Author: Kyle

So, I mentioned I had interviewed for a job and was waiting to hear back from them. It turned out that I received a phone call on Thursday of that week, from an recruiter from the company, offering me a position. What’s more, he offered me a decent pay increase over what I was currently making, plus an opportunity for bonuses, based on meeting standard performance metrics. I told him I would consider it and get back to him, and told Rebecca about it.

In trying to decide whether I should stay or go, we tried the “make a list of pros and cons” method, but it really didn’t identify a clear winner. Besides, Symantec didn’t even counter the offer, so I was comparing the possibility of a new income with my current unaltered one. As for benefits, they actually seemed comparable. There were a few perks where one company was better than the other, such as vacation time/paid time off, as Symantec offered me a much higher amount, more than a week extra per year due to their higher limits and my being there longer. Then there are the actual technical details of the job: I currently get to support almost any mobile phone platform, which has been really challenging to keep up with, and the new products I would support would be a server-based product that I haven’t had to work with anything similar.

The next morning, on Friday, I told my manager about the job offer, and he contacted his manager. His manager just happened to be in Oregon visiting our site there, and he called me a while later to discuss what was going on. When I decided to stay at Symantec last year, I attributed much of the decision to this person, whom I really respect and appreciate getting to work under. I was more open about the situation, telling him how it happened and what I was offered, and he asked me what it would take for me to stay, stating that I was a value to the company and they would like to get a chance to keep me. I asked if they would be able to match the offer, and he said he would look into it.

Here’s both the conundrum and challenge during this decision: last year, I chose to stay even though Symantec countered with a lesser offer. The other job didn’t feel as stable, and other things just made Symantec seem like a better choice for me. However, this company is more stable and growing in the area, so what should I do if I don’t get what I asked for? On Sunday, at church as I was walking around, I got a feeling like going to this new company wouldn’t be bad, but also felt like either decision would be good for me.

On Monday, I didn’t hear back from Symantec or the recruiter, and on Tuesday after work, the recruiter called and I explained that I was still trying to give Symantec a chance to counter. He told me something that I hadn’t considered: he explained that most people who go to their company were anxious to leave their old jobs. I asked for more time, as I was told in the morning I should have an answer from Symantec, and he set up to call me at 10am.

The next morning, I wasn’t looking forward to his call as I still had no information on a counter-offer, he rang me promptly at 10, and I couldn’t answer his call since I was on the phone, so he left a message. I called back at 10:45 and left him a message, and he called me back at 12:45 saying he was heading into a meeting and would call me back afterwards. I felt somewhat frustrated of all the waiting with no counter, and figured if he called back before I heard from Symantec, I would just give him an answer that I would accept the job. However, that was the last time I heard from him.

Thursday passed with no further information from Symantec and no other contact from the recruiter, and finally on Thursday at 9:00 at night, my upper manager called and told me what the counter offer would be: less than what this new company would offer, but a decent increase over what I was making. Now, I finally felt I could make an educated and complete decision, having all the pieces of the puzzle.

On Friday, on the radio I heard a report that people were more creative when they were out in nature, so I spent an hour walking around outside trying to think of all the options and reasons to stay or go. Ultimately, I sent out emails telling the manager at the new company, and my upper manager at Symantec, that I was going to stay.

I didn’t hear back from either of them, which bothered me. The manager at the other company, who just happened to be my former manager at Symantec, had an auto-response that he would be out until Tuesday, and my upper manager had told me before that he was going to be working from home for the next week.

That weekend, I did a lot of second-guessing and wondering if I made the right choice. On Monday, I felt really bad that I chose to stay, and by Tuesday, I sent a simple message to the other manager, telling him I was having second thoughts and wondered if I would be able to change my mind. He called me back a bit later and we talked about it, and I couldn’t bring myself to accept the job right then, and he told me to let him know by Wednesday, and that he needed a final answer.

I realized something during all this – I actually liked having the feeling like I had some power and choice and could make the decision to stay or go. Once I felt like I made a decision, I felt deflated and like I was missing the power to decide my fate. Maybe this is why I like buffets and not a restaurant menu – I can have everything at a buffet, and have to choose only one thing at a regular restaurant.

So on the next day, when I needed to finally make my final decision, I decided to stay again.

We’ve been really anxious for getting our basement finished this year. It’s been “in progress” for the last… well, practically since the first year we lived here.  It’s either been an issue of not having the money to spend on the supplies to progress on it, or finally when I was working two jobs, having the money but no time to put into it. The main floor was so crowded with the stuff of life, that I had made a decision to just move it all down into the basement so we could have a decent living area on the ground floor. Then, when I finally went down to one job, we had so much stuff in the basement that we couldn’t start working on it.

Now that we seem better able to handle our cost of living, we have been able to get some money saved up for home improvement, including working towards finishing the basement. So this year, we have put a lot of effort into emptying it out, and once we were close to ready, we started getting quotes from professionals. The quotes were more than we were hoping for, but we figured the cost was justified, and finally picked someone that seemed to have an eye for detail that I could respect.

When we had the house built in 2004, the base price of the home did not include a basement. Most of the models by Tuscany Homes cost $10,000 to finish the basement, but we selected the “Stillwater” plan, that would only be $7,000 extra for an unfinished basement. Then, we added other upgrades, including air conditioning, windows in the upstairs bathrooms, an upgraded bathtub in the master bathroom, an island in the kitchen, upgraded the shelves to pull out like drawers in the cabinets in the kitchen, and linoleum in the dining area. On Rebecca’s father’s advise, we also asked Tuscany to finish the bathroom in the basement for $4,000 more, as it would cost much more than this to actually finish it after the house was done.

As we initially got a permit to finish the basement back in 2005, it had long since expired past the extensions the city gave us. Our contractor called the city to ask about getting a new permit, and contacted us to inform us that the city had no record of the bathroom in the basement ever having been finished, and this could add complications to getting the work done, from a time and money aspect.

This really frustrated me, and I went into the city hall to find out more information.  According to Beverly, the lady in the planning department, their documentation showed the basement as “unfinished” during the initial inspection of 2004, with no indication of the bathroom being inspected. I explained that the basement was technically unfinished, as most of it was still raw foundation and framing, but we paid Tuscany to finish the bathroom. She continued to push that the inspector made no record of this during the final inspection. I found this annoying, as the bathroom would have been impossible to miss, so either the inspector purposely ignored it (which I think would be illegal) or simply failed to record details regarding its inspection. She explained that they no longer had the floor plans from 2004, so they could not verify it was part of the initial build of the house. She went on to explain the people who worked for the city back then were no longer around, so there was no way they could verify the bathroom was finished. I mentioned it was listed on the floor plan we submitted for the permit, and those floor plans were the same we submitted back in 2005 to get the initial permit.

Fortunately, she had a record of the original permit request, and was able to pull it up and verify my claim. Even though it was listed there, she was still determined not to bend on claiming the bathroom needed to be inspected, and the rules for 2004 had changed three times to now, so things that might have passed previously could pose a problem. Unfortunately, I don’t see any other way around this, so we just need to wait and see what happens when we go through the inspections.

At least we’re finally moving towards getting the basement finished! He originally said we might be done by Thanksgiving, although with the delays on the permit, that is looking less likely. I just hope we can have it done before Christmas.

Song: We Are a Happy Family

Topic: Years ago, long before Rebecca and I met, and even before I went on my mission, my sister Laurel came down from Utah to visit our family in Anaheim. Now, she did this frequently enough, but this one occasion was on a Fast Sunday. My brave sister got up in church to bear her testimony, and she said something that always stuck with me: she was thankful for carpet.

That statement always had me thinking, as there are so many things we take advantage of and don’t even consider how fortunate we are to have. So my lesson this FHE was simple: let’s find out what everybody is thankful for, and make a list. (I used their initials when typing up the list, but I could be either K or D.) It’s a rather raw list, so bare with the information and let’s see what they are thankful for:

Things we are thankful for: K:Carpet, J:Legos and Lego Magazine; L:Milk; M:The House; T:Going to Church, Clothes; M:Air Conditioning; E:Having Friends; M:Siblings; J:Holidays; D:Bruvahs and Sistahs; C:Teachers; T:Naps; J:School and Bikes and School things; K:Teeth and Food and Clean dishes and a Dishwasher; M:Water in the house; D:Ground and carpet; T:Hair; L:Diapers; T:Leashes for walking dogs; M:Healthy body; C:Milk; D:Medicine; T:Money; K:Phones and electricity and TV and Games and Movies; E:Vitamins; J:Glass windows and Books; T:Puzzles and board games; E:Chewy and Jango (pets); M:Cameras and Pictures to remember our family history; T:Babies; D:Computers and little computers (iPad); J:Electricity so we have Lights; T:Scriptures; K:Cars and Fuel to help them go and People who fix our cars; J:Maps to know where to go; T:School and classrooms and tables and chairs and teachers; J&T:Jesus; D:Families; J:Food; T:Undies; J:Earth and our Bodies and Eyes; E:Mouth, Nose, Ears.

Closing song: (My Heavenly Father Loves Me) Whenever I hear the song of a bird