11 ms·

Salary Negotiations: What is Possible When There's no More Money

256 points by arrogantrobot 14y ago

qxf2 14y ago
One point the author, perhaps prevented by modesty, does not make is that he/she too is a good negotiator. He/She wanted to make it work - actually recognized the efforts of their boss as genuine and feels grateful for what they learnt from the experience. I have seen too many engineers go into negotiations with the attitude that there is only one right deal - the one they have crafted and proposed on their own. Yes, management does offer a lot of bull, but its important to re-evaluate every new offer that is different from your own starting position.
MatthewPhillips 14y ago
I find this article slightly odd. It sounds to me like the author got a raw deal. I've been in this situation before early my career. The old "we want to promote you but can't give you much more money, here's a bunch of vacation days instead". Guess what you do with vacation days when you have no money. Sit at home and be bitter about the fact that you can't afford to go any where. And you look for another job. > She told me that she wanted to pay me more, but the $2,000 increase, I was already getting paid almost as much as people who had been on staff for many more years than me. That's an awful reason not to give someone a raise! Politics like this is why so many companies lose good employees. If the author was worth more than the more senior staff, she should have gotten paid more. People talk and there's no real way to keep salaries secret, but who is easier to replace in this situation? > She more than gave me a fair deal. I stayed with the organization until I was accepted into graduate school. I did not financially benefit from that job in the short term, but in the long term- she put my career in a catapult and shot it forward. Sounds to me more like she held you back. What could you and the company had achieved had you been properly rewarded? Had to been giving the motivation to take the next step within the company? Keeping you poor sends a clear message that you should focus your efforts elsewhere.
- campnic 14y ago
  Its not wrong for you to approach everything so skeptically, but I think you have to see it from the authors perspective: 1. He clearly has an altruistic bent (he'd just returned from the Peace Corp. in Kenya) 2. He liked his position for its flexibility and variety as noted throughout the article. I think the point of the article is that many people approach salary negotiations as an optimization of just salary. But his real desire was to be happy and money was only one component of that. The boss found ways to make him happy without meeting his salary demands. The story isn't a story of a 'clear win' for him, its an analysis of how to approach negotiations. Salary negotiations aren't always about maximizing your salary, you can make them more flexible by maximizing for your happiness. It presents more flexibility to both participants.
  - prawks 14y ago
    I'd add that as with any "advice" articles, it's worth being mindful that one size does not fit all. They should be taken only as advice, no matter how assertively stated.
  - MatthewPhillips 14y ago
    I don't disagree with that. The author flipped a bad situation and found a way to get out. That's exactly what you should do in that situation, rather than standing your ground to make a point. Perhaps where I disagree with you (and others who have responded to me) is in how important it is to keep good employees. If the author really is worth more than the more senior staff, the company has failed itself tremendously by losing him. If he is worth more than the others today, what will he be worth in the future (what is his growth potential). Putting up roadblocks for growth in your employees has to be one of the worst things HR can do.
    - Evbn 14y ago
      You may be reading a lot of a extra meaning into a generic negotiating tactic / ego stroke comment from a boss.
- hobs 14y ago
jtbigwoo 14y ago
I think many successful people and organizations take a similar approach all around. Is your baseball team underfunded compared to others? Use the lowered expectations to test theories and find market innefficiencies. Are customers are worried that our company is too small? We'll give you the email address of the CEO if you have a problem. Don't have any money for raises? Offer employees special deals that no larger employer would even consider (like the wave height deal in the story). Take the weakest part of you and beat the bastards with it.
- mooreds 14y ago
  It's more than just finding your weak points, it's about creative solution finding that resonates with both parties. If Brenda had offered the author unlimited mountain biking time, the author might have left the station.
engtech 14y ago
"Weakness is strength. Strength is weakness." Being a small flexible company means they can't compete on money, but they can compete on flexibility and increasing quality of life. I think that's all any employee wants from a job -- a good quality of life. Money is probably the worst way of quantifying if they employee is already middle class. It's amazing even how "here's a week to fix that low priority problem that bugs the shit out of you" would go to improve morale.
- johndavidback 14y ago
  It's also amazing how working for a large company starts to become less fulfilling when they can afford to pay you instead of really rewarding you in a way that is meaningful. Sometimes money really can't buy happiness.
- hammock 14y ago
  What if "that low priority problem that bugs the shit out of you" is your crappy job?
  - adeaver 14y ago
    Then there are bigger issues at hand and no amount of money or 'alternative' raises will make a difference.
spartango 14y ago
I found this article awesome, but not only for showcasing the creative tools a leader can might under tight resource constraints: Beyond her creativity, Belinda shows great empathy for the author, and at the same time draws on the author's own empathy. This is both powerful and gratifying; at the end of the negotiation, each side feels that the other has his best interest in mind and truly cares about them. This arrangement is not a one-time compromise or an appeasement deal, and it certainly doesn't feel that way. It's a relationship that continues to grow.
praptak 14y ago
This is in line with what one of my previous bosses taught me about negotiations: negotiation is about truly understanding the interests of the other side. In this case even those they are not aware of. He also used to put crap clauses into contract drafts (if he knew they'd be passed through lawyers), so that the lawyers can demonstrate being useful without messing with the actual matter of the contract. A true example of serving the true interest of the other side :)
- Karunamon 14y ago
  >..so that the lawyers can demonstrate being useful without messing with the actual matter of the contract There's actually a programming version of this referenced on an old StackOverflow question - a "Duck", i.e. a feature submitted so management will take issue with it and not something else more important. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/07/new-programming-jargon.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/07/new-programming-jar... - see entry #5
  - wpietri 14y ago
    Interestingly, map-makers put in fake geographical features, known as "bunnies", so that they can catch people copying them: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Mapmakers-sleight-of-hand-Cartographers-put-2889584.php http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Mapmakers-sleight-of-hand...
- vacri 14y ago
  Classic example working in a service department for a medical equipment maker. We had a service contract with the relevant department in Hospital Foo, but the admin rolled slow there. The department had the funds and wanted to pay us. We wanted to be paid. We trusted the department on their word - so we kept supplying the contract despite not being paid. At the point 10 months overdue in the annual contract, the word came down that the payment was coming, just the new lawyer was looking over it. The new lawyer was very much a Make Your Mark person, and despite us, the dept, and admin all saying "we're happy, please pay", she had to add a clause saying: "At any point during the contract, we can cancel and get reimbursed the full price of the contract". That is, they could cancel at 11 months 29 days of receiving support (this is actual send-field-techs-out support, not 'here's our pdfs and phone number') and get the entire year back. Of course it was bargaining nonsense, and we negotiated to a prorata clause, but it caused a fuckton of busywork for all involved, useful to zero people except the Make Your Mark lawyer. So much wasted time and money everywhere just for her to feel validated.
aplusbi 14y ago
When I was negotiating my salary with my previous employer the only thing I asked for was more vacation time. They refused and instead offered me an extra $3000 so I could take unpaid time off. They ended up working me to the bone for 6 months then laid me off once the product shipped. Little things like this can really give you insight into how a company works. If a company is only willing to negotiate on money then maybe money is the only thing they are interested in.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- e40 14y ago
  I'll play devil's advocate here: making special deals on benefits other than salary is a land mine. Everyone is used to the fact that people are paid differently, but people are used to uniform benefits (all you out there: please don't call out your exception to the rule... it really is generally a rule). It's likely to have a negative effect or morale, whereas giving you more salary won't. (Yes, people find out these things.)
  - aaronblohowiak 14y ago
    This is the main reason I am a contractor -- I take a LOT of time off. For my clients, it is normal for contractors to have gaps in availability. For my on-site colleagues, they know that the vacation is unpaid.
    - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
      Increasingly it feels that contracting is the most straight forward way to work for an organisation. They pay X, they get Y. No messing about with broken promises and vague commitments.
      - psweber 14y ago
        I've also been able to comfortably do contracts for companies that have worked friends (who are full time employees) to the bone. If they want a 60 hour week from me, they have to pay me 50% more.
kriro 14y ago
"Bargaining for Advantage" is my goto book. It's really solid and highly recommended for anyone that does any negotiation of any sort. It has a test to see what bargaining type you are and doesn't just focus on the "get the max tricks" like a couple of other books. Pretty ethical in general.
EwanToo 14y ago
Is it just me, or is it weird that this brand new blog (really just an advert for a writing company) has had 3 blog posts, all 3 have been submitted to HN (2 by the same person), and all 3 have gotten pretty high scores? The other 2 stories being: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5304317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5304317 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5292431 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5292431 They must be good writers!
- Articulate 14y ago
  EwanToo I am the writer- those two guys just showed me the site. I used to blog on my company website (for like a month) but I quit because it never went anywhere- but when it gets posted here people talk about it- comment etc. made me want to write more.
  - EwanToo 14y ago
    I'm glad to hear you're a real person then :)
- cocoflunchy 14y ago
  Hate to do the grammar nazi here, but since the company seems to offer grammar editing, reading phrases like This new method helped us to raise a more money in less time then normal boring pledge drives. doesn't lead to much trust in their skills...
  - Articulate 14y ago
    Yea I don't make much money as an editor. see: http://www.articulateventures.com/thoughts-on-being-an-employer/fear-and-loathing-of-grammar-and-punctuation-rules/ http://www.articulateventures.com/thoughts-on-being-an-emplo...
    - cocoflunchy 14y ago
      That's an interesting article, thanks. And I'd like to say that I did enjoy your first article too, and that I was willing to overlook the tiny details... until I came here and saw that writing (and more than writing - grammar editing) was your core competency. But I'm curious then: do you currently do the grammar editing yourself (in your "Fixer" package)?
alexhjones 14y ago
This made me sad :-( I was dissapointed with my recent pay rise (+3%, 18months after the last rise). Maybe I didn't negotiate well but I was open and honest. I don't care if I'm paid more than my peers, or that there's no more money in the pot, it's still a shitty deal with no sweeteners. I guess that is what you get for being someone else's employee.
- newman314 14y ago
  I don't know where you are but it helps to document your accomplishments ahead of time and socialize that. I'm not talking about being an obnoxious self-promoter but making sure people acknowledge your (actual) contributions. I find that many wait for their managers to automatically do the right thing and then get disappointed. I've always advocated being more proactive about this. Let's say I want a raise and a promotion this year. I outline it in my goals, and as the year progresses have meetings with my manager to make sure I'm doing everything possible to reach that goal as well as documenting things along the way. When it comes time for review, one of two things will happen: either you have communicated clearly what you want and you get most of it, or you get screwed either by your manager or his/her manager. If that's the case, you then need to decide if something went wrong, or if it was not in good faith. If so, it's time to leave. Also, protip: find out when budgets are being set, that's the time to push/remind for more money/whatever. Usually by the time reviews come around, things are pretty much set in stone. Don't be sad. Keep kicking ass and follow what I've written. I'm willing to say that you will likely have a more positive experience next go-around. PS. This only works if you do actually work hard and get shit done. If you like goofing off and just want more $$, it will NOT work.
Yhippa 14y ago
This story made me happy. I took a negotiation class a few years ago running through some examples where each side had to negotiate X and got crib sheets talking about what were the different aspects of the negotiation and how much each aspect meant to each person. We did the exercises and learned lessons but one thing I noticed was that if we threw out conventional negotiation tactics and instead just showed the other person what our value assignment to each aspect was we both ended up maximizing our utility from the negotiation event. So you would think that it would be great to just be an open book when entering a negotiation right? The problem is that as soon as one person hides any information then the trust factor that makes this work is broken. And for whatever reason (pride or lack of authority) this happens all the time in real life. That's why I liked this story. Apparently both parties came to the table open and honest about what they wanted and the outcome I thought was favorable to both parties.
- triplesec 14y ago
  I believe this is the basis of the Prisoner's Dilemma
grecy 14y ago
Great article. It bothers me that people think like this: > I was already getting paid almost as much as people who had been on staff for many more years than me. Salary should be based on performance and expertise, not how many years you've been sitting in a seat.
- crusso 14y ago
  Are you're saying that companies shouldn't give yearly raises except for inflationary increases? Wouldn't that be an implication of not considering time with the company? Rewarding loyalty to the business is not a meaningless gesture, nor should it be an affront to new people. The difficult thing from the employer's perspective is balancing the reward for many different aspects of each employee that makes that employee important to the company: leadership, loyalty, consistency, trustworthiness, performance, expertise, efficiency, etc.
  - SatvikBeri 14y ago
    Companies shouldn't reward loyalty, especially when that means punishing performance. Loyalty is only meaningful in the sense that your company-specific knowledge makes you more valuable to the company. All other things being equal, a 25-year-old who just joined the company and automated 5 people's worth of work is worth several multiples of the 35-year-old analyst who'd been at the company for 10 years and was doing one of the (now automated) jobs. Yet most companies will pay the 25-year-old significantly less. This is just plain dumb and irrational, and encourages top performers to go elsewhere.
    - snowwrestler 14y ago
      Companies should reward loyalty because it is expensive to hire and train new employees. It's possible to do both, using two tools: promotions and performance bonuses. If the 25-year-old is more of a rock star than the 35-year-old, promote the 25-year-old. Or, give them a nice fat performance bonus for that particular project. But what is going to keep the 25 year old there for 10 more years? You can only promote someone so much. This is why companies provide merit raises within positions, and how a 35-year-old ends up making more than a 25-year-old for the same job.
rocky1138 14y ago
This is a great post. A concern is that this only works when the base salary covers your needs. If it doesn't, you can't pay your rent with surf time.
newman314 14y ago
My go to books for negotiating: * Getting Past No * Getting To Yes
ttyrq 14y ago
A better job elsewhere :)
jschuur 14y ago
Don't negotiate salaries. Negotiate responsibilities. The salary comes after that.
zem 14y ago
this woman is my new hero. i only hope that i am in a position to do that for someone some day.
droithomme 14y ago
Article assumes a situation where company can not pay market rate because there is "no money". No money means either they are not profitable and not funded enough to succeed, or they are lying to the candidate. Whichever one it is doesn't matter because in either scenario accepting position is a poor move for a talented and capable candidate in an environment when there are many positions available for competent people. These insights terrifically simplify negotiations in this scenario to: "No thanks."
- wpietri 14y ago
  That's true only if you value money and nothing else. I know plenty of people who work at below-market wages for nonprofits because they support the mission. This fellow had some of that, but he also valued surfing time more than extra cash. People also value recognition, good colleagues, solid benefits, low stress, and a bunch of other things. Just because people value different things than you doesn't make them wrong. De gustibus non est disputandum.
  - droithomme 14y ago
    Those claims are fallacious. It has nothing to do with the supposed greed that you absurdly assign to the engineer. It has to do with critical evaluation of the company's financial condition. A company that can not pay market rate because they don't have enough money can't afford to be in business and will not continue to do so for much longer. There are lots of jobs out there, just like there are plenty of potential romantic partners. Sure, someone could date a homeless crack addict. Perhaps those who don't do so are shallow according to the same sort of argument being used here.
    - wpietri 14y ago
      Well, let's test your theory. The article describes a real place that was being run on a shoestring. Looking at resumes, this was 2006-2008, so it's circa 5 years later. Are they out of business? http://www.kzyx.org/ http://www.kzyx.org/ Looks like they are still going. Just like every shoestring nonprofit I know. And the reason is exactly that people get paid in things other than money. They could also have run the radio station with market-rate salaries. They would have had a drastically smaller staff. But because they wisely recognized that money isn't the only thing that matters, they looked for people who could take substantially lower salaries but valued other things they could offer.

256 points by arrogantrobot 14y ago

qxf2 14y ago

One point the author, perhaps prevented by modesty, does not make is that he/she too is a good negotiator. He/She wanted to make it work - actually recognized the efforts of their boss as genuine and feels grateful for what they learnt from the experience. I have seen too many engineers go into negotiations with the attitude that there is only one right deal - the one they have crafted and proposed on their own. Yes, management does offer a lot of bull, but its important to re-evaluate every new offer that is different from your own starting position.

MatthewPhillips 14y ago

I find this article slightly odd. It sounds to me like the author got a raw deal. I've been in this situation before early my career. The old "we want to promote you but can't give you much more money, here's a bunch of vacation days instead". Guess what you do with vacation days when you have no money. Sit at home and be bitter about the fact that you can't afford to go any where. And you look for another job. > She told me that she wanted to pay me more, but the $2,000 increase, I was already getting paid almost as much as people who had been on staff for many more years than me. That's an awful reason not to give someone a raise! Politics like this is why so many companies lose good employees. If the author was worth more than the more senior staff, she should have gotten paid more. People talk and there's no real way to keep salaries secret, but who is easier to replace in this situation? > She more than gave me a fair deal. I stayed with the organization until I was accepted into graduate school. I did not financially benefit from that job in the short term, but in the long term- she put my career in a catapult and shot it forward. Sounds to me more like she held you back. What could you and the company had achieved had you been properly rewarded? Had to been giving the motivation to take the next step within the company? Keeping you poor sends a clear message that you should focus your efforts elsewhere.

campnic 14y ago
Its not wrong for you to approach everything so skeptically, but I think you have to see it from the authors perspective: 1. He clearly has an altruistic bent (he'd just returned from the Peace Corp. in Kenya) 2. He liked his position for its flexibility and variety as noted throughout the article. I think the point of the article is that many people approach salary negotiations as an optimization of just salary. But his real desire was to be happy and money was only one component of that. The boss found ways to make him happy without meeting his salary demands. The story isn't a story of a 'clear win' for him, its an analysis of how to approach negotiations. Salary negotiations aren't always about maximizing your salary, you can make them more flexible by maximizing for your happiness. It presents more flexibility to both participants.
- prawks 14y ago
  I'd add that as with any "advice" articles, it's worth being mindful that one size does not fit all. They should be taken only as advice, no matter how assertively stated.
- MatthewPhillips 14y ago
  I don't disagree with that. The author flipped a bad situation and found a way to get out. That's exactly what you should do in that situation, rather than standing your ground to make a point. Perhaps where I disagree with you (and others who have responded to me) is in how important it is to keep good employees. If the author really is worth more than the more senior staff, the company has failed itself tremendously by losing him. If he is worth more than the others today, what will he be worth in the future (what is his growth potential). Putting up roadblocks for growth in your employees has to be one of the worst things HR can do.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    You may be reading a lot of a extra meaning into a generic negotiating tactic / ego stroke comment from a boss.
hobs 14y ago

jtbigwoo 14y ago

I think many successful people and organizations take a similar approach all around. Is your baseball team underfunded compared to others? Use the lowered expectations to test theories and find market innefficiencies. Are customers are worried that our company is too small? We'll give you the email address of the CEO if you have a problem. Don't have any money for raises? Offer employees special deals that no larger employer would even consider (like the wave height deal in the story). Take the weakest part of you and beat the bastards with it.

mooreds 14y ago
It's more than just finding your weak points, it's about creative solution finding that resonates with both parties. If Brenda had offered the author unlimited mountain biking time, the author might have left the station.

engtech 14y ago

"Weakness is strength. Strength is weakness." Being a small flexible company means they can't compete on money, but they can compete on flexibility and increasing quality of life. I think that's all any employee wants from a job -- a good quality of life. Money is probably the worst way of quantifying if they employee is already middle class. It's amazing even how "here's a week to fix that low priority problem that bugs the shit out of you" would go to improve morale.

johndavidback 14y ago
It's also amazing how working for a large company starts to become less fulfilling when they can afford to pay you instead of really rewarding you in a way that is meaningful. Sometimes money really can't buy happiness.
hammock 14y ago
What if "that low priority problem that bugs the shit out of you" is your crappy job?
- adeaver 14y ago
  Then there are bigger issues at hand and no amount of money or 'alternative' raises will make a difference.

spartango 14y ago

I found this article awesome, but not only for showcasing the creative tools a leader can might under tight resource constraints: Beyond her creativity, Belinda shows great empathy for the author, and at the same time draws on the author's own empathy. This is both powerful and gratifying; at the end of the negotiation, each side feels that the other has his best interest in mind and truly cares about them. This arrangement is not a one-time compromise or an appeasement deal, and it certainly doesn't feel that way. It's a relationship that continues to grow.

praptak 14y ago

This is in line with what one of my previous bosses taught me about negotiations: negotiation is about truly understanding the interests of the other side. In this case even those they are not aware of. He also used to put crap clauses into contract drafts (if he knew they'd be passed through lawyers), so that the lawyers can demonstrate being useful without messing with the actual matter of the contract. A true example of serving the true interest of the other side :)

Karunamon 14y ago
>..so that the lawyers can demonstrate being useful without messing with the actual matter of the contract There's actually a programming version of this referenced on an old StackOverflow question - a "Duck", i.e. a feature submitted so management will take issue with it and not something else more important. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/07/new-programming-jargon.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/07/new-programming-jar... - see entry #5
- wpietri 14y ago
  Interestingly, map-makers put in fake geographical features, known as "bunnies", so that they can catch people copying them: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Mapmakers-sleight-of-hand-Cartographers-put-2889584.php http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Mapmakers-sleight-of-hand...
vacri 14y ago
Classic example working in a service department for a medical equipment maker. We had a service contract with the relevant department in Hospital Foo, but the admin rolled slow there. The department had the funds and wanted to pay us. We wanted to be paid. We trusted the department on their word - so we kept supplying the contract despite not being paid. At the point 10 months overdue in the annual contract, the word came down that the payment was coming, just the new lawyer was looking over it. The new lawyer was very much a Make Your Mark person, and despite us, the dept, and admin all saying "we're happy, please pay", she had to add a clause saying: "At any point during the contract, we can cancel and get reimbursed the full price of the contract". That is, they could cancel at 11 months 29 days of receiving support (this is actual send-field-techs-out support, not 'here's our pdfs and phone number') and get the entire year back. Of course it was bargaining nonsense, and we negotiated to a prorata clause, but it caused a fuckton of busywork for all involved, useful to zero people except the Make Your Mark lawyer. So much wasted time and money everywhere just for her to feel validated.

aplusbi 14y ago

When I was negotiating my salary with my previous employer the only thing I asked for was more vacation time. They refused and instead offered me an extra $3000 so I could take unpaid time off. They ended up working me to the bone for 6 months then laid me off once the product shipped. Little things like this can really give you insight into how a company works. If a company is only willing to negotiate on money then maybe money is the only thing they are interested in.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
e40 14y ago
I'll play devil's advocate here: making special deals on benefits other than salary is a land mine. Everyone is used to the fact that people are paid differently, but people are used to uniform benefits (all you out there: please don't call out your exception to the rule... it really is generally a rule). It's likely to have a negative effect or morale, whereas giving you more salary won't. (Yes, people find out these things.)
- aaronblohowiak 14y ago
  This is the main reason I am a contractor -- I take a LOT of time off. For my clients, it is normal for contractors to have gaps in availability. For my on-site colleagues, they know that the vacation is unpaid.
  - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
    Increasingly it feels that contracting is the most straight forward way to work for an organisation. They pay X, they get Y. No messing about with broken promises and vague commitments.
    - psweber 14y ago
      I've also been able to comfortably do contracts for companies that have worked friends (who are full time employees) to the bone. If they want a 60 hour week from me, they have to pay me 50% more.

kriro 14y ago

"Bargaining for Advantage" is my goto book. It's really solid and highly recommended for anyone that does any negotiation of any sort. It has a test to see what bargaining type you are and doesn't just focus on the "get the max tricks" like a couple of other books. Pretty ethical in general.

EwanToo 14y ago

Is it just me, or is it weird that this brand new blog (really just an advert for a writing company) has had 3 blog posts, all 3 have been submitted to HN (2 by the same person), and all 3 have gotten pretty high scores? The other 2 stories being: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5304317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5304317 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5292431 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5292431 They must be good writers!

Articulate 14y ago
EwanToo I am the writer- those two guys just showed me the site. I used to blog on my company website (for like a month) but I quit because it never went anywhere- but when it gets posted here people talk about it- comment etc. made me want to write more.
- EwanToo 14y ago
  I'm glad to hear you're a real person then :)
cocoflunchy 14y ago
Hate to do the grammar nazi here, but since the company seems to offer grammar editing, reading phrases like This new method helped us to raise a more money in less time then normal boring pledge drives. doesn't lead to much trust in their skills...
- Articulate 14y ago
  Yea I don't make much money as an editor. see: http://www.articulateventures.com/thoughts-on-being-an-employer/fear-and-loathing-of-grammar-and-punctuation-rules/ http://www.articulateventures.com/thoughts-on-being-an-emplo...
  - cocoflunchy 14y ago
    That's an interesting article, thanks. And I'd like to say that I did enjoy your first article too, and that I was willing to overlook the tiny details... until I came here and saw that writing (and more than writing - grammar editing) was your core competency. But I'm curious then: do you currently do the grammar editing yourself (in your "Fixer" package)?

alexhjones 14y ago

This made me sad :-( I was dissapointed with my recent pay rise (+3%, 18months after the last rise). Maybe I didn't negotiate well but I was open and honest. I don't care if I'm paid more than my peers, or that there's no more money in the pot, it's still a shitty deal with no sweeteners. I guess that is what you get for being someone else's employee.

newman314 14y ago
I don't know where you are but it helps to document your accomplishments ahead of time and socialize that. I'm not talking about being an obnoxious self-promoter but making sure people acknowledge your (actual) contributions. I find that many wait for their managers to automatically do the right thing and then get disappointed. I've always advocated being more proactive about this. Let's say I want a raise and a promotion this year. I outline it in my goals, and as the year progresses have meetings with my manager to make sure I'm doing everything possible to reach that goal as well as documenting things along the way. When it comes time for review, one of two things will happen: either you have communicated clearly what you want and you get most of it, or you get screwed either by your manager or his/her manager. If that's the case, you then need to decide if something went wrong, or if it was not in good faith. If so, it's time to leave. Also, protip: find out when budgets are being set, that's the time to push/remind for more money/whatever. Usually by the time reviews come around, things are pretty much set in stone. Don't be sad. Keep kicking ass and follow what I've written. I'm willing to say that you will likely have a more positive experience next go-around. PS. This only works if you do actually work hard and get shit done. If you like goofing off and just want more $$, it will NOT work.

Yhippa 14y ago

This story made me happy. I took a negotiation class a few years ago running through some examples where each side had to negotiate X and got crib sheets talking about what were the different aspects of the negotiation and how much each aspect meant to each person. We did the exercises and learned lessons but one thing I noticed was that if we threw out conventional negotiation tactics and instead just showed the other person what our value assignment to each aspect was we both ended up maximizing our utility from the negotiation event. So you would think that it would be great to just be an open book when entering a negotiation right? The problem is that as soon as one person hides any information then the trust factor that makes this work is broken. And for whatever reason (pride or lack of authority) this happens all the time in real life. That's why I liked this story. Apparently both parties came to the table open and honest about what they wanted and the outcome I thought was favorable to both parties.

triplesec 14y ago
I believe this is the basis of the Prisoner's Dilemma

grecy 14y ago

Great article. It bothers me that people think like this: > I was already getting paid almost as much as people who had been on staff for many more years than me. Salary should be based on performance and expertise, not how many years you've been sitting in a seat.

crusso 14y ago
Are you're saying that companies shouldn't give yearly raises except for inflationary increases? Wouldn't that be an implication of not considering time with the company? Rewarding loyalty to the business is not a meaningless gesture, nor should it be an affront to new people. The difficult thing from the employer's perspective is balancing the reward for many different aspects of each employee that makes that employee important to the company: leadership, loyalty, consistency, trustworthiness, performance, expertise, efficiency, etc.
- SatvikBeri 14y ago
  Companies shouldn't reward loyalty, especially when that means punishing performance. Loyalty is only meaningful in the sense that your company-specific knowledge makes you more valuable to the company. All other things being equal, a 25-year-old who just joined the company and automated 5 people's worth of work is worth several multiples of the 35-year-old analyst who'd been at the company for 10 years and was doing one of the (now automated) jobs. Yet most companies will pay the 25-year-old significantly less. This is just plain dumb and irrational, and encourages top performers to go elsewhere.
  - snowwrestler 14y ago
    Companies should reward loyalty because it is expensive to hire and train new employees. It's possible to do both, using two tools: promotions and performance bonuses. If the 25-year-old is more of a rock star than the 35-year-old, promote the 25-year-old. Or, give them a nice fat performance bonus for that particular project. But what is going to keep the 25 year old there for 10 more years? You can only promote someone so much. This is why companies provide merit raises within positions, and how a 35-year-old ends up making more than a 25-year-old for the same job.

rocky1138 14y ago

This is a great post. A concern is that this only works when the base salary covers your needs. If it doesn't, you can't pay your rent with surf time.

newman314 14y ago

My go to books for negotiating: * Getting Past No * Getting To Yes

ttyrq 14y ago

A better job elsewhere :)

jschuur 14y ago

Don't negotiate salaries. Negotiate responsibilities. The salary comes after that.

zem 14y ago

this woman is my new hero. i only hope that i am in a position to do that for someone some day.

droithomme 14y ago

Article assumes a situation where company can not pay market rate because there is "no money". No money means either they are not profitable and not funded enough to succeed, or they are lying to the candidate. Whichever one it is doesn't matter because in either scenario accepting position is a poor move for a talented and capable candidate in an environment when there are many positions available for competent people. These insights terrifically simplify negotiations in this scenario to: "No thanks."

wpietri 14y ago
That's true only if you value money and nothing else. I know plenty of people who work at below-market wages for nonprofits because they support the mission. This fellow had some of that, but he also valued surfing time more than extra cash. People also value recognition, good colleagues, solid benefits, low stress, and a bunch of other things. Just because people value different things than you doesn't make them wrong. De gustibus non est disputandum.
- droithomme 14y ago
  Those claims are fallacious. It has nothing to do with the supposed greed that you absurdly assign to the engineer. It has to do with critical evaluation of the company's financial condition. A company that can not pay market rate because they don't have enough money can't afford to be in business and will not continue to do so for much longer. There are lots of jobs out there, just like there are plenty of potential romantic partners. Sure, someone could date a homeless crack addict. Perhaps those who don't do so are shallow according to the same sort of argument being used here.
  - wpietri 14y ago
    Well, let's test your theory. The article describes a real place that was being run on a shoestring. Looking at resumes, this was 2006-2008, so it's circa 5 years later. Are they out of business? http://www.kzyx.org/ http://www.kzyx.org/ Looks like they are still going. Just like every shoestring nonprofit I know. And the reason is exactly that people get paid in things other than money. They could also have run the radio station with market-rate salaries. They would have had a drastically smaller staff. But because they wisely recognized that money isn't the only thing that matters, they looked for people who could take substantially lower salaries but valued other things they could offer.