About 1 week of vacation time.

Starting Feb. 8, I’ll be a full-time employee of Serials Solutions working on their Summon product.  I’ve been contracting with them for a while and I totally dig the company, the team, and the product, so all-in-all this is a great thing.

Serials Solutions is based in Seattle and I’m in Austin, so the entirety of the hiring process has been done either on the phone or via email.  No big deal:  we’re all adults and we can keep track of our stuff :).  So I accept, sign, and return via fax the employment agreement on Wed of last week.  Two days later, I get an email from my soon-to-be boss saying that he’s included a new offer letter, this one with an extra week of vacation like we had discussed.

Only problem:  we never discussed additional vacation.

I immediately assumed that he had confused our negotiation with someone else’s, so I replied to his email asking if he really meant to send that offer to me :).  I asked “Is this part of someone else’s negotiation, or are you just being extra-generous?”.

His response:  ”Extra-generous, equal treatment”.

Turns out, it was part of someone else’s negotiation, but he decided to give it to me as well because it was the right thing to do.

I don’t think most folks would do that:  salary, vacation, stock, etc. are usually highly guarded secrets in an organization, mainly to keep employees from understanding their true organizational worth.  Well, that and to save money:  why pay someone $X when you can get away with paying them $10k less?

Because it’s the right thing to do, that’s why.

So, my boss bought my loyalty and respect for 1 week of vacation time.  Fair trade, I’d say.