<prompt> Human: Ive been torn over whether this belongs in PF, Relationships, or an entirely different subreddit. I posted it here because although it has some interpersonal elements at play, I know a lot of current and former managers read PF and I want to know what they would think of the situation. I also think PF may be the best place for it because my earning power is probably one of the most important drivers of my decision here.Anyway, on to the story. Im going to be a bit vague and change some things up as things are still very much in the air.Ive been out of college for about a decade now. When I graduated with my BA in the fine arts, I had a hell of a time getting a decent job--I spent a while working manual labor, and had to do temp work for a while after that. The whole time, I was balancing 50K in student loan debt and 15K in credit card debt, both of which were driven up during college stupidly living beyond my means. Being underemployed left me living paycheck to paycheck and making little-to-no progress on my debts.Eventually, I finally landed an office job, and have spent more than 5 years at the company in a variety of roles. Throughout, I have been underpaid, but receiving regular promotions and raises that were always just enough to keep me from looking for something better. About a year and a half ago, I moved to a new location for a promotion into an entirely new job with the company. It was a 10K raise and would involve learning new things, which I love. Before I started interviewing for the position, I had never thought of it as a possible career path, and was thrilled to find that it suited my skills and was something I excelled at.This year, a lot has happened--the person who hired me resigned, as his former boss was working for a new company and made him a better offer. At that time, I stepped up and took over interim managerial duties for the team, and let my supervisor my former boss boss know that I was interested in the position. He encouraged me to apply and go through the process, but was a bit cagey and made it clear that he saw this as an opportunity to get an outside hire with a ton of experience.After a few months of essentially doing two jobs, I approached my supervisor and asked to talk about salary. Before I could even make my case, he told me hed been working on a raise for me, and soon after I received another promotion and significant raise. The thing is, because Ive been chronically underpaid for the positions Ive held, these large raises that are a huge percentage growth from the prior pay rate still leave me in the bottom half of earners for people doing my job in my area. Its always thrilling Oh man, thats a huge raise! and then disappointing Oh, the average person doing this job still makes 20K more than me..The past few months of work have been very stressful and demanding, but rewarding--my voice is heard far more than it used to be, my input is appreciated and solicited more often, and I have a lot of power to control the direction of a given project and the direction of my team in general. However, the hunt for a replacement manager seems to be neverending, and at this point I am starting to wonder whether theyre simply going to avoid hiring a new manager because our team is managing to do nearly everything we did before but with one fewer well paid member.Recently, my former boss reached out to me and has made it clear that he intends to recruit me to join him at his new company. No details have been discussed, but he knows what I was being paid before though not since my recent promotion, and he says this would be a huge boost, using the phrase life changing. Im obviously curious to learn more about it, and he has said that things will be happening pretty fast over the next couple of weeks.My dilemma is this: the team that Im currently a part of is very small--there are maybe a half dozen workers overall, and only two that do my current job. Although I know that theyre a business and would lay me off in a heartbeat if the bottom line called for it--and I suspect that they may be somewhat taking advantage of my willingness to step up and do two employees worth of work for one employees salary--I still feel weird about how this plays out.Leaving so soon after my former manager did would leave the team severely hobbled and probably leave my teammate with an insurmountable amount of work on his plate while they scramble to fill one or both positions. It will also likely anger my current supervisor, who I have an increasingly strong relationship with, because he is trusting my former manager not to poach anyone from the team, and because he is trusting me to be the backbone for the team right now. Lastly, it is going to significantly increase the likelihood that my teammate will also start looking for employment elsewhere, which would mean a total turnover and very little remaining knowledge of how the team has been run and what our processes are like.In the end, if my former manager can back up his claims with the kind of offer hes suggesting, I feel like Id be stupid to pass up the opportunity to join someone I know and like working for while getting a significant boost to my title and--seemingly--a huge raise to match. Im starting to prepare myself for that possibility, knowing that I can always stay and be happy and underpaid if the offer isnt that great.The questions I have are: Is it gauche to leave so soon after a promotion and raise? Especially when the raise was significant but nevertheless not to my hopes and expectations? For managers that have been through similar situations: is this common or expected? Am I overthinking it? Am I underthinking it? Are there pitfalls I should be on the lookout for so I do not burn any bridges? How should I handle the conversation with my manager? Am I right to assume it would be a waste of almost everybodys time for me to try and negotiate between employers on salary? Since I was just given a relatively huge raise, it seems gross to bring a job offer in and say sorry but unless you can match this, I have to take it. Especially if the next step after that is potentially taking the counter-offer back to my former manager to see if he can beat it. That seems like a way to possibly burn a bunch of bridges all at once.The past few promotions and raises have allowed me to finally pay down my credit card debt, and Im eagerly eyeing my remaining 45K of student loan debt, as once I pay that off, I will suddenly have so much more income that can be dedicated to saving, investing, or enjoying life travel, gifts, etc. PF has helped me so much already--I appreciate any advice you can offer here!  <response>: Youre overthinking and prematurely thinking. You have yourself all tied up in knots over something that might happen, but it might not either. When I was a manager I never tried to get people to stay once theyd gotten another job offer. In the few cases, Ive seen when an employee was given a raise to stay they always wound up leaving within 6 months to a year anyway. Its great that you care about what happens to your team and teammates after you leave, but thats not really your responsibility. If youve been underpaid for years than you have to ask yourself do they really value me that much?. Slow down, wait until you see the offer if it comes and then make an intelligent decision. 