A great lesson I learned quite a few years ago was that you should never make life decisions based on more money. As a young and too brash mid-20ish person I did just that. I sold out. It wasn’t bad, I doubled my salary and I moved to an exciting city. But….i forgot my values and my principles. Not going to bore you with a long story of morality but as soon as I got there, the very first day of work, I knew I had messed up in a big way.
True story, but one of my old bosses called me the first week on Friday and he said,
“Miguel, today is Friday and I am sure that by now you know you made a mistake, which you obviously will never accept but I have to tell you, your job is right here waiting for you and we will pay for the move, consider this a life lesson.”
As a good and decent young executive I told him the truth,
“of course not, I am extremely happy here”
To which his reply was
“sure you are, but I will call you in a few weeks and will offer you this again”
Like clockwork and about the same time he called me in 2 weeks and told me
“I bet you are still pretty happy, the offer is on the table and we need you”
I told him that i was just fine, even though I was miserable. Pride, you guessed it
“I will call you again in a month and hopefully you will accept your mistake”
So once again and like a clock (I think he set an alarm to be honest) he calls me again on the day and at the time
“ok young man, this will be the last time I call you, I can’t help you after today”
So I gave up and told him, So and So, I am fine where I am at, hung up and banged my head on the wall for several minutes.
Honestly this was the greatest decision I have ever made…. You thought I was going to say that it was a mistake, right. Well, it was not. The new company where I was working at was awful and treated its people miserably. I used to joke years after and told people I got my Master’s in Anti Human Resources while I was there, but…..
The truth of it is that making mistakes along the way and for the wrong reasons is a costly matter, especially if you do not learn from them. I went for the money because I believed that was my priority. But if I had not done that, I would not have struggled the next couple of years and would not have learned all the other things I learned or met the people I met.
You can not and should not be sorry for the mistakes you have made, that is a harsh reality, you just have to live with them. As I venture in this new company, I live with my decisions and pray to God I do not get calls from anybody this time, well, it might teach me something if I do get it…….
Keep calm and stay humble!
Dear friend: you are correct, our decisions and consequences are ours to keep and learn from. In this case, the bad original decision led me to a lot of forced learning and harsh understanding of the fine line of morality in many aspects. This company, although greatly deficient in which they treated their employees, did teach me that there are these types of places and it is your choice to continue the behavior or to stop it. I chose to not follow it, although I was always very strict with my personnel and n the last five years I realized that I could get them to help me more if I was more lenient in my own behavior and more understanding toward their needs
Hello Miguel, it’s a coincidence that you mention this life lesson because I was just thinking about a similar event which happened to me as well. It taught me to accept my decisions and whatever consequences came along with them but to learn from them is the key so history won’t repeat itself. Keep it at with hard work and you will succeed on your new venture!