I’ll be honest. Compensation has been a motivating factor in every position I have held. I grew up lower middle class and have always been in an ambitious pursuit of elevation. While I have always wanted to be in positions that I felt I would be good at, I also looked heavily at how much I would make while being in that position. I have left a job, declined an offer, and accepted others, all based mostly on compensation. Compensation motivated this behavior for a couple of different reasons beyond home life. In the instance of declining the offer, I had been asked to relocate my position due to an office closure. The new position would be located 20 miles farther from my current location, at the time, and I was not going to have an increase in compensation. I felt that the drive time and wear on my vehicle were worth more than the amount that was offered.

When I decided to leave a position due to compensation, it was largely based on the company establishing a union. In the beginning, many of us believed that the union would be beneficial in helping us to get management to see that our compensation was below market and that our job descriptions included tasks that were not listed. After the final agreement was signed, many of the staff, including myself, felt that compensation had been jilted in the pursuit of other issues and heard a lot of “well, this is your first contract” or “you just won’t see that out of the first contract.”  Quite a few of us ended up leaving that position because the compensation stayed below market value even after we proved that it was indeed below market. I’m hoping that the next time I accept an offer, I am again in pursuit of a position with higher compensation and much more responsibility.