It’s obvious that the more money you get as income, the faster you can pay down debt. An (easy) way to get more money is to get a raise. Women have a harder time doing this for a bunch of reasons including, on average, they tend to ask less and also when they do ask, they are pushy and bad, and so we are punished. I recently asked for a raise and the response I got was that while I was doing my job well, it wasn’t exceptional enough to justify a raise. Only, that wasn’t true and I am being paid less than a man, who is very similar to me, at my same institution who has not performed as well as I have this year. The institutions also have to change.
So what do you do when something like this occurs? Do you kick and scream and drink bourbon? Maybe for a few days. Do you buy a new red purse, that screams at everyone that you are pissed you make less money? No, but if you have one, you definitely pull it out of the closet. My strategy thus far has been to:
a. ignore it
b. find other creative ways to get what you need and
c. go quietly (or not so quietly) onto the job market
This leads me to the AAUW Work Smart Online course, which is supposed to give you the confidence and skills to successfully negotiate your salary and benefits. It is free. You just have to register. This isn’t a sponsored post and I haven’t done the course yet, but if anyone wants to do it alongside me, that would be great.
In other news, my spouse actually did ask for a raise (and more responsibility) and was rejected. He then set his mind to finding another job with lower commute times, even to consider taking a job part time. The experience was super demotivating for him, as I am sure it is for most people. Fast forward a few months and his employer came back with an offer that he was originally looking for. We have yet to get it in writing, which we need to do, but the fact that he was looking for jobs elsewhere made the decision that they made a nice surprise rather than something we were budgeting on. Life is uncertain, volatile, and precarious. Do your best and keep trying.
