Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

First off, if you are not allowed to share your salary. DON’T. It’s usually grounds for getting fired so check your employee handbook before you do it.

After reading Jim’s story on salary sharing, and the accompanying NY Times article, I’ll give you a Marxist economic analysis of why you should share your salary. (I’m joking about the Marxist part. I read Das Kapital in college with a prominent Marxist scholar and it cracks me up that he makes a ton of money as a socialist.)

The main thing in a free market economy is the value of information. It’s possible to have any kind of arbitrage simply because of a gap in information where the buyer has no knowledge of the seller’s cost.

In the case of salary, it’s a little different, but still the same. You are the seller of labor (a Marxist view of the world) and the buyer of labor is your employer. However, you are in a marketplace of labor providers (other job candidates) and you need to differentiate your labor on the basis of quality to command a better price. But you also have to price yourself within a reasonable range. Tools like Salary.com, salary surveys, published annual ranges, etc will help you set the range, the best way is honestly to talk to your peers in the field about what they make.

Like Jim, I work in IT consulting with the Federal government. (Of course I do. I live in DC!) I nearly kicked myself when I found out I should have asked my company for $100K. But honestly, I don’t think I can command that price. My friend who was advocating that kind of money could justify his asking price with the kind of skills he possesses. I don’t have that same skill set so I lowballed myself slightly, but not embarrassingly. It would have helped me set a better price had I known my friend was applying to the same company I was and discussed our strategies for our starting salary figures. I might have squeezed out another $5K from it, but I think I did just fine.

More than anything, knowing your current market value is the key. Sure, it’s good to know what the company is willing to pay. But you really have to know what you are worth as an individual provider of labor. If you are worth $50K and the company is only willing to pay $45K, then find another employer because there is someone out there who is willing to value you appropriately. I learned this the hard way while working technical support. Support jobs are bottom of the barrel and full of stress. But some companies pay better than others and are willing to promote people out of support work. I had to have a client toss a reality brickbat at my head and tell me that my skills were worth $20K-35K more than I was earning in support. And he was willing to pay me that!!!

The Man keeps us down by obscuring salary information. We’re usually not allowed to know what our peers make in the same job function. They hide things with unpublished pay grades. (Private companies around DC love ‘pay grades’. The government uses them and it seems like it’s fair to have grades till you find out that you don’t know what ranges they represent in the private sector because they are in no way correlated to the government’s published GSA pay grade schedules.) You have to guess if your grade is a managerial one and if you’re going to get a manager’s bonus or a regular employee bonus. (In my case, 10% vs $1500. Uh, that’s a huge difference at a $50K salary.) Shop job postings to see what places are willing to pay for jobs like yours or the jobs you want to have. Frequently there are ranges added to ads to entice candidates or give them a realistic view of what the employer will pay. Use it to your advantage.

I’m not a big advocate of having poor manners. Obviously be judicious in your sharing of a salary and whom you ask. Make sure you trust your friends when you share this information. I usually don’t discuss this sort of thing in-house with fellow employees. The one time I did, the guy had moved out of my department and received a promotion. I didn’t think it hurt to tell him because we were both pretty unhappy with our company. I also tend to discuss salary with my manager because I expect him/her to go to bat for me or help me get to my salary aspiration.

Transparency is key though. If you want to stick it to The Man, then share your salary. Find out what others make in your field and make sure you get yours!

I am dreaming of my paycheck. I have a huge surplus of cash right now, which I am saving for the bachelorette party this weekend. I also need to have a surplus going into the next pay cycle when I send off a huge payment to one of my credit card companies. Without reserving a little from the current paycheck, I will be short on the next paycheck. I hate not having a little something in my checking account.

Also, I cannot, for the life of me, find my Lasik receipt. Since I couldn’t see a damned thing for a few days, I put it on my table with a lot of other crap. I thought I had filed it away with some other things, but I cleaned that up over the weekend to prepare my taxes and get organized, but it did not turn up. I’m going to have to call for a copy of the receipt. At least I found the reimbursement forms at work now. (HR with my new company can be a pain in the neck.)

Once that’s done and I get reimbursed, I will be able to cut my credit card balance down by about 25-30%. Woe unto me for my bureaucratic apathy! I’m paying finance charges and interest! That my children, is the cost of laziness.

I am really sorry, but hosting seems to be really wonky.

I am going to have to find a new ISP as I am outgrowing the good graces of Flexo with this blog. I’m just a big ole’ pain in the neck for him. He’s been wonderful helping me out with the technical nitty gritty.

So, this means I am shopping for a new ISP. I have a few in mind, but I’m looking for suggestions. No Dreamhost or MediaTemple. Shared hosting will suffice. I have further specs, but I’ll entertain what you’ve got. Please leave me a note in the comments with your suggestions.

What this really means is that this blog is a labor of love now. My ad revenue from my previous contract will pay for 2 years of hosting, but on a monthly basis, I am losing money. I’m not making a lot because I hate ads cluttering my aesthetic. However, I think to pay for the monthly fees, I am going to have to put up more advertisements to cover costs going forward. Sorry, but I am going to have to go a little more commercial.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll even put up an internet tip jar and just start begging. (Perish the thought, but it keeps turning up like a bad penny pushed forward from the back of my mind.)

Please be patient with MFC as it goes through some technical growing pains this winter. The irony I suppose is that it’s just over a year to the day that I made the switch from Blogger to WordPress!

I went on a job interview yesterday afternoon. It was for an open job fair. I did ok. The screener was very nice and we talked about Oracle and Information On Demand, which is his company’s code words for business intelligence and all of its attendant technical work.

I honestly don’t know why I signed up for it, other than the fact that an email popped into my mailbox. I’ll have to pee in a cup for any of the jobs they offer since this is DC after all and all the good contracting jobs are with the government in some capacity. Have passport, will travel, but no, we aren’t sending people to Iraq or Afghanistan anymore. Dubai and Kuwait are still ok.

I know one of the reasons why I did this was a random IM from a friend of mine. A long time ago we talked about how we got from Point A to Point B and where Point C might be next for us. I seem to have this cheerleading squad of guy friends who like to tell me that I’d be a cracker-jack programmer if I really gave it a good whack. I take their advice seriously since most of them are self-made computer geeks and they love it.

Anyhow, earlier in the week he wrote me to tell me that he reads my blog. He said forget about stretching out a chicken to last for a week. (And I know he was serious because he specifically wrote ‘rotisserie chicken’ in the message.) He asked if I was interested in consulting and started dangling a carrot at me. I quickly brushed him off. I AM making more money now. I rather like the place I am at. My boss is cool. He totally picks up on my Dead Milkmen references. We drink beer together. He lets me *walk out of work a half hour early to go interview somewhere else*. (Well, he let me leave early. I didn’t tell him where I was going. But I don’t think that fact would have upset him.)

The opportunity with my friend’s firm is intellectually intimidating. It would be a serious challenge to stay one step ahead in technical savvy. So much so, that I’d really like to stick around with my cool boss and my cool salary for another year. I just don’t know why I have this itch. I always get the itch for a new job after a year. I’ve been employed at my company now for almost 2 years. It’s alright. The best part is the team I have. We’re all super friendly former co-workers who’ve created this great mix of talents to get the job done.

How many of you stay at your less than perfect job because the co-workers are totally awesome? How much is it worth to you to stay in terms of dollars? $5K? $10K? $20K?

I mean, in terms of dollars, today I gave myself nearly a 20% raise when they asked for my desired salary. I made a note of telling them my base salary and the bonus compensation I last received. hey asked for the former and I tacked on the latter just so they know my desired salary bump was very serious.

So tell me, what does it take to stay? What does it take for you to go?

My goal was a net worth of $47,585.62. I beat it by $261.75 this month. I would have done a lot better if the market hadn’t tanked last week.

My goal for August will be hard to meet, especially if the market stays down. My target is $50.164.21. But the main thing is that this is the last month of my advertising contract so I am losing a serious chunk of side income. (which is kind of good since I was making a little too much money this year to qualify for a property tax refund) I am going to have to find a new source of ad revenue in September with only a few days to plan it out.

I am seriously contemplating abandoning my week-long camping trip. I am not feeling the vibe of spending time with my California and Texas friends. I know they will miss me because I told them in May that I would be there, but I am dreading the extra expense of it. I think I would rather fly to San Francisco to visit my nephews and their parents. Unfortunately, changing tickets via Travelocity can be a huge pain in the neck. Honestly, it will be more expensive to spend time in CA than camping, but at least I will be with family. I could sell my event ticket for the camping trip at cost and only be out a change fee for the plane ticket.

Trying to be responsible really stings right now.

Another alternative is to cut my trip really short and depart from DC mid-week instead of on a Saturday. It would shorten the trip by 4 days, but still spend about 5 days out there. But that doesn’t save me a lot of money since I’d have to rent a car. (At the moment, I am getting a ride from a friend.)

EDIT: I don’t know why my reported figure in this post and the net worth graph are different. Please stand by till I get home and figure out the problem. This is what you get when you write late at night…

Recently one of my readers IM’d me via the Meebo window on the left. She was asking me about job hunting and recruiters. I tried to answer her questions as best I could, because I’m really good at getting a new job. That’s not to say that I suck. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever truly been sacked for a job because I was a lousy employee. Most of the time, I hated what I was doing and departed for greener pastures when I was younger and much more antsy.

Anyhow, I came across an article at Yahoo on Salary Mistakes and some of the advice I gave this reader was contained within it.

The main things for younger folks are these:

1) Don’t Fence Yourself In: Don’t enter the salary negotiation too early. Save it till you know you are a serious contender. Somewhere in there, the HR person or recruiter will tell you what the compensation might be. If it’s too low, hold on till you find out more before deciding to walk away. Or they might ask what your current compensation is. If they ask what you are currently making, tell them on what you would like to make to focus them on where you want to be.

2) Be Honest and Accurate: DO NOT LIE on your resume. It’s a very ugly thing to do. (My point is completely different from the article’s, but still good advice.) Many years ago people would lie and say they went to Harvard. BAD idea. My friend worked at Transamerica as a temp in the PR department when an executive’s bogus resume was uncovered. Let’s just say he and I went to a long lunch that day so he could avoid the flak flying on the executive floor. Bottom line. Be honest.

3) Look at the Big Picture/Focus on Career Goals: These are really the same thing and tie back to #1. Your compensation is not the only reason to take a job. Trust me. I’ve been there. I’ve taken jobs to learn new skills. I went from a $55K/yr job in equity research to a $17K/yr job as a IT helpdesk technician. Yes, that totally sucked. But in the end, I am now well compensated as an Oracle database monkey and I wouldn’t have gotten here without that first entry-level IT job. (And I was 26 at the time.)

I have also moved jobs to get out of hellholes and taking only a blip in salary increases just to get out and get out fast. Because I was not focused on a long-term career goal but only the money and escaping, I didn’t like that job very much either. So take the time to really figure out what job you want next.

4) Timing Is Crucial: While the article ties back to being honest throughout the process, I find that if you’re always a straight-shooter, this isn’t going to be a problem for you. But I also live by Veritas vos liberabit. “The truth will set you free.”

Another way that timing is crucial is that while the time is not right now, it might right in the future. When I first moved to California, I took a job at UC Berkeley. While I was there, I got a call from someone about a job working in the semiconductor industry. They had received my resume from a referral and wanted to interview me. As I had just taken the post at UCB, I wasn’t interested in another opportunity. A few months later, as the Dean of our School was resigning, my department was on thin ice without our champion, so I decided it might be a good time to go and take a job within San Francisco. (The $40-60 monthly commuting cost didn’t help either.) The lady who had called me months before was still looking for someone and called me a second time. This time, because circumstances had changed, I was open to talking with her. So timing is crucial. Keep that in mind when you are in the job hunt. You might still be a great fit at a later date.

I hope everyone out there who is looking for a job gets one soon! Graduation season is coming to a close and jobs are starting soon. Those student loan bills aren’t going to wait much longer. If I recall correctly, my first ones were due in November after my May graduation.

Good luck if you’re looking for a new gig!

Status: April Net Worth will have to wait for now. Too busy with class to put it up.

I have changed my mind, and I will be taking the exam at the end of class, even though it’s not the official Oracle DBA certification exam. I figure I should take it should I decide to get the independent certification offered by the company/school where I am taking the course. Future rewards may follow.

The Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is this weekend. I am limiting myself to $200 and NO MORE YARN or FIBER buying for now. I am only in the market for some spinning equipment, like extra bobbins or a lazy kate and nothing else unless I see some cute baby stuff for pending births. (But I am currently making stuff like crazy from yarn I already have. See? Isn’t that frugal?)

I just got handed some raw shetland this week. It’s about 2 lbs. To get it milled, I want to mix it with something light, like soy silk to thin it out so it’s not a really heavy yarn. I have something in mind to make for a friend, but men don’t like really heavy wooly stuff usually. So this is going to involve some research. But I love free stuff!

The Girl Money v Boy Money post has generated some very interesting discussion.

The main thing is, if *YOU* aren’t asking for a raise, *YOU* probably aren’t getting one. I hate to sound like a broken record, but I’ll say it again, “You are Yourself Incorporated.” It was the favorite saying of my old boss and I have to say, it’s one of mine.

I’ve been there. I’ve gotten 2% annual raises two years in a row, wondering what exactly I needed to do to get a bigger raise, when I had done everything I could. (I turned around two unhappy clients into less unhappy clients. I’m not God and I don’t work miracles here, but I think making them less unhappy is a start.) And all I got to show for it was a third client yelling at me. Trust me. I was one of those beaten down office lackeys who often writes for desperate career advice. But today, I make a salary I am proud of.

I’m still slightly less compensated than I should be. It comes from fewer years of experience and no certification, things easily remedied by the passage of time and a test. I’ll be in training for the test next week, but I don’t feel like shelling out the extra money to actually take the exam. Maybe I might, but I don’t see a huge benefit from having the cert without the years of experience. The years in the trenches count most, and I can’t control time. Just saying I took the certification course may be enough.

Either way, I am better compensated than before and it’s because I have asked for more money and my management has gone to bat for me. No one is looking out for you except you. And what is the worst that can happen? They say no. But at least that can be turned into a “motivating No” instead of sitting and wondering whether or not you can get a raise.

I laugh a little at the gender flag. I work in IT, which is still male-dominated. And for the most part, as a woman, I’ve been better compensated than my male peers at some companies because I have the intelligence, guts, and arrogance to know my market worth and ask for fair compensation. I have only been lowballed once, and that was quickly remedied when my contribution was made clear to the company the following year. This may sound a bit like bragging, but I know if you don’t start out asking for a high salary, then 2% raises of a low salary look pretty awful. But 2% of a high salary looks a lot better. The only place you have to go in a new job salary negotiation is DOWN, so don’t start low. The first way to start earning your salary is asking for a good one in the first place.

I hope every woman out there who feels over-worked and under-paid gets off her duff and asks for more money. If not, you’ve got 8 more months this year to find a new job.

UGH. I wonder where my level of commitment is to debt repayment? I think I must be making a mistake by socking away as much as I can in my 401k plan. I decided to change my 401k contribution to 17% instead. Hopefully that means that I will be able to move the 3% difference over to debt repayment.

Behind the cut are the tax musings.

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EasyChange asks:
Do you really think that you got what you deserved still? And beyond that, are you worried that there will be any retaliation as a result of your “playing hardball�? These are major concerns that I’ve had in the past with going for a counter-offer. I’ve always felt better with just leaving. And my feeling was usually that I was making all other points “except� money when I met with my boss regularly. If they weren’t doing it for me before, why would they do it now?

Did you feel the same way? Or did you feel like you didn’t have a forum to voice your concerns? And were they acted upon before your request for an internal raise?

The short answer is YES. I think I got what I deserved. Is it what I am actually worth on the open market? No, I don’t think so, I could still easily go out and make $10K more than than I got. But I was not willing to push it that far with my company and if you read further, you’ll see why. Therefore the answer is still a YES, I got what I deserved.

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