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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:i mean i don't think OP is in imminent danger of getting fired or whatever but OP also showed just like... comical judgement sending that email on Easter Sunday to some C suite they don't report to Looking forward to emailing my HR manager a manifesto on "taxation is theft" 4th of July weekend
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Apr 19, 2022 04:05
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I think this thread also overstated the challenge and risk of asking for a raise, but that email is still way too much.
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Apr 19, 2022 04:36
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surf rock posted:I don't know; I'm not willing to believe the entire world is this cutthroat.
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Apr 19, 2022 11:14
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Grumpwagon posted:Alright, thanks all. I've steeled myself to do what's needed. I'll report back next week. Well, this wasn't the report I wanted to give, but it became clear late last week that it was the one that I (and most of you) expected to give. First, to answer asur, on Friday, company 2 gave me 3 offers -- a cash offer, and equity offer, and a mixed offer. I posted the cash offer for obvious reasons, but even if I was looking for the upside of equity, the equity offer was minimal. As expected, yesterday company 1 offered me roughly similar to my current comp. A slight raise, and all salary instead of the base+bonus I currently get. I countered both for current cash+20%. Had a really nice talk with company 2, but ultimately coming up 40% from their offer wasn't going to happen. Company 1 politely but firmly told me their offer was firm. As much as I'd like working with the people at 2, I'm not going to take a pay cut to do more work. I thought a bit more about 1's offer, as it would be a title bump that I could use in a year to try and find something better, but ultimately I know I have a good thing where I am, with a lot of freedom, a really great work life balance, and people I like, even if I am a little bored, so I declined both. I wouldn't call this a major thread victory in the classic, made a ton more money sense, but I confirmed my prior intel (from previous interviews, talks with recruiters, and online salary sources) that I'm at the top of the market for my role (non-FAANG division), and started to get a feel for the market for a Lead role. Thanks to the 2 other companies who didn't offer, I also confirmed some skill deficiencies that I can work on for next round. All that, plus the backbone to understand my good BANTA and to stand firm with an above market ask means that while I wish I could get some of the many interviewing hours over the last month back, they weren't all for naught. I'll call this a minor thread win and thank you all for the advice/pep talks. Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 13:44 on Apr 19, 2022 |
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Apr 19, 2022 13:33
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surf rock posted:I acknowledge that I really hosed up with my last move and that it was more than stupid enough to warrant the dogpile, but I do think the thread's general opinion that you can't ask for a raise without getting fired immediately or soon thereafter is extraordinarily cynical. I don't think the thread's stance is you'll get fired just for asking for a raise. Rather, the way you did it, with a memo going over your boss's head, in the company's eye, rocks the boat far more than a usual request for a raise.
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Apr 19, 2022 14:37
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Relevant to the conversation, SHRM recently posted an article that around 2/3rds of employees plan on asking for a raise this year, with a majority (I believe) at or above 5%, so I don't think it will lead to being labeled as a flight risk as much as it did previously. Especially since attracting and retaining talent lately is what we in the HR biz refer to as "loving hard."
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Apr 20, 2022 16:43
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It’s so weird to me that most sure don’t act like it. I guess in some ways that’s precisely the game to be played, but still.
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Apr 20, 2022 18:32
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Depends on the positions. It's a lot worse for low wage jobs than 6 figures naturally.
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Apr 20, 2022 19:45
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I don’t think Surf Rock’s email was totally wild. At a 60 person company I would absolutely expect every employee to have that level of familiarity with the executives. I’d expect a long-time and valued employee to also have a relationship with a few board members. All of you talking about getting fired for emailing an exec need to look for jobs at less toxic companies.
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Apr 20, 2022 20:35
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Mniot posted:I don’t think Surf Rock’s email was totally wild. At a 60 person company I would absolutely expect every employee to have that level of familiarity with the executives. I’d expect a long-time and valued employee to also have a relationship with a few board members. I thought it was well written and put it as politely as possible, and was sort of impressed at the phrasing. For the shots you could have taken, it was pretty good. I feel like the question isn't 'was the letter enough' but more 'is everyone's minds made up already'. (+/- poor timing over holidays)
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Apr 20, 2022 20:49
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It's not about getting fired next week for emailing the COO on Easter Monday. It's about getting fired six or nine months from now after they've lined up your replacement because you have successfully convinced them that you want more money than they're willing to pay, and they'd rather replace you with someone cheaper and more complacent on their timeline than on yours. As I said at the beginning of all this, I like the assertive way he's playing it--as long as he realizes that this is pretty likely to eventually end with his getting bounced and is prepared accordingly. Other than paying people there's nothing an executive hates more than a long email, though, definitely could have communicated the concept of "gently caress You, Pay Me" more concisely. Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Apr 20, 2022 |
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Apr 20, 2022 20:53
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Well, I got a call from my boss this afternoon. The COO has signed off on the full requested raise (going from $90k to $112k) and the full bonus ($8k), with the latter coming this week instead of September like I requested. They're definitely not guaranteeing that it will be an annual bonus, but on our call, my boss said that my proposal (both the arguments in it and the fact that it was coming from me) gave him the ammunition he needed to finally win the COO's buy-in for his long-held ambition to create a formal bonus structure/schedule instead of bonuses always being ad-hoc. In the letter sent to me after the call, he wrote: The department heads will be working together on an overall structured approach to bonuses for 2023. As part of that, you will be eligible for a bonus of up to $8,000. As we discussed, it will not be tied to the [Major client] contract renewal. The exact specifics of that bonus and program will be developed this year, but my hope would be that we have it in place by Sept 30, 2022. So, maybe nothing with that actually pans out, but even if the bonus turns out to be a one-off and I only got the raise, I'm still very happy. If this actually does prove to be the catalyst for a company-wide bonus program that can benefit my team and peers, I'll be loving thrilled even if it means my own bonus coming in lower. I promise to follow up here if someone comes along and shoots me in the back of the head for my insolence six months from now, but I'm over the moon right now.
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Apr 20, 2022 20:59
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Hey, congrats on getting your raise. Fortune favors the bold! Just to be extra clear, nothing about this would be about your insolence. It's about how much money you require and whether they're willing to pay it.
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Apr 20, 2022 21:05
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Eric the Mauve posted:Hey, congrats on getting your raise. Fortune favors the bold! That's fair. I think what swung it in my favor was that the big client I oversee just signed an extension earlier this week with a 20% bump. So, that's a couple hundred thousand dollars each year that wasn't in the budget before. I think that if there's a future budget shortfall (the company does its finances very conservatively, so although this is the most likely scenario it probably won't happen soon), a leadership change from someone outside coming in (unlikely because the CEO's son is probably going to take over and we know each other well since he's a former COO; whoever said that nonprofits are all about nepotism was right), or we get acquired (which is difficult-but-not-impossible for a nonprofit), I would be very vulnerable. I do keep 12 months cash-on-hand and I'm three years away from having my mortgage paid off with no real intentions of upgrading and no other debt to my name, though, so I do feel financially prepared if this windfall eventually makes me a target for cuts. surf rock fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Apr 20, 2022 |
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Apr 20, 2022 21:09
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Believe it or not, when downsizing season rolls around it tends to be the lowest paid people that get tossed out on their rear end first. Just the fact of having a high salary makes people perceive you as more valuable. The thing to be wary of and prepared for (especially if you serve a critical role and they'd be hosed in the short term if you abruptly left) is the possibility they're giving you what you want as a temporary measure to keep you from bailing until they've thoroughly prepared for life after you. Which is a thing that does often happen in a scenario like this.
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Apr 20, 2022 21:13
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First of call, congrats Surf Rock- I'm glad this worked out in your favor!Mniot posted:I don’t think Surf Rock’s email was totally wild. At a 60 person company I would absolutely expect every employee to have that level of familiarity with the executives. I’d expect a long-time and valued employee to also have a relationship with a few board members. It's not about emailing an executive- I've worked at smaller companies where anyone could pal around with the CEO occasionally, it's about going over your boss's head to email an executive. This obviously worked out in Surf Rock's case, but at a lot of companies that would either get you fired or at least put on thin ice for a while. It's not the issue of being overly familiar with an executive- it's "my boss isn't getting this done so I'm going to ask his boss instead" part. Lots of companies do not look kindly upon that. You can find more than one letter on Ask A Manager where doing that got someone fired almost immediately. Also, re: the "asking for a raise will put you on a flight risk list" thing- I personally don't think that happens as swiftly as a lot of others here do- asking for a raise isn't an outlandish concept to most managers IMO (though if it seems like it is at your company, don't do it). However, if you keep harping on it (by emailing your boss's boss after you've already talked to your boss, for example), you sure aren't helping yourself stay off that list. Surf Rock got lucky and it sounds like he's working at a company that may potentially respect their employees. (Edit: Just clarifying that when I say "asking for a raise" here, I mean literally just that- asking your boss for a raise one single time without any offers/threats of leaving. Having an offer from another company in-hand and demanding that your current job match it raises the odds of being on that "replace ASAP" list by like 95%.) m0therfux0r fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Apr 20, 2022 |
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Apr 20, 2022 21:27
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Eric the Mauve posted:Believe it or not, when downsizing season rolls around it tends to be the lowest paid people that get tossed out on their rear end first. Just the fact of having a high salary makes people perceive you as more valuable. Is this really true? I always thought it was middle managers, as they were more expensive than their staff and the work could easily be shunted up or down the chain. Then again, I could have confirmation bias as this exact thing happened to a team I was on -- my manager of a staff of two got laid off and the work was given to my teammate.
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Apr 20, 2022 22:52
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oopsie rock posted:Is this really true? I always thought it was middle managers, as they were more expensive than their staff and the work could easily be shunted up or down the chain. Middle managers would 100% make the most sense, but (and maybe this is a startup thing?) I've mostly seen the lowest levels cut with the argument that the senior people can keep everything going and they just lose worker-hours and not any leadership/tech/design chops.
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Apr 20, 2022 23:04
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depends on the company and type of cut. Every management consultancy on earth will look at layers of mgmt and ratio of staff:mgmt and anything not at or slightly beyond the accepted limits, snip snip for the middle managers. But if it's a department that is being cut, the managers might have more transferable skills and stronger networks to bounce. An outsourcing play might also leave more of the managers, who get the poo poo-job of wrangling offshore contractors for spreadsheet savings, they're basically IC project managers now. Idk about startup's no experience there.
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Apr 20, 2022 23:31
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This was at a traditional Fortune 100 company just before the economy cratered in 2008, so I always figured it was a bean-counting issue.
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Apr 20, 2022 23:39
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I've known the CTO of a startup as an acquaintance for about a year and he's courting me for an "intermediate/senior team lead" (?) role to free him up from doing double duty as one of the team leads. I had a catch up call with him last week and he wanted me to continue with meeting the CEO and one of the product leads. I agreed with the idea that I wanted to learn more about the CEO's values and vision for the team, but most of the time was him talking about the company performance and he didn't leave me any time to ask him any deep questions. At the end of the call he started saying things like "I need to know your salary expectations" "This is the negotiation, we are going to make you an offer" "Only fresh grads don't know what they are worth" "We only have 2 mins left in this call for you to tell me your expectations" I was not expecting an offer negotiation call because I don't think either of us know about each other at this point. So I countered with "What is in your standard package" "I need to know more about the total offer" and ran out the clock. In the end he relented and said they would make an offer without knowing my expectations. Is there another way I could have played this to get more information? I still don't feel like I have enough information to decide whether to accept an offer even if one is on the table. How can I get more information about the culture of the company now that I've already had a round with the CEO? Ask to meet some of the dev team? Honestly the CEO's non-answers to my cultural and vision questions plus his pushiness are turning me off.
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Apr 21, 2022 01:08
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Mantle posted:I've known the CTO of a startup as an acquaintance for about a year and he's courting me for an "intermediate/senior team lead" (?) role to free him up from doing double duty as one of the team leads. I had a catch up call with him last week and he wanted me to continue with meeting the CEO and one of the product leads. If you do not know definitively the value you can or should command, do not lead with a number. I don't think you handled this poorly. He was trying to pressure you with the deadline of the meeting to name a number. You're not under any real obligation to do so. You can get more info by talking to more people, yes. Or talking again with the people you've talked with.
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Apr 21, 2022 01:18
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Don't you usually have to work to stop CEOs from talking about their values and vision? Something very strange going on there.
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Apr 21, 2022 01:20
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Mniot posted:I don’t think Surf Rock’s email was totally wild. At a 60 person company I would absolutely expect every employee to have that level of familiarity with the executives. I’d expect a long-time and valued employee to also have a relationship with a few board members. I work at a slightly smaller company with a personal relationship with the CFO and I wouldn't loving email them on Easter Sunday, poo poo. Not because I worry about getting fired, but because I'm not a dickhead.
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Apr 21, 2022 01:36
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Mantle posted:I've known the CTO of a startup as an acquaintance for about a year and he's courting me for an "intermediate/senior team lead" (?) role to free him up from doing double duty as one of the team leads. I had a catch up call with him last week and he wanted me to continue with meeting the CEO and one of the product leads. Honestly, there aren't many ways you could have reacted that would have ended differently short of shutting him down. He was clearly trying to leverage your acquaintanceship into a budget hire. This was a hamhanded, needlessly aggressive tactic on his part. He was hoping to browbeat you into putting forth a number. Good on you for not giving in. You have what he wants. He's trying to act like he has what you want. Just let them float you the offer and be glad you had the sense not to roll over.
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Apr 21, 2022 01:36
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Don't you usually have to work to stop CEOs from talking about their values and vision? Something very strange going on there. Well, when I said at the end of the call that I needed more information to come up with a salary expectation, like asking about his vision he said something like "I already talked about that. My vision is to build up the company and sell it to Google." I want to know more about things like what the vision is for the culture of the company. Are honesty and openness valued? Is diversity seen as a strength or an obligation?
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Apr 21, 2022 01:37
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He's made it abundantly clear that he is running exactly the kind of startup that makes most of us here say  the instant the word "startup" is mentioned, and with friends like the guy that tried to drag you into it you don't need enemies, imo.Wait on the offer by all means but lay odds it's going to be a below market to barely market salary and a fistful of lottery tickets for what would turn out to be a never ending deathmarch.
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Apr 21, 2022 01:39
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Do successful startups have ceos who can't even be bothered to spin an investor storytime yarn on a dime better than "sell to Google"? That's like the "I'll be rich and famous when I grow up" aspiration of a six year old in its specificity and believability to my mind. But I don't really know anything about startups. I just would assume a startup founder should be able to spout a better bullshit story than that. jemand fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Apr 21, 2022 |
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Apr 21, 2022 02:28
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jemand posted:Do successful startups have ceos who can't even be bothered to spin an investor storytime yarn on a dime better than "sell to Google"? That's like the "I'll be rich and famous when I grow up" aspiration of a six year old in its specificity and believability to my mind. All pitches are now done via LinkedIn flex “Yesterday I was asked what my vision is for the company I was shocked. You don’t need to explain your vision.. …You live your vision Anyone who matters can see it. Your vibe attracts your tribe. Remember that. #thankful #inspiring #levelup”
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Apr 21, 2022 03:33
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Listen. I hate you.
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Apr 21, 2022 03:48
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Democratic Pirate posted:All pitches are now done via LinkedIn flex Thought I'd left SA for a second
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Apr 21, 2022 08:29
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Corla Plankun posted:Middle managers would 100% make the most sense, but (and maybe this is a startup thing?) I've mostly seen the lowest levels cut with the argument that the senior people can keep everything going and they just lose worker-hours and not any leadership/tech/design chops. Eric the Mauve posted:It's not about getting fired next week for emailing the COO on Easter Monday. It's about getting fired six or nine months from now after they've lined up your replacement because you have successfully convinced them that you want more money than they're willing to pay, and they'd rather replace you with someone cheaper and more complacent on their timeline than on yours.
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Apr 21, 2022 12:15
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surf rock posted:Great success Congrats, always glad to be wrong about execs. Get that skrilla I would caution others against following this example, though. As many others in this thread have said, the vast majority of the time this tactic will motivate the company to prioritize finding your replacement
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Apr 21, 2022 12:27
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Dik Hz posted:When I was at a ~1B valuation company, all cuts always targeted the lowest levels. Made no sense, but that's what they did. I went through ~3 rounds of it. Managers were never cut. Overpaid idiots were never cut.
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Apr 21, 2022 13:22
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So I am about to counter an offer, they gave me €500/month below my "buyout" value(Yeah I know, I am idiot for naming one, but I suck at not caving), but told me that this will be approximately what I would make in on-call pay. My counter would be 5% above this, which puts me about halfway towards my named number. What they offered is actually what I considered my "I should probably go for it" number, but that was for a job with no asterisks (Like on-call). So basically I want a bit more money to offset the sadness from having to be on call sometimes. TL;DR: I guess my question now is: Is it a bad idea to outright state 5% here? Should I be asking for more than what I actually want? Should I not ask for anything specific, but rather just nicely say "please consider paying me a bit more"  ? As I have begun (trying to) internalizing the thread mantra, I am not sure if naming a number here is stupid on my part.
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Apr 21, 2022 19:38
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You should name a number higher than what you'll accept as long as it's within reason, and accept if they are least meet your minimum viable raise that you determined in advance. If they don't, hit the bricks. And absolutely do not ask "please can you pay me a bit more." The thread says not to name a number first if you aren't experienced. It doesn't say to never name a number, especially if you've received an offer.
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Apr 21, 2022 19:42
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Parallelwoody posted:You should name a number higher than what you'll accept as long as it's within reason, and accept if they are least meet your minimum viable raise that you determined in advance. If they don't, hit the bricks. And absolutely do not ask "please can you pay me a bit more." The thread says not to name a number first if you aren't experienced. It doesn't say to never name a number, especially if you've received an offer. Well I feel like they wouldn't go for me asking for more more, because that would almost necessarily be my original ask or very close to it. Really, I am considering taking the job even without an additional raise, I am just trying to make the decision easier for me.
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Apr 21, 2022 19:55
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SEKCobra posted:Well I feel like they wouldn't go for me asking for more more, because that would almost necessarily be my original ask or very close to it. Really, I am considering taking the job even without an additional raise, I am just trying to make the decision easier for me. Ask for at least 10% and be prepared to take 0% if you really want it.
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Apr 21, 2022 20:01
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Ask for extra vacation days to make up for potential on-call time if they won't budge on cash?
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Apr 21, 2022 20:19
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Arquinsiel posted:Ask for extra vacation days to make up for potential on-call time if they won't budge on cash? They made it clear that pto won't be negotiable, so money it is. I asked for 8%, if they come back with 4% I'd still be happy enough. Regardless, I still need to actually decided if I am ready to take the job either way, the pay bump is massive, but my duties would shrink massively while at the same time I'll probably be in for a lot of really boring work.
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Apr 21, 2022 20:24
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