

Has asking for a raise ever ruined your relationship with your employer? - dm03514

Has asking for a raise ever ruined your relationship with an employer?  I have a good job, generous benefits, stock options, lots of PTO.  I have 5 years experience in open source technologies.  I believe in the company I work for, its management team and its product.  That being said, many engineers have been leaving.  I have been at the company for 7 months and am happy, but it&#x27;s clear that right now they need senior developers and I&#x27;m not sure there could be a better time to ask for a raise.  If they denied me a raise I would stay there (dont tell them).  What I&#x27;m concerned about is the small???? chance that it ruins my relationship with my employer.  I have a newborn and my partner quit her job to stay at home.  I earn 80k and am Extremely grateful to have such a good job, but at the same time I believe with a small amount of work I could earn more.<p>I would feel like a complete idiot if I tried to capitalize on lack of ability to retain people at my current position.<p>Has anyone had negative experiences from asking for a raise??
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socceroos
It really depends on your employer. You need to understand a bit about how
your boss works and the current position he/she is in.

1\. Find out (loosely) if your employer can afford the raise you're looking
for. Nothing worse than putting your boss in a position where he/she can't
actually help you.

2\. _ALWAYS_ give your employer a 1 page document detailing why you're looking
for a raise. No need to talk about your cancerous dog, but certainly talk
about your achievements, your worth and your vision for yourself in a 'more
senior' position.

3\. Give a number you're looking for. Don't just ask for a raise or your
employer will give you maybe 2K more per year and you'll feel ripped off. And
then, if you complain then he/she will feel hurt.

4\. Be positive. Be truthful. Your employer wants to hear that you love your
job. Your employer wants to hear that you want to take on more responsibility.
They'll respond well to that.

I did this with my last employer and was able to secure a $25k raise. YMMV

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mtmail
$25k is a lot. Congrats!

I would add not to compare your salary to your co-workers (if you happen to
know their salary) when you talk to your boss. It can back-fire because you
steer the discussion to somebody else's salary which you have no idea about
past history or what other factors played into that.

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redmaverick
I read Ashlee Vance's "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic
Future" a while back. His personal assistant (for 12 years) Mary Beth Brown
asks Elon for a raise. He asks her to take a 2 week break so he can assess for
himself how difficult her job really was.

She was let go after the break.

~~~
hinkley
Generally I tell people if they feel undervalued, take a long vacation (at
least a week). People will either miss you terribly or you'll know where you
stand.

Just don't tell anyone that's why you're doing it if you don't want to be like
Mrs Brown.

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brudgers
There are people who can walk in, demand a raise and get what they want. I
know I ain't one of them. There are people who can play it close to the vest
and go home with someone else's shirt, boots, and wallet. Maybe that's you.

What is your company's policy on employee reviews?

Do they conduct them according to schedule?

Seeing as you've been there about six months, an informal review is the way to
gain information for when the formal review happens. Find out how your boss is
coping with turnover...maybe it's intentional, maybe not. Find out how he
perceives the motivations of the people who left. If it's framed as
disloyalty, that's a bad thing. If it's framed as natural progression, then
that suggests how much leverage you have in regard to framing compensation to
future growth. Negotiations are all about information.

Maybe your boss thinks you're underpaid but can't give you a raise until you
ask. Maybe your boss can only give raises at reviews and according to a
formula...that formality is actually good so long as the process is reasonably
fair (and if it's not reasonably fair then the formality isn't worse).

Even if you are the demand a raise and get it type, more information doesn't
hurt. But you can't demand unless you're ready to walk. Don't fool yourself
into believing that your boss hasn't already read the tells that you are happy
and unlikely to leave even without a raise.

Good luck. Good luck.

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jasonkester
Yeah, money ruins everything eventually.

My first true dev gig was for a really fun company. I was self taught at my
previous engineering job, and the Web was happening so I took a junior
position for $X/year.

Then I got better fast. Turns out I wasn't actually all that junior to start
with, but soon it was apparent that I was shipping things a lot faster than
anybody else on the team. After a good year of this I took a look around the
market and figured out where I would probably fit in it. I asked the company
to bring me up to $2X to get me closer to where I belonged.

They debated, scraped, and eventually found a way to offer me $1.3X. I was
gutted. This was a really fun job, with fun people. But they were not planning
to pay market rates, so in the end it was an easy decision.

I sent off a couple emails, and a week later accepted another really fun job,
with even more fun people, for a little more than $2X.

So yeah, a nice relationship soured because fun is fun but at the end of the
day, it's not worth leaving tens of thousands of dollars on the table for.
Especially when there's plenty of fun to be had elsewhere that doesn't ask you
to make that tradeoff.

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alain94040
I never got burned by asking for a raise. So do it. However, I recommend you
read the details of how to do it properly, I wrote about it here:
[https://medium.com/@colunchers/how-to-negotiate-a-
raise-9166...](https://medium.com/@colunchers/how-to-negotiate-a-
raise-9166c977645a)

The key is to honestly measure your market worth, and not threaten at all to
quit. If you can convince your boss that other companies would like to pay you
more, but you prefer your current company (which is what you say), then it's a
solid approach.

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coldtea
If it did, you didn't have any relationship to begin with.

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kelukelugames
Your company knows you had a baby and you are grateful. They take advantage of
it by paying you a non-competitive wage.

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jseeff
you have only been there 7 months. Unless you agreed, when joining, to review
salary after X months, I would probably avoid asking for a raise right now.
What I WOULD do, is ask for a chat with your boss or bosses and explain to
them: 1) you feel you have performed well and exceeded expectations by X, Y
and Z; 2) you know lots of people are leaving and you want to take on more
responsibility; 3) you know you have only been there 7 months; and 4) you want
them to think about giving you a significant raise in 5 months' time.

Then ask them for their thoughts and what you need to do in order to make that
happen.

It shows them you are committed, not trying to squeeze every penny just when
they are hurting because of departures and makes it VERY hard for them not to
give you a raise at the 1 year mark.

At that point if you don't get what you are looking for, you move away.

Good luck!

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dm03514
I would feel like a complete idiot if I tried to capitalize on lack of ability
to retain people at my current position AND it backfired

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bbcbasic
Go to some interviews. This will give you some idea of what you could get
elsewhere. If you get an offer that is more ammo, even if you don't decide to
disclose it will boost your confidence to ask for more.

Not sure how experienced you are but no matter how much you love your job it
is pretty much dog eat dog.

They wont hesitate to fire you if they need to downsize, even if they are
downsizing for the wrong reasons. Your good boss could be replaced with a bad
one, or the company as a whole decides to stack rank, or pressurize everyone
with too much work etc. Let alone they sell to another company, decide to
float, or whatever. This can happen in the future and change how much you love
this job.

So don't be scared to change jobs to get what you want, if you have to. The
grass may be greener, or less green. You can always change again.

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mcmenon
I would never ask for a raise unless I had an option I was willing to walk to.
Even if you're happy at your current job go talk to other companies and see
what's out there. This will better inform you what you're worth as well.

