Offer Letter Redux

[James Barrow]

In our last episode, our hero, Jimmy Olsen (me) was awaiting an offer letter
from the for a government job...

The general consensus here was that offer letters, especially offer letters
for a government job, could/should not be negotiated.  Well, guess what...

I got a call from the DOC HR saying that they were in the process of
'crunching the numbers' and that the final step was obtaining one more
signature from the highest of higher-ups.  Then the conversation drifted
towards money.

I was stunned.  Seriously.

I was told that 'my preliminary offer - pending the final signature - was
going to be XXX number of dollars per month', and 'would that be okay?'.

Since I had my laptop up and running, I thanked them for making me an offer
while I quickly reviewed the salary tier.  The salary that they were
tentatively offering was, interestingly enough, one dollar into the highest
tier.  Not the maximum that they could have paid me, but a very good salary
and great benefits.

So I said yes, with a January 22nd start date.

So, for anyone else who applies for a government job, I guess that salary
negotiation is possible.

- Jim