Kill It!
A few weeks ago we talked a bit about the ‘possible’ financial benefits to biking to work rather than driving. I got some pretty pointed response to the piece from a few of my coworkers, who basically told me I would love it, and that I didn’t factor lower health costs into my equation, as well as a few other factors.
Turns out I also needed to budget for Gatorade as well, but that’s later on in my story.
So they have talked me into giving this thing a shot. I plunk down my cash for a pretty sweet folding bike, and honestly, I’m pretty excited about the whole thing.
Pretty slick looking bike, if I don’t say so myself.
Anyhow, my first time trying to ride the thing was going to work – ignoring the probably wise advice of one of my colleagues. Suffice it to say, I didn’t make it – I got about 3 miles into the ride and had to turn around. Yeah, I know, brilliant…right?
Second time out (last weekend) I just did a ride around Arlington that was about the same distance as my commute, and made it home without dying, so I decided that I would ride to work. It took me a while, but I did make it, and I actually felt pretty good a few hours later. My plan was to try to bus home, but I was feeling SO good that I said “heck, I might as well ride home.” Talk about one of the most torturous things I’ve ever willingly subjected myself to, at least in a physical sense. But I did make it, so there is a definite sense of accomplishment there.
This got me thinking, how could I apply this to my blog? I guess you could make the argument that this is the same kind of short term pain, long term gain that most people have to deal with when handling their finances as well. If you save a lot early on, you can kind of coast the rest of the way. My biking coworkers assure me that the trek will get much easier if I keep it up. Hopefully it will, because if it keeps killing me like it did earlier this week I won’t be able to keep it up for very long.
The Happy Part
I’ve already decided that the impish grin you have on your face after reading the title to this post is a bit dirty, but as a good friend I will keep it to myself.
I’ve been spending a good amount of time talking about the wealthy part of the title to this blog. We really haven’t been focusing too much on the happy part, which is something I hope to rectify over the coming weeks. I guess the outstanding question we each have to answer for ourselves is what exactly in life it is that makes us happy. Is it bad puns, like the title of this post? Maybe you love running, or video games, or music. I feel like it is almost imperative that we spend our lives figuring out what those things that make us happy are, and then shamelessly pursue them with little regard for anything else. Have you found that one thing in your life that makes your heart skip beats? If you have, please share it with the rest of us here, because I’m still looking for it.
Now, let me be clear, we aren’t talking about people here (unless you’ve decided that your thing is caring for others, if that’s the case more power to you). We’re talking about those few topics that hold our attention long after others would have gotten bored and found another diversion. Personally, I’m nearly that passionate about technology, but there are times when I have to set it down and pick up something else. Those few people that I’ve met that have actually found ‘that thing’ rarely if ever feel the need to do that. Charles Schultz said “I think I’ve discovered the secret of life — you just hang around until you get used to it.” I hope that there’s more to things than just getting used to it.
So, our open question for the day is what is your thing? And how did you find it?
Selling Stuff
I was up at my parents house this weekend and ended up coming home with even more crap that I didn’t need. While I appreciate the sentiment, even as an adult, my parents are still trying to provide for me, it is a pretty inconvenient considering the rather diminutive size of my little condo.
The one upside to the whole situation is that it got me motivated to start selling stuff. So I spent a few hours yesterday cleaning out my storage closet and figuring out what stuff I can sell. I ended up listing three things on Ebay and three more things on craigslist (too big to ship) – not to mention I took the opportunity to list the tickets for the Penn State football games I’m not going to make it to this year.
The whole thing got me thinking – does all of this ’stuff’ I’ve acquired over the years really make me happy? There are some things that I really enjoy – but a lot of it is just taking up room. For example, I have a kitchen/dining room table that I may have eaten at five times since I bought it. Really, it has just become the target location of my mail as I come through the door.
So I go through this semi-yearly purge of all the of things I don’t use anymore, and try to get a little bit of scratch for them. The whole thing would be great if I were actually making money off this stuff, but I’m not. I’m just averting a bit of the loss that I would incur if I just threw the crap out.
What do you do with your old stuff you don’t use anymore? Do you donate it to your local charity? Do you throw it out? Have you tried getting rid of any of it on ebay or craigslist? What have you decided was the best thing to do? Other than maybe to stop buying crap you don’t need…
Day Five: Follow Up
So, you’ve asked for a raise. Maybe you got it right away, or perhaps you got shot down entirely. Either way, there are some things you should do.
If you got the raise, or they are taking it to their manager, send your boss a thank you note. It doesn’t have to be anything super formal, just an acknowledgment of their willingness to be helpful. Don’t send it for a few days, so they know you are sincere, but keep it short. An email is fine. I have gone with something like the following in the past:
Hey [insert manager's name here],
Thanks for taking the time out of your day on Monday to talk to me about my compensation. I appreciate your willingness to [give me a raise, talk with your boss, whatever].
Talk to you soon,
Keith
If you need to follow up on something in a week, I’d write a line about that in the email too – that’s it. Short, simple, and to the point.
What if your boss shut you down? I would begin by still sending a note thanking them for their time. It’s important to realize that there may be unspoken reasons as to why they were unable to help you. I would also take any critiques from the meeting (if there were any) and work to resolve them. At the same time, keep in mind that you will have to prove it to them at some point, so be proactive and find a way to document your improvement. This way the next time your annual performance review comes up, you can be better able to respond.
If things went really poorly, or even if you just don’t feel like you are getting paid enough, now’s the time to start thinking about looking for a new job. If you got a raise, even if it wasn’t what you were hoping for, you got a signal from your boss that they value you and would be open to increasing your compensation in the future. But if all you got was negative feelings from the meeting, with nothing to hope for in the future, there’s no reason for you to stay.
Day Four: Take a deep breath and ask
Today is the day. You’re prepared. You’ve justified. You’ve scheduled the meeting with your boss, and given him the heads up on what it’s about. Now it’s time to pull the trigger and ask the tough question.
Ask you boss (or your bosses boss, whomever it is you have the meeting with) what he or she can do to help you get the raise you want. Be ready for some push back, but don’t expect it. The fact is, everyone you work for has asked their boss for a raise at some point, and if they’ve been working for a while they probably have helped other employees get the raise they wanted as well. The trick here is to make the conversation a collaboration, rather than an adversarial situation. The other thing you need to do is get your boss invested in your success.
This is actually easier than it sounds – it’s all about the phrasing. Remember that your boss is not the person paying you (unless he’s also the owner), so you aren’t actually taking money out of his pocket. I’ve found that the usual progression of this stuff goes like this:
Keith: Hey John, how’s it going?
John (boss, not his real name): Pretty good Keith – you said you wanted to chat about your salary?
Keith: Yeah, I was hoping you’d be willing to help me get a raise. How do you feel about that?
John: Well you know that I value the work you do for us, so I’ll see what I can do. How much were you thinking?
Keith: I’ve done some research and gotten an idea of what the going rate is for my position, but I thought I’d ask you what you thought would be reasonable and go from there since I know those numbers aren’t always accurate. What do you think is reasonable?
John: Well, I think I can get my boss to sign off on a $3500 raise, how does that sound?
(If whatever they offer you puts you in line with what you would ask for, thank your boss and get the heck out of there. If it’s off by quite a bit, continue on)
Keith: It sounds good, but I was hoping for a number closer to $8000, based on my years of experience and the quality of my work. What do I need to do so you can get me that $8000 raise?
(That last question is key, because it shows you are willing to put forth some additional effort)
John: If I talk really fast, I might be able to convince my boss to move the raise up to $5000, but I doubt he’d be willing to go much further than that. Let me see if he’d be agreeable to another salary review in about 6 months, but to get anything out of that he’ll probably insist on some help with one of his special projects. Would you be willing to do that?
Keith: Absolutely!
Okay, so maybe you didn’t get the whole raise that you wanted, but you did get some of it, and a chance at more in relatively short order. Then what? Well, you have to close the deal – but more on that tomorrow. Do you have any other tactics you’ve used to pull in a raise?
Day Three: Schedule a Meeting
Okay – you’ve collected your thoughts, and hopefully convinced yourself that you are worth the money you are getting to ready to ask your company to give you. Now it’s time to let your boss know you mean business.
The first thing to do is figure out who you need to talk to about this. In some cases, your direct manager has a great deal of influence over your salary, sometimes not. If you think it’s someone other than your direct manager, pop in on your manager, let them know that you are about to ask for a raise, and then ask for their help getting you in to see the right person. More importantly, ask them for advice on how to get what you want. More likely than not, your immediate boss will have some inside track on how to do this whatever the ‘right’ way is considered to be at your particular company. You can also ask them for their support during the discussion, either by going to bat for you with the manager that can make salary decisions, or some other way. They’ll also hopefully be able to tell you if it’s a bad time to ask, and what would be a better time. Take their lead on this, particularly if they are sympathetic and you feel like they will support you in this discussion.
If your direct manager is the one who sets your salary, you’ve probably got an easier time getting a raise than someone else might. The best way to broach the topic with your manager will probably depend on the person, but I generally go with a short email like this.
Hi John,
Do you have 15 minutes later this week to do a quick review of my performance and perhaps discuss a salary bump? I checked your calendar and it looks like you are available Wednesday at 3 and Thursday at 2:15. Which time is better for you?
Thanks,
Keith
Yeah, that’s it. I wouldn’t get into the nitty gritty over email, but I feel like it would be a really bad idea to catch your boss by surprise. But you also want to add two possible times to add that extra bit of seriousness and give you a bit of control. You don’t want the conversation to be right as the boss is running out the door on Friday or whatever other free minute they might have to spare.
Sounds simple, right? It is, but that doesn’t necessarily make it easy. Remember, you’re asking your boss for a favor, and in turn will hopefully get them invested in you as a person and not just as a producer of work. The worst thing you could do is make this a you vs. your boss issue, because then you’ll never get what you want. While your boss might have control over your salary, they will still have to jump through some hoops to get you a raise in most cases. And they will probably still have to talk their boss into it as well.
Day Two: Collect, Consider, and Compile
Yesterday we talked a bit about figuring out how much you’re worth to your company, with the goal of figuring out how much we can ask for during a discussion with our manager about salary. Today, we need to talk about building your case for that new, shiny salary we all want.
The goal here isn’t what you might think though – we’re not hear to talk about how good you are at the job you have. Rather, we want to collect two pieces of information:
- Things you do better than anyone else they would hire to do the job
- Proof that if they were to go out and find someone else, they’d have to pay them what you’re asking
Hopefully, your boss already likes you and knows that you are valuable to the team. If not, instead of asking for a raise you might consider just going out and finding a new job. Now, the idea isn’t to threaten your boss (actually, you want to get them invested in your success, but that’s a topic for another day), but rather to let them know that you are informed about the prospects for someone in your position, and to share that information with them in case they were not aware. If the conversation goes well, you may not even need this info you are preparing, but it’s good to have because much like yesterday’s salary research, it will give you some additional confidence that you are worth it.
For part one, you need to be able to demonstrate a proficiency that lacks elsewhere on your team. Maybe you’re not the highest producing developer on your team, but you’re the person the oil that greases the process for everyone else. Or perhaps you’re the team member who sticks their neck out to deal with troublesome customers so issues don’t get escalated to management. Or maybe you are the go-to guy when all hell breaks loose. Your boss probably already knows what it is they hired you to do, so highlight those things that you do without even being asked. And then write them down to bring with you to the meeting, because during stressful discussions like one regarding salary, it’s hard to remember some of these things. For each of the things you do like this, write down a specific example that answers the who, what, and why. Who did it impact? What was the end result? Why should your boss care? Cover those three things and you’ll find it much easier to talk about with your boss.
The second part is a bit harder – you need to demonstrate to your manager that the salary you’re asking for is the going rate for someone with your skills and experience. Print out some of those graphs and numbers on glassdoor.com and salary.com if you need. Check out freelancer websites (if the work you do is also done by freelancers) and quote some of the rates they are asking for similar work. This info you shouldn’t need at all during your meeting, unless the discussion starts to go in the direction of ‘other people would be willing to do it cheaper,’ but you should have it on hand none the less. Comparisons (like what they do at stores when they have a sale – leaving the original price on the tag to make the product look like a good deal) can be very valuable as a selling tool, particularly if you decide to ask for a bit less than the going rate.
Now that you’ve done these two things, prepare the info in a way that you would feel comfortable handing it over to your boss. Yes, for the most part they are you personal notes – but if your manager asks to see them, or wants you to forward them a copy after the meeting, you should be prepared to do so. This will show that you’re serious, which can be to your advantage.
Tomorrow we’ll talk about how to start the discussion, and cover some tactics you can use to get them working for you rather than the company.
Day One: Finding Out What To Ask For
The hardest part about asking for a raise, other than actually asking, is figuring out whether you have any chance of getting it, and how much to ask for. This can be a tough thing to figure out, but there are data points available for you to use.
The first thing to figure out is how much your counterparts at other companies make doing a similar job. You may think that your job is unique, but I assure you it isn’t. The first thing to do, assuming you don’t know how much your coworkers make, is to hit up a site like salary.com or glassdoor.com. If you’re at a smaller company, salary.com is probably a better resource, because it aggregates H.R. data from across the country to determine salary ranges for lots of different jobs. If you work with a larger firm, glassdoor.com may actually offer you a window into what the salaries are of people in your current company that are doing your same job. Either way, these numbers should only be used to give you a general idea of what you can get on the open market.
The second thing you should do is figure out if you are a top line employee, a bottom line employee, or a cost center. A top line employee is someone who actively makes money for their company. These people have the best chance of getting a raise because it is easy for them to quantify what having them does for the business, because they are bringing it in. They may be salespeople, or they could be the one providing service to the customer (as in an industry like consulting). Usually, these people can discuss raises with their bosses on a purely financial level. “I did $5,000,000 worth of business for the company last year and I feel like I deserve a bigger raise,” is something they might consider saying to their manager.
A bottom line employee is someone who saves the company money. These people have a harder time getting a raise because it’s harder to quantify their value to the company, but it can be done. These people might be administrative, finance, I.T., or any other of the support organizations within a company. If they are lucky, these people can discuss raises on a financial level, but more commonly they can discuss raises based on performance. “I saved your salespeople 200 man hours last year by implementing easier to use sales software and I feel like I deserve a bigger raise,” is something they might say during their salary review.
A cost center is an employee who costs the company money but is (hopefully) vital for some other reason. These employees have the hardest time getting raises, because it is very difficult to quantify what they provide to the organization that someone else could not. They might be janitors, office administrators, secretaries, or cafeteria workers. Usually they are significantly separated from the company’s primary business. Generally, these individuals can only discuss their personal performance, rather than their impact on others, during a salary review. “I made sure there were always pencils in the supply cabinet and I feel like I deserve a bigger raise” is something they might say during a salary review.
Okay, but here’s the kicker – any employee of a company can fall into more than one of those above slots. A normally bottom line employee, when on a call to help one of the salespeople with their computer, might help that salesperson land a big deal. It’s a big sliding scale. Ideally, you should be able to determine your value to the company in monetary terms, but everyone should be able to figure out how much time they are saving the company. Even a cost center employee could frame their job as a cost savings – without the janitor cleaning the bathroom stalls, more employees would get sick, which can be very costly for an organization.
The third thing you need to do is figure out exactly how much you are worth to the best of your ability. This has two purposes – it gives you ammo for your inevitable discussion with your manager, and it adds to your confidence that you actually deserve this raise. That is, assuming, that you determine you are as valuable as you think you are. If something comes up short, I would suggest taking a step back and figuring out how to increase your value to the company before continuing down this path.
Tomorrow, we’ll talk about collecting more discrete performance data to be presented during your salary discussion.
You want a raise?
Do you want a raise? Okay, so maybe that’s a silly question – everyone wants a raise. The fact is, if you’re at all interested in personal finance, all of the discussions hover around two points:
- Spend less than you earn
- Earn more
Seriously, those are the only two things that you can do to be financially independent. I’ve spent a bit of time talking about ways to increase your income outside of your primary career, but I think it’s time to discuss what might be called the dark side of ‘working for the man’ and talk some about asking for a raise.
Honestly, this topic is more complicated that you’d probably like – so this is going to be one of those mini-series like you see on TV, just hopefully with better acting (but probably not). I have quite a number of thoughts on the topic, although I’ll be the first to admit I’m no expert even though I’ve had some success getting sizable raises in the past.
Starting tomorrow, I’m going to have a 5 day series around this topic. Here’s what I plan to cover:
- Figuring out what you are worth the company and how much your skills go for on the open job market
- Collect info on what you do, how you’ve been performing, and how you’ve been making (or saving) the company money
- Scheduling the meeting with your manager
- Meeting Day – what to say and how to say it, the psychology of asking for a favor and getting your manager invested in your success
- Following Up – What should you do next, and how to be prepared for the next time
Do you see anything I missed? Let me know if there are other things you think I should be covering as well.
The Long Ride Home
As I’m writing this, I am just getting back from a round of golf in Richmond. We had a great time, but invariably we got stuck in traffic coming home on 95. I hate traffic. And getting stuck in a traffic jam at the end of a perfectly nice but tiring day is just enough to ruin the entire experience. I’ve found that the same thing can ruin my entire workday as well. Maybe I got stuck somewhere on my ride in. Sometimes it’s the ride home – it doesn’t really matter, both can very easily put me in a foul mood. And as most of you as both friends and readers can attest, I’m not a lot of fun when I’m in a foul mood.
So, I’ve been thinking that maybe I should buy a bike and ride to work. This isn’t completely crazy – Arlington is crisscrossed with bike trails that go most everywhere I might need to go, and the work commute most days is under ten miles. I also have access to showering facilities once I arrive. There’s only one problem – I don’t own a bike, and I’m remiss to purchase one that might get used a dozen times and then lie dormant in my closet for the rest of eternity. I always loved biking places when I was a kid – it was the way to get around my neighborhood growing up. But I really haven’t done much of it at all since I started driving, and that has me worried.
So, in true bWgH (okay, that’s a lame acronym, maybe I shouldn’t use that again) style, I decided to do a financial rundown of the cost benefit to buying a bike and how many times I’d have to ride it to and from work to make it cost effective. I’ve got a few friends who are avid cyclists, and I’ve at least asked their opinions on this stuff, so my costs shouldn’t be out in left field.
Because of my limited space, I need a folding bike. The only one I found that didn’t look ridiculous for a reasonable price was the Dahon Jack 7-speed – I can get it with a helmet from Performance Bicycle for ~$500. And when it’s unfolded it looks like a normal bike. I have been told that unlike when I was a kid, riding around on busy streets without a helmet is a bad idea, drivers don’t have much respect for cyclists. I know I’m usually frustrated when I get stuck behind one, so I figure I’m being given good advice. Over the course of the summer, I’d probably have to spend another $50 on maintenance (tubes and the like, I promise I won’t buy a little bell for it).
So let’s assume this whole experiment would cost me $550. Not a drop in the bucket, but also not the most expensive thing I’ve ever bought. Assuming I save about $5/day in gas and maintenance for my car, I would pretty much have to use it as my primary commuter vehicle for the next 5 months to be net even on the entire experiment. Granted, I would also be great exercise, so maybe it’s not fair to judge it just through a financial light, but it’d making it hard to justify. But it does alleviate some of the traffic problems I normally have to deal with in the mornings.
I could go cheaper if I had a place to keep the thing and could avoid the whole folding thing – if I just wanted to give this a shot maybe that would be the way to go. I can also keep my eye on craigslist for something less expensive – as long as it’s in good shape, I could care less if it’s new. Would you buy a bike just because you want to try riding it to work?
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So, you want to know what's up with the brackets in the name? "Curly brackets (also called braces, or "squiggly brackets") are sometimes used in prose to indicate a series of equal choices" and "Square brackets are mainly used to enclose explanatory or missing material usually added by someone other than the original author, especially in quoted text." So basically, if you really want to be wealthy in life, you have to figure out how to get happy. Since that whole spiel would make a crappy name for a blog, I decided to do something a bit creative with some brackets.
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