Several years ago I was presented with an offer that was more money - about $10k per year, came with a house, had allegedly much greater autonomy, and held serve with the benefit package I had at the time. I was happy and truly respected where I was, had pretty good autonomy, and respected my employers. As it turned out, the move was a total nightmare. What I thought was greater autonomy was a lie. It ended up being endless reports and sometimes two hour phone meetings. Because the little dipshit owner was out of the area, he was very paranoid of what he couldn't witness every day. His version of autonomy was whack. Then I found out that no one in his office knew about the contract we had signed and they were not getting anywhere near the benefit package he promised me so that created a huge firestorm that had him trying to feed me shit off the books so his staff wouldn't know. (run on sentence anyone?)
The good of all of it was that I was able to finish the remodel on the house I owned (not living in it helped tremendously), move my kids to a better school district, and then have him fly in for a meeting so I could personally tell him to go fuck himself - essentially forcing him to fire my ass. I used the time on unemployment to research restaurant locations, standardize recipes, and do market analysis before opening a restaurant. I don't make as much money as I did working for that bastard but I have never regretted the new me and my family totally agrees.
Bottom line is that I would see if you can find the track record of how others have faired when taking the position you are contemplating and then also trust your instincts on what you think about the person you will be working directly under. If I would have done those things, I at minimum would have been ready for what was to come my way and I probably would have been less of an ass to those around me.
