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My first job out of college was at a telco making $72k / year. I worked my tail off. Worked late. Never missed deadlines. Signed on after hours. Learned a lot.
by brightball 3y ago
My first job out of college was at a telco making $72k / year.
I worked my tail off. Worked late. Never missed deadlines. Signed on after hours. Learned a lot. Followed process. Took lots of pride in my work.
And I got a lot better at what I do.
When 2 members of my 3 person team departed and all of the work fell to me, I asked for a raise to $90k. Seemed reasonable to me taking on the work of 3 people given my track record.
I was told that wasn’t possible. So I interviewed elsewhere with my updated resume and turned in my notice. Within a day of turning in my notice I got a counter offer.
Apparently, one of the corporate policies at this telco was to only offer significant raises for retention purposes if the employee had another offer. Which was nuts but apparently the only way to find out if you were valued was to interview elsewhere.
At that point, I was so annoyed that I decided to leave anyway…to another job where I worked long hours and was on call. But I learned a lot.
The hard work paid off and I haven’t actually had to interview for a job in about 15 years.
This is what I think about when I hear people talk about not putting in the extra time. If I’d done that, done only the job exactly according to minimum expectations I would have collected a paycheck…and probably been stuck in the same place.
- itsoktocry 3y ago>Apparently, one of the corporate policies at this telco was to only offer significant raises for retention purposes if the employee had another offer. Yes, and I'm not sure if I feel completely negative about it. On the one hand, just pay up if the value is there, don't play games, right? On the other, the employer is "calling your bluff" about it being, more or less, about money alone. In the end, the policy works, I think.
- brightball 3y agoYep. The older I get, the more I understand it too.
- zmgsabst 3y agoI consider it a red flag when employers take antagonistic positions, such as “calling my bluff”. That shows a clear level of disrespect and willingness to play games with my life — and is the sort of outcome one should expect if you allow departments like HR to engage in dark triad behaviors inside the company. HR treating employees like cattle to exploit is a Day 2 failure mode.
- lazide 3y agoSure. It’s also really common.
- zmgsabst 3y agoSure — and literally flies your planes into the ground. Ask Boeing.
- lazide 3y agoSure - and do you think that means it doesn’t exist after that, or will cease existing at any point in the future regardless of how much we want it to?
- zmgsabst 3y agoSure — we see that behavior routinely destroy companies who engage in it, while the opposite causes corporate growth. This creates a constant flux of new companies engaging in healthy partnership with their employees and old companies cycling back to rekindle growth — and which removes the ones who engage in that problematic behavior, persistently. So that behavior always brings about its own cessation. See my point about “Day 2”. Engaging in Day 2 policy is a choice; working with Day 2 companies is a choice. There’s nothing at all which requires this phenomenon, other than people make lame excuses as if dark triad behavior is some unavoidable law of physics.
- lazide 3y agoSure - except plenty of companies and gov’ts are steady state this way and don’t end up destroyed by it. At least any faster than any other companies/gov’ts seem to be. You’re ’just world’ hypothesis’ing all over the place here. I’m not saying it’s good behavior. It’s far more widespread than you’re giving it credit for, and it has far less connection to bad results than you are giving it credit for. Often, the ‘good’ companies just paper over it better, but it’s still the same policy - but fewer folks end up seeing it so directly.
- pierat 3y agoAnd this is why pay transparency is a legal right, as part of discussing working conditions with colleagues. Then again, I think the next step to move towards is to recognize that we techies are going towards "factory code-work", and to respond with unionization appropriately. And unions arent just for getting more money, but also demand for payment of overtime, sane vacation policies, remote work, and more. And yes, I'm an 8-n-skate. Want me longer? Fuckyoupayme. I dont work for free.
- garciasn 3y agoNever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Accept a counter. Never. Why? If they didn't recognize your value before and they only recognize it when you threaten to depart, they aren't respecting you any more w/the counter; they're just using that to stave off the impending issues that arise and will likely take any future opportunity to recoup that 'loss'. I actively advocate, in advance, for my team. They have clear expectations on what the next step in their career w/us is and have a general idea of what to expect salary wise when they reach it. If they're looking, it means that I have failed them in my #1 core competency and priority as a leader to ensure they are getting what they need out of their day to day and I would prefer they openly communicate with me in advance of their feeling a need to look. If you are not getting this out of your current leadership, find a new job where your leader will be someone will be that advocate for you. Very often, people are a company's most valuable asset and they should work hard to retain that asset without rigamarole.
- pdimitar 3y agoI wish a had a manager like you, even just once in my life. sighs deeply Keep up the good fight. I hope your people appreciate you.
- garciasn 3y agoThey claim to like me and, being that several of them have worked with me at multiple companies over a 15 year span and at least one other has requested I take them with me in the future, I would probably say they appreciate my style. That said, to respond to another commenter, policy can certainly cause friction with this sort of methodology and I have definitely run into it in the past. But, leaders exist to navigate company politics so their direct reports have more time to deal with the work they do; any friction encountered that is insurmountable points to deeper organizational issues and can (and in my case does) necessitate my moving somewhere that allows me the autonomy to build strong teams and develop high performing teams.
- startupsfail 3y agoIt doesn’t harm to negotiate. Yes, there was clearly a failure, but it could have been a middle management or HR level fail. Or a poor policy.