offered Margot the job---$35,000, three weeks vacation, 401(k) with match, full medical, three blocks away. Perfect. Margot said "Let me think about it." "How long?" "Tomorrow?" Ok but the HR person was not happy.
In a bit of unbelievable timing, the HR lady from the ad agency called at 11:30am and offered Margot the job there. That was a quick turnaround. Margot was now in a bind but a good kind of bind having two job offers. Margot again asked for some time to think about it saying she wanted to talk to me. I was pretty proud of that until I figured I may have been more of a convenient excuse than a wise sage that Margot had to counsel with prior to any major decision.
I was out and didn't get Margot's message until early evening. Called and we did the old MBA thing--get out a piece of paper, in this case, two pieces of paper. Make two columns titled Pro and Con. First, the medical support job. Lots of pros--money, vacation, retirement plan, short commute, would look good on her resume. Cons--dull. Maybe not but Margot wasn't doing cartwheels after any of the interviews.
Ok, let's do the ad agency. Margot said no. Why not? "It only pays minumum wage." she squeaked. I have to admit I was taken aback. How could they get away with paying a college graduate $7 an hour? Margot explained--the job was a six month internship at which time you were either offered a full time job or the job ended. This thing was starting to make sense--the deal offered the agency some pretty good talent at a rock bottom price, no health plan cost, no 401(k) cost, no vacation cost and an easy out at the end of six months. No harm, no foul.
Also, somewhat of a tradition in the ad and talent agency business. In many agencies, especially in old Hollywood, the newbies started in the mail room no matter who they were or what the future expectations were for that agent or star. The theory was to hit the ego with a bit of humility to see how they handled it as well as having the newbie learn the organization by delivering the mail.
So, a good deal for the agency but not so great a deal for Margot, in the short run anyway, as she had another rent payment coming up.
"So, what are you going to do?" I asked. "You tell me." Margot shot back. "No, you tell me." I said. And back and forth, back and forth. Finally, she said "I'm going with the agency." and I replied, "Right answer."
Not the right answer for my checkbook as we were now subsidizing the agency but the right answer for Margot and her career as
1) if Margot turned down the agency job she would question that decision the rest of her life,
2) the medical job paid well but only in the short run. The future earnings potential in the agency far outweigh the potential in the medical company. I have no empirical evidence but could probably prove it if I had to.
3) the ad agency sounded like fun. Young people doing fun things. I'm sure there are all kinds of politics and petty jealousies but there are in any organization. I had a friend recently describe a co-worker as the type of the guy that will stab you in the front. It's everywhere and the only counter is to work hard and don't get dragged into the pettiness.
So she took the job and liked the work but didn't like the environment. My guess about politics and slave labor was on the money. Also they were not hiring at the end of six months so no job. For anybody.
But it turned out to be ok because Margot landed a job with a Scottish energy company that she really loves and they love her. The first assignment was a months training in Edinburgh. Not too shabby.
The moral of the story--get a job, any job when you first get out of school. You will probably hate it but you will learn a lot and you will learn what you don't want to do. Then you will be able to look around and figure out what you do want to do.
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