Don't forget to subscribe to the RSS feed to make sure you receive the latest articles ;)
Powered by MaxBlogPress  

Dec

16

Asking for more

Filed Under Communication, Income 

The other day the boss at my day job called all employees in his office to talk about the salary raises. He always does it sometime before Christmas so, thinking ahead, I’d been preparing myself during a few weeks before. I went to different employment websites to check out what the average package for my position was, discussed with a few friends who I was in college with, and mentally prepared myself rehearsing my speech and listing my claims.

As soon as I entered his office he offered me a raise of xxx €. Which, if you see it as a 5.4% raise, is decent. Not astonishing, but decent. At this point, I had the choice to thank him, get up and leave or, for the first time ever in my life, sit back like a prince and tell him I was worth more. And so I did. I engaged in a forty-five (yes, 45) minutes argument that a few months ago I wouldn’t have remotely imagined myself able doing.

The hardest part is the start. It would’ve been so easy to say thanks and go back to work like nothing happened. You have to know the boss here is impressive. Picture an old, barking, 6.5ft, 270 pounds monster that reeks of bad quality cigars and whisky but wears high-class tailor made suits. I would say he looks a bit like a walrus, with the added pimp attitude of Marcellus Wallace from Pulp Fiction if he had been the son of The Godfather.

So, even if I sincerely don’t give a damn about this job and would not mind being fired (I’m a General Ledger Accountant, that means it’d takes about half a day to find another employer), it was really a jump of the cliff to start discussing calmly like I did. At least it was to me, who used to be an introvert with a tendency to bluntly attack when the opponent was too strong. Here, I was not scared of losing the job, I was not even anxious about the outcome. I was only about the social process that was about to take place.

So, when the boss became silent and expected me to leave, I had to take a deep breath before saying : “Well, first of all thank you for this… raise (voluntarily using a dubious tone)… but you see I’ve been doing my research and found out that what you’re offering is quite low on the income scale.”

He grinned slightly. But strangely, for a second, he also looked father-like proud that I was trying to fight for what I wanted. The show was on.

Then I proceeded on giving him a few real life salary examples. Which he quickly dismissed by saying thoses companies were too different from his. Then, I told him all that I have accomplished this year. All this while paying extra-attention to having the right body language : I was sitting back, left arm extended to my side and resting on the back of the chair next to mine, right arm on my lap, open legs showing my manhood, moving slowly, not trembling, not playing with a pen nor anything that would show nervousness. Actually, I looked like I was being served a perfectly blended mojito by two thong bikini-wearing babes who knew they were about take it with exctasy where the sun never shines.

I was very proud of myself. Alas, as much of a prince that I was in his office, he was still the king in his own land. He resorted to a vivid and quite lyrical imagination to dismiss all my points one by one. He must have been a heroic-fantasy writer in a past life. But I could tell he was having a hard time counterattacking. To be honest, logically speaking my points were un-attackable as they suffered no flaws. Therefore, and since I was completely detached from the outcome, I paid no attention to his refusal, and proved him wrong by pointing his logical flaws and most importantly the things he thought he knew about my job and accomplishments, but that he didn’t know yet and that I had previously saved for later. He was down, for a minute he was down. But he quickly shifted on telling me I was doing an excellent job as a general and tax accountant but he was now expecting me to do some budgeting. He said that if I allowed him to save money in the coming months, he’ll promplty give me another raise.

I ended up on telling him about other benefits I was deserving and he gave me five weeks of paid vacation per year, which is very good.

Anyway, behaviorally speaking, it was such an interesting exercise. First because I dared saying all I said, and secondly because I did so with a calm and deep voice, smiling and sitting back like I was home.


My fellow reader has to know I’ve always been used not to acknowledge any form of authority (except for a few people who knew how to gain my respect). Teachers, professors, cops, you name it… I have always been seen as quite cheeky as a youth, leaving my friends and family openmouthed to what I dared saying and doing. But whenever I was for real not agreeing with a figure of authority I always freaked out and just bluntly striked those like a crack addict who’s just had his pipe stolen.

Becoming an adult, I realized that :

a) In a social environment, this type of behavior has no place. It only makes you and the people around you uncomfortable.
b) Since I actually don’t ever want to resort to violence of any sort in any situation, it’s an attack against myself and my own beliefs to be aggressive with people.
c) Freaking out may impress a few weaker people, but doing it as an adult amuses most of them.

That’s when I became an introvert.

So, I needed to develop an in-between mode of action. Now that’s something I’ve been building for a few years, and this episode was one in many strong proofs of success.

The conclusion of this raise interview is that even if I didn’t directly get what I was aiming for, I think that I’ve won it on a psychological level. I was right to stay calm and use the diplomatic way, while staying firm of course.

It’s also obvious how the boss has grown some respect for me since then. He’s not talking to me the same way he used to, he salutes me in a much more manly way, etc.

It’s nice being socially effective.

If you liked this article, subscribe to the RSS feed, or insert your e-mail address to have the next articles delivered directly to your inbox.

You can also stumble this article or save it to your del.icio.us!

Comments

Leave a Reply