steppng through the ozone
I sit perched on the precipice of a commitment, mostly numb to the consequences... the Admin offered me the PI position today...
he did it well, catching me in the medical records office in midstride with papers in hand doing six other things and asking me into his office... he offered, I thanked him... he set the price, I raised, he offered more, I came down a little, he played the position comes with higher raises, suggesting 5% card, I proposed three to six month re-evaluation and 20%, he suggested 10% and admitted he'd get questioned by corporate for going higher, I suggested that I may be worth answering some questions as I had more skills for the position than anyone has had in years, not to mention more experience, he agreed and played with a calculator and went up a little higher, I drew a line of satisfaction (explaining I would not be satisfied with anything below the line) and asked him to think about a compromise, he said he'd talk to corporate and see what he can do...
about an hour later I caught him offguard outside of the personal director's office and handed him four print-outs from monster dot com and other job sites with statistics and graphs of the average salary in Orlando, FL for the position... I expressed my admiration for his business skills in catching me in mid-stream earlier... he smiled, took the pages, glanced at the graphs and numbers... I pointed to one graph, noted it was the lowest of the four salary scales, and pointed out that out his offer was several standard deviations below the average for the area on that graph... he smiled and said he knows... I said I'd like to see him get the offer up to at least the 25% of average mark and within a year or two, closer to the average if he wanted to keep me, further reinforcing why I chose the line of satisfaction I chose... he smiled again and suggested we not talk about it in the hallway, assuring me he'd get back to me before the end of the week...
we'll see what he returns with... my guess is he'll return with a number a few thousand under my line of satisfaction at which point I'll negotiate for guaranteed re-evaltuation in three months and again in six months with minimum 10% increase at each point if I meet or exceed standards we can agree to... finally, I'll sign a contract for one year max and guaranteed not to look for other offers at other facilities until after his offer at my annual review...
the good news is I can pad the resume with more recent experience in a year or two and look around for more opportunities... and maybe get me a new computer from this millenium too...
not much else going on today... the Harry Potter movie was good and I'll ponder that another time...
he did it well, catching me in the medical records office in midstride with papers in hand doing six other things and asking me into his office... he offered, I thanked him... he set the price, I raised, he offered more, I came down a little, he played the position comes with higher raises, suggesting 5% card, I proposed three to six month re-evaluation and 20%, he suggested 10% and admitted he'd get questioned by corporate for going higher, I suggested that I may be worth answering some questions as I had more skills for the position than anyone has had in years, not to mention more experience, he agreed and played with a calculator and went up a little higher, I drew a line of satisfaction (explaining I would not be satisfied with anything below the line) and asked him to think about a compromise, he said he'd talk to corporate and see what he can do...
about an hour later I caught him offguard outside of the personal director's office and handed him four print-outs from monster dot com and other job sites with statistics and graphs of the average salary in Orlando, FL for the position... I expressed my admiration for his business skills in catching me in mid-stream earlier... he smiled, took the pages, glanced at the graphs and numbers... I pointed to one graph, noted it was the lowest of the four salary scales, and pointed out that out his offer was several standard deviations below the average for the area on that graph... he smiled and said he knows... I said I'd like to see him get the offer up to at least the 25% of average mark and within a year or two, closer to the average if he wanted to keep me, further reinforcing why I chose the line of satisfaction I chose... he smiled again and suggested we not talk about it in the hallway, assuring me he'd get back to me before the end of the week...
we'll see what he returns with... my guess is he'll return with a number a few thousand under my line of satisfaction at which point I'll negotiate for guaranteed re-evaltuation in three months and again in six months with minimum 10% increase at each point if I meet or exceed standards we can agree to... finally, I'll sign a contract for one year max and guaranteed not to look for other offers at other facilities until after his offer at my annual review...
the good news is I can pad the resume with more recent experience in a year or two and look around for more opportunities... and maybe get me a new computer from this millenium too...
not much else going on today... the Harry Potter movie was good and I'll ponder that another time...
Labels: briefish, corporate bull
posted by candoor at 11:59 PM
3 Comments:
Alas Candoor, the catch 22 in life
Time doing paid work and padding resume - versus time lost on higher salary.
It is said it is always easier to look for other work whilst IN work
relatively speaking that is,
it seems one is more in demand if one is already employed
of course if one is busy working all day and can't get time to search for other jobs or go to interviews, one is sort of trapped.
But hey life goes on, wherever we are, we may always get the feeling we should be somewhere else, but always best to check the parachute before jumping out of the plane
there's not much chance to make the checks when one is half way down to the hard ground below.
Man, Candoor, They should assign more value to you based on your negotiating skills alone - even though, I'm guessing, they would have absolutely nothing to do with the position. :)
Congrats to you, if this is what you want/need right now. They'll be lucky to have you - and I think they actually do realize that.
parachute?
oh yeah, I remember... for better or worse, I gave those away back in the 90s along with everything else... that's why I am working again, after all :}
it still feels good to be me cuz I enjoy the giving a whole lot more than the having and I think it's cuz I am happy caring no matter what ios going on around me (though sharing is still my favorite verb :)
ironically, that's probably why I remain alone (figure that one out and you get a secret smile :)
actually, negotiating skills are related in the sense that the PI (aka QA) person is very much the PR person and needs very much the same skills... selling new ideas for organization and systems internally to people who might be afraid of change... and selling confidence and trust to government auditors so they develop faith in the organization because that's what makes for a good audit (a mutual learning experience rather than an adversarial cat and mouse game)...
negotiating salary is probably as adversarial as I ever want to get again and that’s one of the reasons I consider leaving the deep south as people are not paid what they deserve anywhere below the Mason Dixie line (and cost of living is no longer a whole lot lower than every other place like it used to be... of course it’s still a lot less expensive here than in Cali and NYC, but then, isn’t everywhere?)...
if I take the position... my thoughts of leaving here for the west coast (which was being pondered for 2008) will most likely be placed on hold until... do I really want to put a long term time on it?... nope... not me... anything is possible and I’m not locking myself into anything for just money as long as I’m alone in the world...
all this pondering of possibilities is making me hungry :)
thanks for the words :)
Post a Comment
<< Home