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The Offer

By Gary Jarvis | Posted: 23 September 2008

Views: 390
The Offer
By
Gary Jarvis

"We would like to offer you the role." The words hit me with great weight. I had no expectation that the role was going to be offered whatsoever but there I was sitting in front of my potential manager and colleague being offered the role of a lifetime. A huge increase in salary, better pension scheme, improved bonus scheme and a company car. I couldn't have asked for much more. "Obviously the relevant paperwork is on its way out to you but we thought it would be good to bring you in and deliver the news personally."
"Well what can I say. Thanks" I said with a large grin.
"Do you have a date when you can start?"
"Yeah four weeks from Monday. But I will confirm with my letter of acceptance the date." The rest of interview revolved around general chitchat amongst some of the things I would be expected to do in the role and a quick show around the office. Afterwards I headed straight home and called my friends and family to let them know the news. Then I dragged out an old resignation letter crafted it in a new way to make it relevant for my current role and printed two copies out for the next day.

The next day at work was stomach wrenching. I have always found that handing in your letter of resignation is an awful experience because you feel like you are leaving your colleagues and sometimes even your friends in the lurch simply for your benefit. I requested a meeting with my line manager and after sitting down we talked over the usual things and after that I quickly said that I was leaving and passed my letter over the desk for him to read. "Well I must say that you will be missed. You are a highly valued member of the team. Is there anything I could do to convince you to stay?"
"Offer me 50% more money in my salary and an office?" I joked.
"You're not valued that highly." He replied with a laugh. Then we went on to discuss my new role and what it could mean for me. Eventually we went back and one after one my manager pulled in the rest of the team and informed them of the situation before passing my letter onto HR.

The following weeks dragged by. I was bored of my role long before I had handed in my notice and the knowledge that I was leaving had slowed me down to the point where I was very nearly doing no work at all. I also had to go through the same conversations with my colleagues time and time again; explaining everything about the move and my reasons behind it to the point where it felt like I was re-reading the same script like a call centre employee. I was closing in on my final few days when my manager asked me to have a sit down with him. We went into a meeting room, me with the expectation it was about hand over to whoever was going to look after my area once I was gone, him with a totally different agenda. "So I am guessing you know why I have asked to have this sit down." He said with a huge grin.
"Yeah, hand over." I replied.
"No, its about getting you an office and a hefty increase." I sat there and laughed. "No I am serious. I went to my manager and gave you the praise you deserve told him what you said and he has come back with a counter offer for you to think about." He thrust a piece of paper across the desk at me and gave me chance to read it. It was nigh on identical to the offer letter I had received a few weeks prior and it put me in a real conundrum.
"I will have to think about this if you don't mind sir."
"That's fine but obviously I need to know either way before the week is out."
"Not a problem." I lied.

That evening when I got home I downed several drinks whilst pacing around the house thinking through my two options. I thought about every aspect for both roles including workload, additional benefits, people, everything there was to consider was considered. I gained no ground and eventually ended up calling every last friend I had in my drunken stupor attempting to find out what the general consensus was but there was no clear winner either way. Eventually I collapsed on the bed and fell asleep almost immediately and when I woke up I knew exactly what I was going to do. I went into work, sat down with my manager and told him the plan. Then I rang up my potential new company and told them the same thing I told my manager and explained the counter offer. That evening when I went to sleep I remember the sheer state of bliss I was in and how much I was looking forward to the next few weeks. Oh and let's just say I made the right choice.
All articles on this website by Gary Jarvis are copyright ©Gary Jarvis and should not be reproduced without the author's prior written consent. All opinions are the opinions of their respective authors and are not necessarily the opinions of The Writers' Circle.
Comments 
rowland
28 September 2008
I have critiqued your work as follows -

[First impressions]
I found your work interesting and believable
At first I thought it was going to be good but as it went on for me it  lost impetus.
[Beginning]
I found the beginning compelling
The begining was ok but so much more could have been made of it with a lapel grabbing start.
[Plot]
The plot is excellent. Changing ones job is always emotional, even sometimes tearful, almost always traumatic but for me the author failed to bring these emotions out.
[Characters]
A lack of colurful narrative made the conversations bland and boring.
[Dialogue]
There was too much long monologue
Dialogue was sometimes confusing due to a lack of paragraph change in character. Over use of  I said, He said, I replied, I lied.
[Viewpoint]
There was more than one person's view in a given chapter
at times confusing due to character jumping between the same paragraph.
[Pruning and polishing]
There was too much dialogue where specific details would have made a greater impact
[Showing versus telling]
There were problems with showing versus telling
More colourful writing would have made the reading so much better.
[Commas]
There were punctuation problems to do with commas
comma's must precede the name or term in lieu of a name
[Overall comments]
Generally speaking the writing was good but could have been so much better with a little more emotion and descriptive  writing

Writer
Gary Jarvis

Total posts:
122
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Hemel Hempstead, UNITED KINGDOM
A beginner in the craft attempting to publish any piece of work whilst working on a novel. I favour working on novels but tend to get lost after about 30 A4 pages. So I fill out my completed work with ... (Read more)
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