Transition Time

Requesting a salary raise to your boss is always a challenge. Even tho I'm professional in negotiating price with buyers and bargaining cost with vendors, I still couldn't do well on talking about my own raise. Before going in to my boss's office, I consulted 3 of my friends for advice to my idea: walking into the boss's door, putting my salary list on his desk, and reminding him to review my salary structure in a more fair way.

None of my friends agreed with my way, and all of them advised I should go for a milder, less direct one which is 1) bringing up my financial difficulty, which can be made up with the story like I have to pay house loan, school loan, and also rentals, insurance, family expenses.. etc, and the little salary I'm earning is really not enough for my living; 2) bringing up my achievements and benefits to the company in these 2 years, and showing him my great loyalty and faith to the company and consider to add a few on the current amount.

It's very interesting to hear 3 friends from different areas spoke same thing to me on this matter. It seems always a big issue to not only yourself but also your boss, cuz when people bring up this issue it usually means: 1) you start to sense your effort is not equal to your earnings, and you're not satisfied with company's offer; 2) you're ready to quit if your request is not taken. On the other hand you're facing a big challenge with the possible outcome: 1) your request is rejected but no one will tell you that, instead your project will be dismissed or your chance will be taken over by somebody else; 2) your request is under consideration, but you get no clue when you'll get a positive answer; 3) your request is taken, but the addon is much less than your expectation; 4) the least possible one, your request is taken and you get what you want.

Oh yes I did think of those scenarios and my contingency plan. You must be curious of what I said to my boss when I finally walked into his office. Well, I still chose to go for my original idea: I put the salary list on his desk, and asked him, with my full sincerity, to review my salary as well as my value, and give me a reasonable raise which I've never requested since joining in this company 2 years ago. Instead of bragging in front of him that I've brought 1 million USD sales figure to this team, which made 2 millions a year totally, I advised him humbly to give me some encouragement for my performance thru the raise. Did I hint him my expectation? Oh of course! I said well, maybe add on 1 at the first number of the amount, before tax is acceptable. He answered me with helpless voice: "I'll see what I can do".

In 2 months time I shall get some clue or a clear answer. Let's wait and see.