Upping the ante

I think I have mentioned before that I'm being courted by a local company for what really *is* a pretty cool job.

And I think I've mentioned that there are some issues with it that are probably deal-breakers.

The first, of course, is that I have this potentially uber-cool job with this grant that I've been working on for the last year. I'm really dedicated to this program.

But really, I have no delusions that they wouldn't be able to find someone else to fulfill my role there.

The second, and real, issue has been that there's a lot of travel with this job, and I'm just not sure I want to be away from home that much. My family needs me.

Twice, I've told them I don't think I can take the job because of that -- regardless of the amount of money they're offering me.

And twice, they've said, "We understand. Look; just come back in for another discussion. No obligation. We just want to talk."

Today, when I went in, they upped the ante. "What if we gave you access to the corporate jet for your travel? Not for the overseas stuff, of course, but it would probably make something like 75% of your domestic travel just day trips. You won't have to stay overnight. What do you think?"

And they added another $10K to the salary.

And another 5000 shares of stock.

*gulp*

Corporate. Jet.

Holy crap. I can't even wrap my head around that. Me + Private jets = Does. Not. Compute.

I'm supposed to know if the other program funded this coming Friday. If it doesn't, it's going to be pretty darned hard to walk away from this.