Why would a company already faced with having to fill one job want to alienate the #2 guy so much that they'll then have to fill a second? Just filling those two spots could cost $40,000 or more, not to mention all the problems that go with losing the #1 and #2 guy in a company/division.
Present the argument as follows:
- I like my job very much
- I like this company
- I know the kind of work I'm good at and enjoy
- This new job is significantly different from my current job and the type of work I enjoy
- Although qualified for the job, I don't think it's what I'm best at
- I am very willing to take the position temporarily, and help find and train a replacement
The company is looking at your recalcitrance as costing them money (I'm assuming it costs less to find a #2 guy than a #1 guy), but they're looking at it wrong. Once you indicated you didn't want the job, the choice is now between finding a new #1 with a #2 around to keep things running smoothly, or finding a #1 and #2 simultaneously, and dealing with the problems of having a headless department.
I don't take the position of a lot of people on this board (i.e. "I'm an IT professional, I'll have a new job in 8 minutes. Screw you!"). I like my job a lot. The pay is good, my manager's great, I like the people I work with, the bene's are great and I work 10 minutes from home. You can bet I'd fight pretty hard to keep it.
You shouldn't take the job if you don't want it. You never want to get yourself into an employment situation where you hate to get out of bed in the morning. Why not hit the ball back into their court? Give them a counter-offer. Say you'll take the job at $50K above what they're offering, and demand a 2 year contract and a company car. Don't make it too outrageous, but make it something you're willing to live with for the term of the contract in case they agree. Request their offer in writing, put your counter in writing. If they turn down the offer and fire you, at least you have proof that they thought you were qualified for both your current job and the #1 slot and fired you in retaliation for not taking the promotion (in case you want to talk to a lawyer). And if they fire you, demand severance. Lots.
Just make sure they know that whatever they do, the cheapest, easiest course of action would be to simply start a search to fill the #1 slot with your help.
Consumer Reports tested the Insight in a recent issue and found that the car gets about 48MPG under regular driving conditions. They also found the ride to be quite rough due to the special tires and the fact that the car is lightweight (it's gets blown around) and found the engine to be noisy. Finally, let's not forget that it's a two seater.
Buy a Geo/Chevy Metro instead. It costs 30% less, gets similar real-world mileage and has more space.
I agree that the subscription model is going to be the future of music distribution.
In the 80's Michael Eisner made an unbelievable fortune for Disney, the stockholders and himself by recognizing that the movies sitting in Disney's vault were an underutilized asset and released them to video. Parent's bought them, grandparents bought them and nostalgic adults bought them. Cha-ching!
The music companies own the rights to a gigantic library of songs. I don't know about you, but I would pay $15 or $20 per month to have legal, unlimited access to every piece of music in the Big Labels' catalog. By not taking advantage of the flexibility the digital age allows, the record labels are losing money. I can think of ten albums I won't buy because there's only one song I'm really interested in, but I'm not interested enough to pay $15 for it. Maybe there are a few albums or songs that came out when I was in high-school (mid-80's) that I would like to hear again, but aren't even available anymore. Maybe I would create playlists of Elvis or Beach Boys songs. But I'm not going to go out tomorrow and buy all that music at today's prices.
If pirating is easy and the copyrighted material is expensive, pirating will happen. The only solution is to make the copyrighted material cheap enough that it's not worth the trouble. I pirated videos for myself in the 80's. Video movies cost $95. Tapes were $6 and a rental cost $3, so for $9 I could have a copy of Star Trek: Wrath of Khan. Now you can buy a movie on tape for $15-$20, which coincidentally is about the same as 9 1982 dollars adjusted for inflation.
Hmmm... I wonder if I could patent this business model ala Priceline and license it to the big labels for a fraction of a cent per download. Cool.
Beggars series a much better comparison
on
Frankenstein Time
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· Score: 1
The first book is a perfect illustration of Katz's point about what parents would do given the chance. At the time the first couple genetically mainipulates their daughter so that she doesn't need sleep, such a modification is illegal, but the other modifications (no genetic diseases, high intelligence, beauty, predisposition towards math, art, etc.) are legal. This couple just takes the extra step. And then human nature takes over. People want what's best for their children - rich people especially since they can pay for so much. In the book, other parents quickly have their own children similarly modified. After all, these Sleepless kids have a Bachelors and several graduate degrees by the age of 18. No matter how smart their kids are, they'll be left in the dust if they have to sleep. My sister-in-law is a raging "I want what's best for my child" fanatic. The kid has been enrolled in "The Best" private school in NYC since he was six. She belives that if he goes to this private school, he will go to an Ivy League college and be successful, rich and happy. When there was some question about a year ago whether or not the kid had ADD or some other problem, she confided to my wife that she would rather he just died, than live with some kind of disability. He was seven at the time. If she felt she could get away with it, she'd probably be pushing little kids down stairs to make sure my nephew stays at or near the top of his class. There is no doubt in my mind that if she had the opportunity to give her kid a performance boost through genetic manipulation, legal or not, she would have done it. She wants her kid to be happy, and if anyone else has to suffer for that happiness, well that's just too bad.
It's not just that the box is large. It's the fact that the large box weighs next to nothing. It's as if you're paying a significant amount of money for air. I don't mind a large box that has some heft to it (i.e. a nice thick manual inside). It's the ones that look like they ought to weigh as much as a cinderblock but only weigh a few grams that I have a problem with. You're muscles are all ready to lift something heavy so you end up flinging the box across the store. It's embarrassing.
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Why would a company already faced with having to fill one job want to alienate the #2 guy so much that they'll then have to fill a second? Just filling those two spots could cost $40,000 or more, not to mention all the problems that go with losing the #1 and #2 guy in a company/division.
Present the argument as follows:
- I like my job very much
- I like this company
- I know the kind of work I'm good at and enjoy
- This new job is significantly different from my current job and the type of work I enjoy
- Although qualified for the job, I don't think it's what I'm best at
- I am very willing to take the position temporarily, and help find and train a replacement
The company is looking at your recalcitrance as costing them money (I'm assuming it costs less to find a #2 guy than a #1 guy), but they're looking at it wrong. Once you indicated you didn't want the job, the choice is now between finding a new #1 with a #2 around to keep things running smoothly, or finding a #1 and #2 simultaneously, and dealing with the problems of having a headless department.
I don't take the position of a lot of people on this board (i.e. "I'm an IT professional, I'll have a new job in 8 minutes. Screw you!"). I like my job a lot. The pay is good, my manager's great, I like the people I work with, the bene's are great and I work 10 minutes from home. You can bet I'd fight pretty hard to keep it.
You shouldn't take the job if you don't want it. You never want to get yourself into an employment situation where you hate to get out of bed in the morning. Why not hit the ball back into their court? Give them a counter-offer. Say you'll take the job at $50K above what they're offering, and demand a 2 year contract and a company car. Don't make it too outrageous, but make it something you're willing to live with for the term of the contract in case they agree. Request their offer in writing, put your counter in writing. If they turn down the offer and fire you, at least you have proof that they thought you were qualified for both your current job and the #1 slot and fired you in retaliation for not taking the promotion (in case you want to talk to a lawyer). And if they fire you, demand severance. Lots.
Just make sure they know that whatever they do, the cheapest, easiest course of action would be to simply start a search to fill the #1 slot with your help.
Consumer Reports tested the Insight in a recent issue and found that the car gets about 48MPG under regular driving conditions. They also found the ride to be quite rough due to the special tires and the fact that the car is lightweight (it's gets blown around) and found the engine to be noisy. Finally, let's not forget that it's a two seater.
Buy a Geo/Chevy Metro instead. It costs 30% less, gets similar real-world mileage and has more space.
I agree that the subscription model is going to be the future of music distribution.
In the 80's Michael Eisner made an unbelievable fortune for Disney, the stockholders and himself by recognizing that the movies sitting in Disney's vault were an underutilized asset and released them to video. Parent's bought them, grandparents bought them and nostalgic adults bought them. Cha-ching!
The music companies own the rights to a gigantic library of songs. I don't know about you, but I would pay $15 or $20 per month to have legal, unlimited access to every piece of music in the Big Labels' catalog. By not taking advantage of the flexibility the digital age allows, the record labels are losing money. I can think of ten albums I won't buy because there's only one song I'm really interested in, but I'm not interested enough to pay $15 for it. Maybe there are a few albums or songs that came out when I was in high-school (mid-80's) that I would like to hear again, but aren't even available anymore. Maybe I would create playlists of Elvis or Beach Boys songs. But I'm not going to go out tomorrow and buy all that music at today's prices.
If pirating is easy and the copyrighted material is expensive, pirating will happen. The only solution is to make the copyrighted material cheap enough that it's not worth the trouble. I pirated videos for myself in the 80's. Video movies cost $95. Tapes were $6 and a rental cost $3, so for $9 I could have a copy of Star Trek: Wrath of Khan. Now you can buy a movie on tape for $15-$20, which coincidentally is about the same as 9 1982 dollars adjusted for inflation.
Hmmm... I wonder if I could patent this business model ala Priceline and license it to the big labels for a fraction of a cent per download. Cool.
The first book is a perfect illustration of Katz's point about what parents would do given the chance. At the time the first couple genetically mainipulates their daughter so that she doesn't need sleep, such a modification is illegal, but the other modifications (no genetic diseases, high intelligence, beauty, predisposition towards math, art, etc.) are legal. This couple just takes the extra step. And then human nature takes over. People want what's best for their children - rich people especially since they can pay for so much. In the book, other parents quickly have their own children similarly modified. After all, these Sleepless kids have a Bachelors and several graduate degrees by the age of 18. No matter how smart their kids are, they'll be left in the dust if they have to sleep. My sister-in-law is a raging "I want what's best for my child" fanatic. The kid has been enrolled in "The Best" private school in NYC since he was six. She belives that if he goes to this private school, he will go to an Ivy League college and be successful, rich and happy. When there was some question about a year ago whether or not the kid had ADD or some other problem, she confided to my wife that she would rather he just died, than live with some kind of disability. He was seven at the time. If she felt she could get away with it, she'd probably be pushing little kids down stairs to make sure my nephew stays at or near the top of his class. There is no doubt in my mind that if she had the opportunity to give her kid a performance boost through genetic manipulation, legal or not, she would have done it. She wants her kid to be happy, and if anyone else has to suffer for that happiness, well that's just too bad.
It's not just that the box is large. It's the fact that the large box weighs next to nothing. It's as if you're paying a significant amount of money for air. I don't mind a large box that has some heft to it (i.e. a nice thick manual inside). It's the ones that look like they ought to weigh as much as a cinderblock but only weigh a few grams that I have a problem with. You're muscles are all ready to lift something heavy so you end up flinging the box across the store. It's embarrassing.