Salary Negotiations: The House Always Wins

By the subject of this post you must be expecting that my salary negotiation turned out to be a disapointing discussion. And you would be right.

I went in there (or I called into it by phone) all armed with my best arguments: I want equality of pay, and I have the performance history to be on the higher end of my range. My boss reassured me from the start that he totally understood my situation, and I had approached it the right way. Now, he wanted to set the expectation that this kind of raise was simply not gonna happen. The best he could do is be my advocate and follow due process. The increase would happen in phases. First, I’d get a merit raise for my last job (a whole 0.3% higher than the standard raise, due to my great performance last year — woopty-freakin-doo). Second, he’d try to get me a similar raise for the switch in positions. Lastly, if there is any money left in the budget later in the year, we might be able to seek further adjustments. If that last action wasn’t possible, we’d discuss it again in the next raise cycle next year.

So, I thanked him for eveything and further explained that I was getting to the point where I won’t be able to afford working at this company. He said that if I found a position outside the company that was better, sometimes it was better to take it. Yup, I know where I fall on the food chain.

In other words, I will not be getting the raise I need. I’ll probably just end up with an 8% bump by the end of the year, and that will be the end of it. That is still about 15K less than the going rate for my position in Boston.

My husband said I could go work at his company in the implementations team (customer-facing). I know I’d make a lot more money there, and I’d be a shoe-in. Maybe it’s time to really weigh my options.

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