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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 promot

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
It sounds like you were screwed by someone else and are bringing that bile over that situation to to this. Clearly the author believes it was a somewhat raw deal in terms of the money, read the summation at the end of the article, however he shows that you can get something you want that is not directly monetary, and that long term value can come out of it. Also he clearly says that he had the chops to find another job, but what she did was make the non-monetary compensation attractive enough that it fit. If it did not, he would not have taken the deal. Also to address the "keeping you poor" comment, he states more than once that she showed him all the budgeting, and he agreed with her conclusion that there wasnt any more money. Where should the money come from?
richeyrw 14y ago
Are you saying that she could have fired some other people and given this guy their money? Because he was working so hard that he could replace them? If not where does she get the money? You can talk about what you deserve to get paid all day long, but if the money isn't there, you have to take whatever money is there, or quit. And you keep talking about the company. It was a non-profit radio station in a tiny market, what was the next step?
- pavel_lishin 14y ago
  It didn't sound like was a budget problem - it sounded like the issue was that more senior people would be butthurt that someone who hadn't been there as long as making more money.
  - nicholassmith 14y ago
    Well, in the article it does state she ended up showing him the financials and they genuinely couldn't afford anything over that extra $2k.
    - pavel_lishin 14y ago
      Ah, you're right, I skimmed too quickly.
dwiel 14y ago
To some people money is the ultimate proxy for happiness, for some it is not, and of course there is a spectrum. It sounds like money is a better proxy for happiness for you then it is for the author. I actually had a discussion with my employer the other day about how next time he considered a raise, I would actually prefer more vacation time, or a shorter work week. I enjoy the stability of a monthly paycheck, and I enjoy the work I do. However, given the choice of more free time and more money, I currently desire more free time. > 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. The opposite can also be said, "Guess what you do with extra money and no vacation days. Work all day saving money and be bitter about the fact that you don't have time to take a vacation and spend it."
- afterburner 14y ago
  She could barely pay for gas though... that's not enough money.
untog 14y ago
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. Good grief, no. I was in a similar situation- I got a day off each week, and worked from home for another. That day off was a fantastic benefit- I could get all of the dreary stuff I had to do on the weekend (grocery shopping, laundry) done in half the time I would otherwise, because everywhere was less busy. That, in turn, made my weekends much more productive and fun. You can do a lot without spending too much money, you know.
Tzunamitom 14y ago
1. I don't think you can be so simplistic in branding her decision as "politics", I'd say it was more "prudence". Quite possibly he was just one of a number of underpaid workers that truly deserved a raise. Giving him an obscene raise would have had a high likelihood of severely negatively impacting the morale of the other workers. 2. "Keeping you poor". That really depends on how you measure poverty - the author clearly feels like the lessons learned from his time at the company were far more valuable than an extra $3,000 a year would be, and given his writing, I'd be inclined to agree with him. Bottom line... Always work for experience over money.
blhack 14y ago
>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. I bet literally nobody on hacker news has a side project that they wish they had time for. Nope. Nuh uh. /s The stuff I'm pushing for at my company is being allowed to remote-work, and more time off. Not because I want to get away from anything, but because it will allow me to focus better on the projects I'm doing for them, and also have more time for the projects I'm doing for me.
- MatthewPhillips 14y ago
  We're talking about someone who couldn't afford a cell phone. Money becomes less important the more of it you have.
  - blhack 14y ago
    And somebody who wanted to spend all of their time surfing. What do you think they'd be doing on days off? Surfing maybe?
  - krschultz 14y ago
    I took a semester off to live with some ski bums in Colorado. Them: "Why do you work so hard?" Me: "So I can get rich" (young and stupid response) Them: "Well, what are you going to do when you are rich?" Me: "Ski all the time" Them: "Dude, you don't have to be rich to ski all the time. We freaking clean toilets, but I ski 100+ days a year". That conversation changed my life. I realized that getting rich was a stupid goal, because everything I wanted to get by being rich I could get without being rich. There are broke people traveling the world, skiing everyday, surfing everyday, etc. I also realized that although a random day skiing is undoubtedly more fun than a random day working, I would be unsatisfied by just doing that all the time. I think the ideal is a job you believe in with good work/life balance. 3 day weekends every weekend. Even working 40 hours a week with a short commute and quick access to a mountain or an ocean is great. Meanwhile, working 80 hours a week for really any amount of money isn't worth it.
    - 14y ago
MrMember 14y ago
>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. Not everybody treats a 'vacation' the same way. For someone with a family that could be extra time with the kids. For my dad it would mean extra time in the garden and doing yard work. For me it would probably mean sitting at home playing video games. People aren't obligated to spend money traveling somewhere on their vacation time.
chimpscanfly 14y ago
She didn't hold him back. She helped him draw nearer to his bigger goal of going to grad school by being creative. Sure, a bigger raise would have also achieved the same goal, but as the author pointed out, she empathized with her employee and found creative ways to show that she actually cared and wanted to make the situation best for both of them, not just her.
praptak 14y ago
> 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. What? This whole "no fun without money" attitude is maleficent bullshit. This dude had a surfboard and waves are free. Besides that, there's a ton of activities that are fun and free or almost free. Running, walking, swimming, biking. Even if you can't do physical activities (for a reason that isn't merely an excuse) there's still meditation, for which the only requirement is basically that you are alive. The only reason that stops anyone from having fun without money is the mindset.
- krschultz 14y ago
  I'd rather have a day off with my surfboard on a day with waves than $400 to spend on a Friday night. Easily.

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

It sounds like you were screwed by someone else and are bringing that bile over that situation to to this. Clearly the author believes it was a somewhat raw deal in terms of the money, read the summation at the end of the article, however he shows that you can get something you want that is not directly monetary, and that long term value can come out of it. Also he clearly says that he had the chops to find another job, but what she did was make the non-monetary compensation attractive enough that it fit. If it did not, he would not have taken the deal. Also to address the "keeping you poor" comment, he states more than once that she showed him all the budgeting, and he agreed with her conclusion that there wasnt any more money. Where should the money come from?

richeyrw 14y ago

Are you saying that she could have fired some other people and given this guy their money? Because he was working so hard that he could replace them? If not where does she get the money? You can talk about what you deserve to get paid all day long, but if the money isn't there, you have to take whatever money is there, or quit. And you keep talking about the company. It was a non-profit radio station in a tiny market, what was the next step?

pavel_lishin 14y ago
It didn't sound like was a budget problem - it sounded like the issue was that more senior people would be butthurt that someone who hadn't been there as long as making more money.
- nicholassmith 14y ago
  Well, in the article it does state she ended up showing him the financials and they genuinely couldn't afford anything over that extra $2k.
  - pavel_lishin 14y ago
    Ah, you're right, I skimmed too quickly.

dwiel 14y ago

To some people money is the ultimate proxy for happiness, for some it is not, and of course there is a spectrum. It sounds like money is a better proxy for happiness for you then it is for the author. I actually had a discussion with my employer the other day about how next time he considered a raise, I would actually prefer more vacation time, or a shorter work week. I enjoy the stability of a monthly paycheck, and I enjoy the work I do. However, given the choice of more free time and more money, I currently desire more free time. > 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. The opposite can also be said, "Guess what you do with extra money and no vacation days. Work all day saving money and be bitter about the fact that you don't have time to take a vacation and spend it."

afterburner 14y ago
She could barely pay for gas though... that's not enough money.

untog 14y ago

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. Good grief, no. I was in a similar situation- I got a day off each week, and worked from home for another. That day off was a fantastic benefit- I could get all of the dreary stuff I had to do on the weekend (grocery shopping, laundry) done in half the time I would otherwise, because everywhere was less busy. That, in turn, made my weekends much more productive and fun. You can do a lot without spending too much money, you know.

Tzunamitom 14y ago

1. I don't think you can be so simplistic in branding her decision as "politics", I'd say it was more "prudence". Quite possibly he was just one of a number of underpaid workers that truly deserved a raise. Giving him an obscene raise would have had a high likelihood of severely negatively impacting the morale of the other workers. 2. "Keeping you poor". That really depends on how you measure poverty - the author clearly feels like the lessons learned from his time at the company were far more valuable than an extra $3,000 a year would be, and given his writing, I'd be inclined to agree with him. Bottom line... Always work for experience over money.

blhack 14y ago

>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. I bet literally nobody on hacker news has a side project that they wish they had time for. Nope. Nuh uh. /s The stuff I'm pushing for at my company is being allowed to remote-work, and more time off. Not because I want to get away from anything, but because it will allow me to focus better on the projects I'm doing for them, and also have more time for the projects I'm doing for me.

MatthewPhillips 14y ago
We're talking about someone who couldn't afford a cell phone. Money becomes less important the more of it you have.
- blhack 14y ago
  And somebody who wanted to spend all of their time surfing. What do you think they'd be doing on days off? Surfing maybe?
- krschultz 14y ago
  I took a semester off to live with some ski bums in Colorado. Them: "Why do you work so hard?" Me: "So I can get rich" (young and stupid response) Them: "Well, what are you going to do when you are rich?" Me: "Ski all the time" Them: "Dude, you don't have to be rich to ski all the time. We freaking clean toilets, but I ski 100+ days a year". That conversation changed my life. I realized that getting rich was a stupid goal, because everything I wanted to get by being rich I could get without being rich. There are broke people traveling the world, skiing everyday, surfing everyday, etc. I also realized that although a random day skiing is undoubtedly more fun than a random day working, I would be unsatisfied by just doing that all the time. I think the ideal is a job you believe in with good work/life balance. 3 day weekends every weekend. Even working 40 hours a week with a short commute and quick access to a mountain or an ocean is great. Meanwhile, working 80 hours a week for really any amount of money isn't worth it.
  - 14y ago

MrMember 14y ago

>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. Not everybody treats a 'vacation' the same way. For someone with a family that could be extra time with the kids. For my dad it would mean extra time in the garden and doing yard work. For me it would probably mean sitting at home playing video games. People aren't obligated to spend money traveling somewhere on their vacation time.

chimpscanfly 14y ago

She didn't hold him back. She helped him draw nearer to his bigger goal of going to grad school by being creative. Sure, a bigger raise would have also achieved the same goal, but as the author pointed out, she empathized with her employee and found creative ways to show that she actually cared and wanted to make the situation best for both of them, not just her.

praptak 14y ago

> 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. What? This whole "no fun without money" attitude is maleficent bullshit. This dude had a surfboard and waves are free. Besides that, there's a ton of activities that are fun and free or almost free. Running, walking, swimming, biking. Even if you can't do physical activities (for a reason that isn't merely an excuse) there's still meditation, for which the only requirement is basically that you are alive. The only reason that stops anyone from having fun without money is the mindset.

krschultz 14y ago
I'd rather have a day off with my surfboard on a day with waves than $400 to spend on a Friday night. Easily.