Is it Wrong to Accept an Employment Counter-Offer?

An Anonymous Coward asks: "I was happily working away at a low-paying but otherwise good job I'd had for several months, after taking a huge pay cut when the dot.bomb bubble burst. Then a recruiter contacted me with a very nice potential position - I interviewed and received an offer with a 50% increase in pay, everything else nearly the same. When I received the offer and decided I was interested, I broke the news to my current employer - to my surprise they extended a counter-offer with a matching salary, thereby eliminating my only reason for considering the other job. However, I talked to some friends and checked the web for ideas and realized that there are a *lot* of ppl out there who believe you should never accept a counter-offer. They make some good points, and there are a lot of those pages - but on the web popularity breeds increased popularity, in a self-feeding cycle, so I'm wondering if the numbers are skewed unrealistically. Is it really that rare to do well by accepting a counter-offer? Do Slashdot readers have experience with counter-offers from present employers, positive or negative?"

Comments

Do you really want the same job?

[drclausen]

Do you really want to be working for a company that you have threaten to leave before you can get a pay raise?
Just something to think about....

David

of course

[Srin Tuar]

You have todo what makes you happy, shiny things does not improve your life.

Of course happiness is the first concern; being that my job is also my hobby- this was not an issue. I would have been happy in either place.

Now having money cannot make you happy, an acute lack of it can certainly make you sad.