My current job pays ~$19/hr it’s a nose pickers job that I took out of desperation. It’s a joint partnership between two companies where one of the companies is the sole customer. Management has been screwing us by making us work a ton of overtime because production is ramping back up. I’m supposed to go back to a regular 40 hr week “soon.” They laid off 30% of their staff a year ago. I’ve been there 5 months and trained 3 different people as they are hiring an entire 3rd shift at the moment.
I generally enjoy my coworkers as they are almost all foreigners from many different places and older. Management is generally nice enough, their hands are tied due to the parent company.
The benefits are 5% 401k company match, 160 hrs of PTO/ yr, good insurance for me and one child is $100/mo similar instance is $1k on the marketplace.
Job I’m looking at is offering close to $25/hr, is a small global company, same 8hr shift 2 weeks of vacation a year, high deductible plan for ~$400/mo which would cost me $600 on the open market, a discretionary 401k company contribution currently at 6%. I would also have more opportunities for advancement at this place and the work would be more engaging to me and likely more opportunities to improve my career as my current job is a major step back for me.
Commute is identical as they are directly across the street from each other. I would also have at least an additional $175 in medical expenses every month as I see a doctor once a month for a chronic condition. If I place a value on my time off based on my current pay rate and subtract my additional costs I figure I would only be making an extra $300/mo and that’s if I don’t have any other medical expenses. It’s also possible that I’d be walking into a more toxic working environment.
The recruiter made a big deal out of the possibility of advancement later on as quite a few people will be retiring in the next few years. It’s still a very low level role and she talked in an unnatural corporate way, in not sure that it wasn’t an ai phone interview to be honest. They’re both manufacturers, but my current place is an assembly line and the new place would be small scale manufacturing where highly specialized parts are machined to order. I would be involved in various aspects across the facility, so I would have opportunities to learn everything about their processes and work closely with everyone from operators to engineers and management.
I would eventually like to work in something like continuous improvement and do more office work so I’m not stuck turning wrenches in my 40s and 50s.
Having worked on small scale manufacturing, I’d translate that to, “you’re expected to do the job of 3-4 people, each order will be different from the last, and any customer concerns will be directed back to you.”
Working closely with all those people could go two ways. Either they will be constantly interrupting your work to check on progress and quality, to change details of the job, and to generally hover over your shoulder, or, they will be very supportive with answers to any questions you may have and making sure you have the tools and knowledge to do the job to the customer’s specifications.
Edit: Also, climbing the ladder in a smaller company involves a lot of the 1 or 2 people in charge liking you, your style of working, and your personality
From my experience it depends on if your boss is able to manage expectations and is willing to say no. I once had a boss that would say yes to everything management asked, last minute jobs, tons of extra work, plus he would try to do a bunch of stuff himself. Then he got replaced with a guy that would go into the morning management meeting and give them realistic timelines. He would also trust us to do the work we were there to do and leave us to it. Everything went much smoother after that.