Have you ever reneged on a job offer before you started?

We hired a college kid once for the specific duties of taking prep phone calls during busy nights. After the first night he came to our SE and, very seriously, told him he had proved himself at taking scores, now he was ready to be a columnist. Didn't see him again.

 

Got close enough to mention it twice, on opposite ends of my work history.

1. At 17, took a summer job picking strawberries and cherries at a local orchard because my friends were doing it. Lasted until the first lunch break, when I quietly got in my car and left for the newsroom. Doing rewrites was more lucrative and didn't cause as much pain.

2. I was hired by the state 15 months ago for work with the state nursing board. During my first morning break, I received a call offering me the state job I really wanted. I completed out the week with the nurses and transferred over the following Monday; have been there since.

 

When I was 15 I walked out of a catering company grunt job after two days when the chef-owner kept calling me the wrong name and got incredibly agitated - to the point of yelling "are you fucking deaf?" - when I had the audacity to not respond to a name that wasn't mine. To this day I encourage people from my hometown to not do business with them.

 

Early in my career I accepted a college beat job and then spent a few days in the area looking for a place to live. Realized I didn't like anything about the area and after a fairly miserable year at my first job out of college, I didn't want to risk being miserable in my second gig. Called the SE two days after accepting and told him I wasn't taking the job after all.

He was pissed, which I understood. I also understood my well-being was more important to me than his temporary inconvenience.

 

When I was a senior in college, I accepted a job with a crappy daily not far away from school. Before I started, a professor hooked me up with an interview at his old paper in another state. Everything about it was more appealing, including that it would put distance between me and someone I'd fallen into a pretty unhealthy relationship with who was only a junior. I'm pretty sure I would have taken that job even if they offered me less money, but they offered me more.

I felt bad when I called to back out of the first job, but not too bad. Someone -- probably my dad -- had drilled into me that I had to out my own happiness first when it came to jobs. Very, very glad I followed that advice. Couldn't have asked for a better place to start my career than that first paper.

 

As some people here know, I'm a lawyer. About 10 years ago, I had been interviewing for months for a job with a company when the person that I worked for (who had no idea that I was interviewing) abruptly left our law firm for another firm. My then-current firm was non-committal about my future and the place where my boss went to was eager to hire me. I strung them along but I had no choice but to accept the job at the new firm, even though I really wanted to work for the company. Of course, my first day at the new job, the offer at the company comes in. I tell them that I don't feel right screwing over the new firm, even though it was exactly what I wanted to do. Despite the fact that I had been interviewing for 5 months, the company quickly matched my new compensation and give me a very short time frame to accept. I felt that I had to do what was best for me and took the job with the company.

Let's just say, not the easiest conversations that I have ever had. I tried to smooth it over as best as I could, but even a decade later, my old boss and the guy who runs the department still bring it up right away when I see either of them.

 

Just curious, but having been on both sides of the situation, why were you so mad at the two who left you for better offers?

 

Because they waited until the last day before they started to tell me. If they accepted say Friday and called me Monday (like I did) that's different, but to wait two weeks after accepting then calling on the day before they were to join the staff meant having to start the search over or going back to candidates I'd already rejected.

 

Ahh understandable.

 

I was in my last semester of college and started looking for as place to land. Really wasn't getting much response from my applications and an SE job opened up at the place I was interning. I had worked there for three years in college and was really my only experience in the field. But I didn't have other options so I took it a month and a half or so before I was out of school. At the time, I was also the editor of the school newspaper on top of taking three or four classes. Basically I had no life and got really sick of everything come December when I was due to graduate. Then comes a call from the sister paper of a place I had previously applied to. Talked to the editor and publisher on the phone and a few days later got as job offer. I immediately called the paper I had originally committed to and said sorry bro, I'm out. Got called into the big boss's office and told I was making a mistake and to think of the opportunity I had there. I said I appreciated everything but this was what I needed to do. Shook his hand and felt a giant weight off my shoulders. Funny thing was, six and a half years later, same guy who said I was making a mistake hired me back when my wife--whom I met because I took a chance on a new spot--got a job near my hometown and I was moving back to the area.