Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

A few weeks ago I went to a company new hires happy hour. It was good for me to go. I’m at the end of the ‘new hire’ period and so it was my last chance to meet some high level executives.

I’m also part of a women’s group at work that specializes in networking at the company both inside and outside of the office. It’s a good thing that I’m part of that group because I would have felt like a fish out of water when I first arrived. But a woman from the group was at the door and greeted me by name because it was on my tag, but also because she genuinely recognized my face from a breakfast a few months ago.

The room was filled with folks I didn’t know and I wasn’t sure how to angle myself in front of them, but I did summon up the courage to talk to some younger new hires and walk right up to the head of my specialty group. I had seen his name on emails since I’m in his organization, but I told him I just wanted to say hi because I recognized his name. He seemed to appreciate that.

There is another event this summer that draws from his organization and I hope to put myself in front of him once more. I think getting yourself in front of people over and over helps. No need to be annoying, but say hi and simply remind them you met them at XYZ event a few months before. You don’t have to embarrass them if they don’t remember, but they’ll make more of an effort if you say you’ve met them before. The catch is to say hello every time you can, make some chit chat and hopefully when it comes time for recognition and what not, you’ve made a name for yourself to the folks that matter.

Wish me luck!

I love company-sponsored Happy Hours. I drank less than I would have normally, but it was darned hot yesterday.

I came back to my boyfriend’s house to change my shirt. I got salad dressing splatters all over the front of it trying to scarf down a yummy $7 salad from Chicken Out. (Milan Cutlet salad with the tasty tasty balsamic dressing) Not really the way I wanted to meet the rest of the team working the global contract, know what I mean?

Then I walked to the bar the lads had picked out since it was in the neighborhood and proceeded to order a Shandy. I have no idea why bartenders do not know what a Shandy is, but it’s pilsner and lemonade, and the Brickskeller in DC has it printed on the menu. (Therefore nearly everyone in DC should know about it because nearly everyone has been to The Brick at least once. But I digress.) I love them on really hot days. It gives you a good buzz and refreshment without making you stupid too quickly. (Always important at these corporate networking events.)

I paid the for the first one while I waited because I don’t carry my corporate credit card around and I wasn’t expecting to be the senior consultant attending. I had a second Shandy and called it a night, but it was easily 20ozs of beer in the two drinks I had. More than plenty to lubricate a good conversation with my fellow employees.

If you like beer cocktails at all, I HIGHLY recommend a Shandy. I suppose you could do it with a hefeweizen as well. I’m the kind of person who squeezes half a lemon in mine and not just a single wedge so I flip for lemonade.

All hail the summer drink you can drink all night, avoid not look like a teetotalling prude no one wants to know, and still not get *too* drunk. (Opting for a Shandy may reduce Foot-in-Mouth Embarassment, but I don’t guarantee that it will stop it 100% of the time.)

ps- I then did Indian take-out dinner for me and the boyfriend and walked home. It was just over $25. I gave the waiter $30 and instead of $4+change, he just gave me $5! YAY! And because I had that huge salad at lunch, I only ordered lamb samosas for $6 instead of a full $12 entree. Portion control AND money well-spent. Total food budget was $37, adding in $4 for the Shandy and $1 tip, and a merry little walk!

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!

Well, I’m sure y’all all know by now, the Washington Capitals lost in sudden death overtime to the Philadelphia Flyers, 2-3 on Tuesday. It kind of sucked to watch that, but it was an exciting game nonetheless.

But the real kicker was in the morning at work. First, you have to understand that I work for a consulting firm. Second you have to understand what ‘being on the bench’ means and how it’s basically death for consultants. Being on the bench is when you’re not working on a client’s project. You’re not being productive and your billable hours goal for the year will be missed, so you want as little bench time as possible during the year.

Tuesday morning, I get to work, run get a little breakfast with some of my teammates, and return to find out that my project has come to an untimely end, a bit like CleverDude in the link above. Next thing I know, I’m laughing mildly hysterically at the situation and at the slight edge of panic in the room.

I find it damned ironic that I need to find a new engagement at work in a hurry because the day before, I was at an internal corporate event trying to network so I can line up the next gig in a few weeks at the planned close of my project. A friend of mine who’s been at the firm for almost a decade introduced me to someone who needs staff in the next 2 weeks. but I won’t be released till midsummer so that isn’t going to work for me.

But how much do things change in 24 hours. You can bet your bippy the first person I called after being axed in the morning was the one staffing up soon. Although I probably won’t end up on that particular project, I was hugely relieved to have a place to turn right away for help.

The moral of the story is to seize your opportunities to network, internally and externally. I can’t say that enough. It’s the reason I guess why us DC PF bloggers like to meet for happy hour. We try to do what we can for our network. It’s a bit of a quid pro quo though. I mean, if I’m willing to take someone’s resume and pass it along, then hopefully they would do the same for me, right?

Do you ever spend time networking within your own company? If the answer is no, ask yourself why not?

Two stories:
1) My sibling was working in the R&D group of a software company when they happened to be chatting with the Development Lead for the core application they built at that firm. Turns out they were short staffed and hard-pressed to meet a deadline. My sibling says something about being slightly bored and underutilized at the moment. Next day, my sibling’s desk is moved to the core application team and they meet their future spouse. Go figure. All that from a conversation they had by the water cooler.

To elaborate further, this put my sibling on the path to a senior development job within their company and positioned them well for future work. Otherwise my sibling might have ended up a research monkey writing white papers all the time and generally being an academic pinhead in Silicon Valley. Nice work if you can get it, but the money just isn’t there.

2) This week, I get a COMPLETELY random phone call from within my company. This is a really, utterly, most sincerely, random call. I only pick it up because it’s internal and I think they might have misdialed. I have never, ever seen this person’s name before. He says, “Hi! I was searching LinkedIn.com on Subject XYZ and I saw you have expertise in it. I’d love to talk to you.”

Next thing you know, he needs me to act as a consultant/resource on a development project he has going on. I’m referring him to my boss so we can nail down what kind of level of effort is needed and how much of my time my boss will allow me to use for this project. If all goes well, my team will have an additional high profile project and we will look like awesome team players within the company! That’s really exciting stuff. It’s what I like doing best and I am really looking forward to 2008.

I hope these two vignettes show how talking to other people within your company can create new opportunities for you. Sure, it helps to make friends, but what’s more important is to make allies who are on your side. I could have ignored the call that came in or said, “Sorry I really don’t think I can help you.” I admit, I did hesitate at the notion of being sucked into something in which I don’t think I am an expert. However, he was desperate for any information and it turns out by answering with “Let me see what I can do,” it gave me time to dig up some informational resources and brainstorm how I could help this guy out.

Let’s just say, I have a feeling that there are going to be some monetary rewards for this. Not only a one time Above And Beyond award, but my annual performance bonus as well. Having people all over the company say good things about you is good stuff. Your reputation is just as important as your actual merits and talents. Be sure that all of them are solid. You never know what kind of opportunities might come your way by talking to people within your firm.

Single Ma’s reputation as a valuable asset has brought her more work-life balance that she was seeking. If the right people think you are worth keeping, they’ll keep you. They’ll seek you out.

I had another opportunity this week to make a new friend at work. She’s working on a project with me and stopped by my cube to meet me in person. A long time ago she was told to send me a monthly email. But we never actually talked. Since she recognized my name, she came by my desk. She’s young and energetic. I think I could learn a lot from her about scripting and I can teach her a lot of Oracle stuff. It’s a two way street and I think because of it, our shared project is going to work better.

Talk to people in your company. Say hi. Don’t be a jerk and ask the CEO who he is though. I did that once at a company cookout. It was humiliating, but that’s what they get for not having corporate bios with photographs on our website. My only saving grace was that I was asking about waiting for the Redskins football ticket drawing and trying go back to work, thus signaling my good brownie behavior.

Sorry for rambling along, I wrote this very late at night, but I hope you get the point about professional networking within your current employer. There are benefits to it that can be harvested later if you sow the seeds now during the holiday party season!