The Work Thread

Moggy wrote:

Rocsteady wrote:Presumably if she was hot having a call with her in the bath could have been a more pleasurable experience.

Only if you were in there with her or if it was a video call.

It'd be a very weird call if you were in there with her

Rocsteady wrote:

Moggy wrote:

Rocsteady wrote:Presumably if she was hot having a call with her in the bath could have been a more pleasurable experience.

Only if you were in there with her or if it was a video call.

It'd be a very weird call if you were in there with her

She wouldn’t know I was there. I’d be hiding. And watching.

Always watching.

Moggy wrote:

Rocsteady wrote:

Moggy wrote:

Rocsteady wrote:Presumably if she was hot having a call with her in the bath could have been a more pleasurable experience.

Only if you were in there with her or if it was a video call.

It'd be a very weird call if you were in there with her

She wouldn’t know I was there. I’d be hiding. And watching.

Always watching.

Hiding behind the duck and toy battle ship?

poshrule_uk wrote:

Moggy wrote:

Rocsteady wrote:

Moggy wrote:

Rocsteady wrote:Presumably if she was hot having a call with her in the bath could have been a more pleasurable experience.

Only if you were in there with her or if it was a video call.

It'd be a very weird call if you were in there with her

She wouldn’t know I was there. I’d be hiding. And watching.

Always watching.

Hiding behind the duck and toy battle ship?

Shush, I am not giving away my secrets.

Just looking for advice when it comes to negotiating a wage rise.

Im currently on secondment until December however in August they will be recruiting to replace members of the team based elsewhere that are being made redundant.

I've been ear marked for a permanent position for sometime now, my manager has said on a few occasions how I'm needed as I'm the second most experienced member of the team and I've only been doing the job since last Oct.

I feel that they need me more than I need the job as I'm currently on the same salary as my previous role as I'm on the very bottom of the pay scale for this job.

I want to use this to try negotiate a decent wage and know worst case they say no and I go back to my old job no worse off.

Any suggestions would be appreciated

Just re-jigged my CV and applied to another three jobs. Although I don't think it's much different, I think it is slightly improved so I feel a little more confident. I wish I'd done it sooner but I still don't think there was really anything wrong with it before. But hopefully it works this time.

My best advice is to ask for the wage rise. A lot of people think about asking for a raise but never actually get around to asking for it.

If the HR budget allocated to you is seen as a done thing then the money just goes somewhere else, nothing will happen unless you ask for it. Part of that is your attitude towards a raise and not necessarily whether one is available. No one is going to spend money unless they feel they need to. If someone seems perfectly happy with what they're being paid then the idea of offering a rise never enters the equation because it makes no financial sense to consider it.

It sounds simple but I really think many people's problems with being underpaid (and I come from a graduate background of not being paid at all, so I really worked my confidence up in this respect) are to do with ultimately never asking for what they want and holding their ground when they are lowballed, or not looking for better opportunities because of decisions based on fear.

The cost of rehiring and training is always higher than paying someone a few % more so the value based assessment is pretty basic. Like you say the worst you can get is a "no".

The only comparable situation for me at the moment is in sales pitches. This advice is sort of relevant, but somewhat reversed: https://doubleyourfreelancing.com/never ... ance-rate/

savvy clients managers, almost all of which were business owners, knew know that it can’t hurt to ask for a discount pay slightly less than they can afford to. And I totally get it. Let’s say you’re hiring someone to work on a 3-month project (480 hours) at $100 an hour. A $10 an hour discount saves $4,800 — not a bad return for taking a minute or so to ask a question expecting a candidate to never ask for more.

Almost everyone who asks for offers a lower salary will pay what you originally quoted actually wanted
Because I work — both directly and through osmosis — with literally thousands of freelancers, I can tell you it’s pretty rare to find a client who walks because they can’t score a last minute discount on a project.

If a is your salary and b is the budget (or portion of it), and c is the cost of hire
And if (b-a) <= c
The logical answer is probably yes to at least a % of the difference between a and b

Obviously this assumes you're objectively the best candidate so far, or have some other qualitative reason; this isn't going to work if someone is gooseberry fool at their job and just grinds through the day to day. It helps if time is a factor.

And expectations will be higher, so do a good job. And if you don't want to do a good job because you're not getting what you want or some other reason, be prepared to go down in flames - which is why if you ask for a raise, you should try to get as much as possible to make it worth your while. It's kind of an unwritten rule in all negotiation situations that you can't change the negotiation because you felt you got it wrong. That really pisses anyone with purchasing power off because it seems to take quite a lot of energy to make that original offer, regardless of what it is, and have to lock horns over it again.

Staydead - get a new job. Use your "friendly" boss as a reference.
If you aren't at least applying to see what is out there, you're an idiot.



Staff are literally the worst. Whatever you do, they still moan about it. You give them more money, give them less work, but they still bloody moan.
Saying that - my boss and myself were moaning today about his bosses boss and his bosses bosses boss. Big companies are the best.



Chiming in to the pay discussion GG is talking about - in my experience it is never as complex as you think. There isn't a magic number or formula, just managers trying to get a boring job done ASAP.
They get giving x amount to dish out as pay rises (all based on budgets... sometimes not even that), and they usually just do the typical 2-5% to people. Since people don't like demanding a payrise, you can stand out and demand a pay rise around the time of the pay review. Manager can then give everyone else 4% instead of 5%, and you 20% or whatever you wanted.

Else it is a pain in the ass, they need to create a new role "national bullshitter" as opposed to "regional bullshitter". Or have to talk to their boss about giving you, a greedy strawberry float, a pay rise.

I have never asked for a pay rise in 32 yrs of working! I normally move jobs and get a few grand increase each time instead. That’s where I find the negotiating easier. Saying that, my current employer where I’ve been for 3 yrs now grant everyone a 2% payrise each April. Plus we all get a 12-14% bonus each year

KingK wrote:I have never asked for a pay rise in 32 yrs of working! I normally move jobs and get a few grand increase each time instead. That’s where I find the negotiating easier. Saying that, my current employer where I’ve been for 3 yrs now grant everyone a 2% payrise each April. Plus we all get a 12-14% bonus each year

That was my strategy. Then my boss said "....like those people that jump job every few years, as they are too incompetent to climb the ladder".
Since he was now on to my strategy, I demanded a pay rise instead.


Not insinuating anything btw. He's wrong and a hypocrite (as he just jumped jobs - albeit after 3 to 5 years).
Jumping jobs is the best way to gain more money. You miss out if you don't do it (looking at people >5 years in a job). There is just a balance - you don't want to be jumping because you are gooseberry fool. You want to be jumping because you are good and in demand.

I’ve just been told by a colleague who works in a different department that he’s being deliberately marginalised in an effort to get him to resign. Not only that, but they basically admitted this to him. So strawberry floating bizarre. I’ll try to find the time to tell the whole story later but in the meantime has anyone had this situation at work?

Blue Eyes wrote:I’ve just been told by a colleague who works in a different department that he’s being deliberately marginalised in an effort to get him to resign. Not only that, but they basically admitted this to him. So strawberry floating bizarre. I’ll try to find the time to tell the whole story later but in the meantime has anyone had this situation at work?

Does he have them admitting that to him in writing?

Sounds like he'll have an excellent case for constructive dismissal. If you want to help him, encourage him to document everything.

Tomous wrote:

Blue Eyes wrote:I’ve just been told by a colleague who works in a different department that he’s being deliberately marginalised in an effort to get him to resign. Not only that, but they basically admitted this to him. So strawberry floating bizarre. I’ll try to find the time to tell the whole story later but in the meantime has anyone had this situation at work?

Does he have them admitting that to him in writing?

Sounds like he'll have an excellent case for constructive dismissal. If you want to help him, encourage him to document everything.

No. I have told him he should think about unionising but he plans to resign anyway and cases take months to go to court or whatever.

What they said to him was that two other colleagues who quit the job in recent months was "not organic". That sounds a lot like constructive dismissal to me! They had a change of manager, a temp, and she has driven two people out and he's the only one left.

I hate password protection for everything

I have about 12 passwords, for various different different and ridiculous things that i don't want to be doing. Different computers, different operating systems, gargh, what happened to the good old days of just one password to log onto your computer.

I dont mind passwords for everything, better than no security at all, what annoys me is when certain restrictions are impsoed on passwords, and other things impose different restrictions so I have to remember is this the one that needs a number, is this the one where I need a capital letter, is this the one where I cant use a capital letter? JUst let people pick any password they like and be done with it.

I use LastPass that is a browser plugin and and android app that lets me auto fill passwords for sites and app which means all my passwords are randomly generated and I don't need to remember them.

Rax wrote:I dont mind passwords for everything, better than no security at all, what annoys me is when certain restrictions are impsoed on passwords, and other things impose different restrictions so I have to remember is this the one that needs a number, is this the one where I need a capital letter, is this the one where I cant use a capital letter? JUst let people pick any password they like and be done with it.

I think that this is more my issue actually.

'Sorry your password cannot contain words'.

Curls wrote:

Rax wrote:I dont mind passwords for everything, better than no security at all, what annoys me is when certain restrictions are impsoed on passwords, and other things impose different restrictions so I have to remember is this the one that needs a number, is this the one where I need a capital letter, is this the one where I cant use a capital letter? JUst let people pick any password they like and be done with it.

I think that this is more my issue actually.

'Sorry your password cannot contain words'.

So swap a letter, e becomes 3 i becomes 1 or ! And o becomes 0

another +1 for LastPass; there are a few password managers around, they are a life-saver - try having a look on App Store/Google Play ''password managers''

<]:^D wrote:another +1 for LastPass; there are a few password managers around, they are a life-saver - try having a look on App Store/Google Play ''password managers''

From the ones I've used lastpass is the most reliable, the android auto fill service is awesome, if you use Firefox it's less awesome as it can't auto fill that and the plugin for Firefox android doesn't work but otherwise it is outstanding.