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

articulateventures.com

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

#41

Post by qxf2 »

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.

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

#42

Post by aaronblohowiak »

e40 wrote: post #39
aplusbi wrote: post #24

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…

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 thes…

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.

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

#43

Post by adeaver »

hammock wrote: post #27
engtech wrote: post #15

"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…

What if "that low priority problem that bugs the shit out of you" is your crappy job?

Then there are bigger issues at hand and no amount of money or 'alternative' raises will make a difference.

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

#45

Post by ssebro »

Articulate wrote: post #34
cocoflunchy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Yea I don't make much money as an editor. see: http://www.articulateventures.com/thoughts-on-being-an-emplo...

Please, please fix "I am a good writer, the content that I create is quiet good (I think)". That's the first line of your paragraph about gramatical oversights, and you say "quiet" instead of "quite". Also, the "(i think)" makes me feel like you're not a professional.

ALSO, I'm sure you can hire someone on craigslist to give your work a second read for gramatical mistakes, if that's really a blind spot you care about.

But I worry, are you even trying to get better? It sounds like you've accepted your current skill level as a fixed balance that can't improve, when that's probably not the case.

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

#46

Post by triplesec »

Yhippa wrote: post #36

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 oth…

I believe this is the basis of the Prisoner's Dilemma

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

#48

Post by crusso »

grecy wrote: post #38

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.

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.

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

#49

Post by krschultz »

praptak wrote: post #28
MatthewPhillips wrote: post #2

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…

> 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 (…

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

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

#50

Post by krschultz »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #23
blhack wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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, bu…

We're talking about someone who couldn't afford a cell phone. Money becomes less important the more of it you have.

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.

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