About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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April 30, 2012
Paranoid Asteroid sat on the interviewing panel for her coworker’s replacement and noted some of the same things. One of her examples that I didn’t note:
My “favorite” applicant so far has been the one who emailed D, saying, “I don’t know much about [our company, our business, and our project], but I figured I’d throw my hat into the ring.”
That’s another thing I found incredibly annoying from the perspective of having to sift through multiple resumes and applicants who really aren’t serious about the job. And those who are internally thinking that but don’t show it until they hit the interviewing room and waste all that time.
Thanks to Savvy Working Gal for a lovely bird’s eye view and breakdown of my recent promotion and the things I did to achieve it in How to Get a Promotion? She includes some great links for further reading.
eemusings asks what your job means, and suggests how to get your mojo back if you’ve felt off your game lately. No kidding, I’ve had more of those then not but frankly, I’ve just done a halfway decent job of hiding it except from the person I needed support from. That person just happened to see through my facade really easily.
April 25, 2012
Read Part I: Career Life: Securing the battlements for a promotion here
The wait would have been excruciating after Round 1 if I hadn’t firmly [very firmly] decided: I’d done my best with each interviewer (even if it wasn’t the best I could possibly do ever), I had advocates, and my best opportunity to prove that I was the right person for the job would be to continue to do my job well.
Besides, I was stressed enough with having to do my job, take care of my family and a million other things. I simply added a couple new interesting projects to my plate as backup plan hatchlings in case I didn’t land it, and moved along with life.
Stage 4: Getting the offer
It was a bit of a surprise, given several weeks’ wait, that rather than another round of interviews, the panel had decided in my favor.
Obviously, I was quite happy to hear I’d won. … erm, gotten the job, but then I had to receive the offer. I was verbally informed of the terms with the usual caveat that “there isn’t movement” in the offer and that HR would be following up with the formal letter soon.
Of course I mentally scoffed at the caution that there wouldn’t be movement – there would jolly well BE movement.
Stage 5: Negotiating the offer
I had my baseline number that would make me happy in mind. I already knew that the offer had come in below that number. So? I did my research to confirm how I could couch my counter-ask.
My advantage (and disadvantage) were the same: as an internal candidate, I was getting a standard offer. That’s just what they do. Nothing extraordinary to entice me from wherever I was coming from, and nothing more than they “had” to give me from one grade to the next.
That meant I knew exactly what the offer formula was and could point out in my Ask that the standard was actually not in keeping with the situation. As the selected candidate, I was confident that they knew my work was well above standard and I’d been held up as the star performer and best hire in my boss’s history of hires during my tenure more than once. I had excellent history and having beaten out candidates with 20+ years of management experience, I felt that reminding them that my salary should reflect that confidence wouldn’t be out of line.
Having built my team out of the ashes I was given, and made it one of the strongest and happiest teams in the most challenged section of the organization, alongside a few other serious accomplishments, I pointed out:
A) My track record in our rather unique culture was a given. My past history was laid out in front of them and a clear indicator of my future performance.
B) I’d already taken a paycut to come to this company and had made my investment of time and energy and commitment; I’d further dedicated myself to the next stages of growth but while my intent to stay and make a career at the organization was steadfast, I have my own life to consider.
I was asking the organization to come back to the table with support in the form of a commensurate salary that allows me to continue to make the choice to stay on with them long term. (Note: no threats, just the observation that we need to grow in our careers and salary is an integral part of that growth – and staying stagnant in salary and career was not something I signed up for, I made that very clear from the get-go in the interviews.)
My negotiating point of contact asked me what I wanted: I gave her a number substantially higher than my baseline happy number. My negotiator to take my Ask and to negotiate for a 6 month review if they couldn’t meet my number. The accelerated review cycle was my next negotiating point so that was perfect.
Stage 6: Round Two, Negotiations
I didn’t get my higher number, but I got my baseline. Then I asked for one more item that would have been useful to me in quality of life: increased vacation time. This isn’t an area that’s normally negotiable but as usual: you don’t get what you don’t ask for. I also didn’t get what I did ask for but no harm, no foul. The reason given wasn’t really a good or a bad reason. I’ll ask again later when the water’s warm.
Stage 7: Closing Statements
In the end, I got the money and the title with the job that I was mainly already doing. With a few rounds of mockery and a laugh, we signed the paperwork.
Observations: It wasn’t a fun process but both parties were satisfied with the results and there wasn’t any animosity. I’m set for the next year: to build up the strongest, most productive team we’ve ever had with the highest retention rates we’ve ever had and with the most ambitious team goals ever set so far. That’s not going to be anything like easy but I didn’t get this job or this raise because I set low bars to achieve.
And perusing SavvyWorkingGal’s post on women in the workforce and job disillusionment reminded me of something. Someone once said to me, “They won’t let women get anywhere near power in this place.” I’d laughed and said something random to deflect but I very carefully filed that away. We have women directors aplenty, strong and outspoken, bright and introverted, if you have the eyes to see it. Never let anyone, male or female, faux-befriend and trick you into thinking that the patriarchy is the reason you can’t grow and achieve. They may actually be the ones hoping to keep you down.
Do great work. Enjoy what you do. Support good people. Find allies who love what they do. Mentor people who need mentoring and want to love what they do. Ask for mentoring from people who have integrity, strength, humor and sway. Find your joy and to quote my favorite bus driver: “don’t let nobody take it away.” It all adds up to something substantial.
April 24, 2012
As you may know, I was promoted this year.
It was a long road in getting there, and I thought I’d share some of the process.
Even though I had the advantage of knowing the job description when it went live, it was never a given that the job was mine. This was serious business. Sure, I could learn from someone else. But this was my team. And I wasn’t prepared to let someone else be my boss, other than Boss.
I considered this a strategic battle and I prepared as such.
Stage One: Signal of Intent
Once the job was created, my mind was ticking. There was never a moment to just sit back and think about it so I kept the back of my mind in high-analysis mode for weeks about what I had to shore up before the interview.
Then, of course, I went over my resume about ten more times before I was satisfied, and started crafting a cover letter.
I hate writing cover letters.
One of the benefits of my job for this situation has been hiring and hiring a lot. I’ve read well over a thousand resumes and cover letters, and helped other people with theirs. It didn’t make writing mine easy, critiquing is always easier because of the mental distance, but it was easier. Once completed, rewritten, burnished, and rewritten again, I asked the favor of the eyes of a few respected expert resume and cover letter readers for feedback. *Interestingly enough, I wasn’t comfortable submitting my cover and resume until I had already started working my way through some of the areas I knew were weaknesses or lacking. There had to be truth in advertising as an internal candidate.
Stage Two: We Have Contact – The Interview
It was unfortunate timing that the process coincided with my Mom’s passing. My Powerpoint was half done and largely unpolished, my plan was still putty and I had to pull it all together while trying to stay on top of work. Jobs may be easier to get when you have one but the process is pretty painful.
Still. Eye on the ball: my team. (I’m not possessive, oh no.)
Once the interviews were scheduled, the panel was set. I knew who my audience would be and what perspectives/departments/concerns might be represented in our conversations. From there, I tailored my presentation.
Honestly, despite carefully dressing (totally out of character for our culture, predictably earning me a few jibes), an excellent Powerpoint tailored to be inserted into each conversation with individuals rather than having them each sit through the same thing, I felt that my performance was inconsistent.
I was not in my best form that day (or any other day that month – holidays, new life, without Mom were basically hell). The most important person to sway on the panel was very insistent to sticking to a script and after a full day swapping gears between work and interviews, I simply didn’t keep framing the conversation as I should have.
It took about four days before I got past post-interview jitters and unnecessary recapping.
Stage Three: Immersion and Negotiations (pre and post offer)
Post-interview, I immediately immersed myself in salary negotiation and interview technique writings and videos. It didn’t matter if I wasn’t at that stage yet. I was still, in essence, at that stage. I needed to be in the right mindset. It was the next best thing to practice and to achieve a sense of control and calm.
As well, without practice, all of the following would feel impossible. It would feel “easier said than done.” I simply couldn’t leave anything to chance or hope, so analysis, strategic planning and more planning it was!
The interesting thing about negotiating with this particular organization and the people involved is that while they certainly don’t make it seem like the job itself will be rescinded simply for the asking, they have been less that open to negotiating itself. Or that initiating and continuing the process for more than a weak gesture means you’re “hard-nosed.” Nossiree. Know what I know?
This is business.
“When people with hiring authority think of winners, they think of people like them who live and breathe this business thing. They negotiate things as a matter of course: that is a major portion of the value they bring to the company. Volunteering a number when asked says the same thing to people with hiring authority that flunking FizzBuzz says to an engineer: this person may be a wonderful snowflake in other regards, but on the thing I care about, they’re catastrophically incompetent. It will also cause them to retroactively question competencies they’d previously credited you with.” Patrick of Kalzumeus, in his 7000 words on Salary Negotiations
My mindset: I represent my business interests in this negotiation and those interests are my life, my ability to make choices, my freedom. This is my family I’m negotiating for.
And if that isn’t enough, I absolutely acknowledge that as a woman, as a minority(somewhat, this is a slightly wibbly wobbly factor), and as a relatively young person, I apparently have the cards stacked against me, not to mention the dismissive attitudes that don’t come right out and say: it’s not that your work doesn’t merit the higher salary, but you’re just sort of too young so we don’t actually understand why you’re asking as you should be glad to have landed the job.
And to that I say: You’ve had the time and opportunity to observe extremely high quality, high powered work and know that I will bring even more value over the next period of time, and for that? Appropriate compensation is appropriate.
But at this point, it was a waiting game. I had been interviewed, other candidates would be interviewed, and a second round of interviews would commence for final candidates.
April 22, 2012
PiC scheduled me for a pain therapy massage last weekend. As usual, I felt like a completely spoilt brat every step of the way.
There’s this oddly named Chinese restaurant nearby that has an awesome lunch special that goes until mid-afternoon so my appointments can be obscenely late and still squeeze in a delicious cheap meal afterward. This time I had a solo lunch including my favorite bowl of hot and sour soup. It’s always almost too hot and too sour but juuust on this side of tolerable. Usually I steal PiC’s too so I had to settle for just the one bowl, and my own meal. 🙂
When I walked into the spa, one of the ladies at the front desk greeted me by name, asking if I’d gotten her message that my requested masseuse could see me. It took me completely aback, startled that she recognized me. She just laughed and waved me through. Snuggled into my warm, freshly laundered robe and slippers, I had a drink of fruity water and an unnecessary brownie.
My favorite therapist checked with me about what I needed this visit and we settled in. As always, she asked after my comfort level with the pressure some time into the massage even though it wasn’t necessary – she’s always spot on whenever I let her know what to do from the beginning and she still always checks. After our appointment, I felt as close to pain-free as I have felt in years. Amazing. It lasted about 6 hours but it was still absolutely lovely.
Posts for Perusal
SingleMa mostly unraveled IRA contributions for High Income Earners. I hadn’t even touched IRA contributions this year because I had no clue what PiC and my combined MAGI would be. Heck, at this point I still don’t know. *shakes fist* Complications!
Ella describes Maternity Leave in Norway. It was a big surprise though, made me really sad as I responded with what we have in the US. Wow. We … we suck. Yet another reason I’m having some trouble imagining motherhood. I don’t think I want to stay home a year, to be honest, but to go back in six weeks if I were to bear a child also feels rather too short.
Nicole and Maggie asked what I’d been asking myself quietly: what would you do if you didn’t have to have a job?
Interesting. I’ve been secretly griping of late, overwhelmed with waves of fatigue and pain that feel unstoppable and so tempted to just … stop. And I wondered, what if I could? What if I found myself somehow able to not need to work? What would I do with myself? Eat, sleep, cook. Play with the dog, play on the internet, work on the internet. Probably actually manage to write like I mean to several times a week but never have time to. I’d need to find more animals to play with, groom, do something helpful with. But then I would get bored and want something more. Or maybe I would start healing and getting better. Who knows. Or bored. In which case…
Travel, yes. Friend time, yes. More of what I was doing during that unemployment stint minus the fretting about being unemployed and trying to find a new job. Gardening because I wouldn’t be taking this time unless we’d gotten out of this place and into a place with a yard so Doggle could roam and I could garden. All in all, things productive. Plus some elusive project that would likely generate income because we all know I have a complex about not being income positive. What would that be? What would you do?
Donna’s revelation about her war with her body is strikingly similar to how I’m feeling right now. Hence the massage that I wasn’t bright enough to schedule for myself.
A recipe
@clareyt led me to her bestie’s site Whit’s Amuse Bouche which had the most mouthwatering chicken and dumpling recipe I’ve ever seen. Sadly, my hands were simply not up to manually making the dumplings and we don’t have even the most basic of kitchen implements any self-respecting cook should have so I had to figure some alterations that would preserve the deliciousness.
Chicken N’ Potato Stew
(6 servings)
Ingredients:
1 roasted chicken, shredded
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
1 onion, diced
1 large carrot, diced
2 celery ribs, diced
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
5 cups chicken stock
1 cup heavy cream
3 small potatoes, diced
Directions:
To start, shred your roasted chicken, and set the meat aside. (I did this last.)
Melt the butter and add the flour, cooking for about 2 minutes to create the roux. Slowly add the chicken stock, constantly whisking to avoid lumps. Add the carrots, celery and onion, and simmer for 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the heavy cream, and bring to a simmer.
Add diced potatoes to the pot, place the lid over the pot and gently simmer for 20 minutes while shredding roasted chicken. Add the chicken, and cook for 5 more minutes.
April 16, 2012
We’d recently taken a much needed break to spend a few days with friends and a week without in Hawaii for our delayed honeymoon. I didn’t realize how very much we needed it but we were frazzled and dipped in less than happy sauce by the time we got on the plane.
I’d been stressing over financing the trip with points or miles for months, but honestly when it came right down to it, the effort of what used to be easy-breezy personal finance was just a burden on my overtaxed attention meter. I just couldn’t do it so we booked the flights, lucking into a sale, and put it on our card that we’ve been concentrating on building points for. It was expensive.
Transportation alone cost:
$550 for rental cars
$2300 for airfare
= Total, $2850
I thought we’d see some real savings not going to Australia…. whoo, boy. Not so much. And the food, oh my gosh the food. It was one, fannntastic. But two? Oh wow. I actually stopped keeping mental tabs on the spending because I needed to be able to enjoy the trip. After all, spending quality time together and stuffing our faces were the primary reasons we went! Boy, did we. Stuff our faces, I mean.
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| The requisite umbrella drinks on our first night in town! |
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| The most amazing bouillabaise I’ve ever seen – or eaten. That bread was a foot long, btw. That’s a lobster tail you see there. Next to the largest prawn I’ve ever consumed. Next to the best crab legs. Ever. |
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| Plate Lunches! A loco moco for her. Fried fish, chicken and pork with fries for him. |
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| Luau appetizers. Pineapple, poi chips, sashimi. |
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| Lunch at Leoda’s. Leave your heart (and most of your cash). Absolutely delicious. Definitely pricey but oh, so good. |
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| No vacation would be complete if I didn’t find a stray to pet! |
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| The famous Black Sand Beach – the sands were amazing. There is a big layer of black rocks; then really grainy sand. |
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| Yet another gorgeous beach on the road to Hana |
Sadly, I spent most of the trip down with a virus, apparently I’d been pre-infected or something so we were forced to keep our activities to a minimum. Bummer. It was still beautiful and the food was amazing but I’d really like to call a Calvin-and-Hobbesian do-over!
An interesting thing about Maui, I noticed, was the assortment of resorts and timeshares populating the coast. We meandered through a few of the semi-local areas on our own looking for more hole in the wall, less-touristy places to eat but pretty much everything catered to tourists if you were a reasonable distance from the coast. A local real estate office posted the listings for the timeshares currently available in its windows and of course I had to run over and look. It was incredible how much they were going for.
The place we stayed at simply wasn’t a luxury location or business, which was fine considering we only booked several months out so the booking agency couldn’t get us into anything nicer, but I couldn’t believe they’d sell at nearly the same pre-owned rates as the Westin or the Hyatt down the road. I guarantee you that the quality had to be much better at the places down the way. Our concierge had the gall to tell us our trip “wasn’t a honeymoon if the wedding was 5 months ago.” There’s some service for you. While I’m not overly precious about the trip myself, that was downright rude. If a guest was sensitive about it which frankly, given the fact that had we tried to honeymoon after our wedding and cancelled because of my mom’s death, I would have been … well, lucky for him, I was in vacation mode and my claws had been left at home. I’m just shaking my head over his need to go out of his way to be rude rather than just shrug and move on.
PiC and I had a fun debate over the cost of a timeshare and real estate in Maui. A driving tour guide told us that one piece of land (2 acres) plus a house was going for what seemed like a reasonable amount compared to the Bay Area: $400,000. You simply can’t get that kind of property here and I’ll admit to a moment of sheer insanity – what if we got a second home in Hawaii!?
……
Yes, ok. I had vacation brain. Right, we don’t even have a first house.
Plus, the cost of eating there had nearly given me a heart attack. I abandoned PiC in one grocery store because I’d nearly frozen to death while he ooohed and aaahhhed over the prices like we were in a zoo admiring otters do backflips. With cereal costing anywhere between $7-9/box, milk running $8/gallon, fruit $2/piece and up, it was hard to blame him but I didn’t go to Hawaii to become a Popsicle in their refrigerated section.
Anyway, housing – COLA was incredible. And while property tax was purportedly very low according to a couple of friends, cost of living for everything else remained skyhigh. Gas prices are actually higher than in the Bay Area by 10%. So no, a second home is everything firmly on the side of insane. It was funny to dream for a minute though. I just got suckered in by the idea.
Our two budget-busters were the luau and the really nice dinner in Paia. Luaus are, no kidding, pricey as all get out. We definitely ate way too much. And our friends recommended a fantastic seafood restaurant so I saved all my seafoody wishes for that restaurant and ate until I could hold no more. It’s embarrassing how much that food cost, actually, I couldn’t believe that it could run so much. But, as our dear friend who sent us to this timeshare texted us, “you only have a first honeymoon once!”
Yes, I burst out laughing. No, I didn’t text her back: “first?” That text is my justification for a do-over. 😉
It was a lovely trip. I had to let my hair down and in fact, let it wave free because I forgot my hairbrush. PiC had no qualms about being seen with me in public like that. He’s always been good about embracing messy-mussy-me. We had fun. It was a little bittersweet, remembering why we are still doing it out of order and still haven’t celebrated with family and friends. But it was good, reconnecting, rediscovering the world, and doing really really stupid things together like eating so much pork at a luau that neither of you can walk without pain. We deserved each other that night, and probably always.
April 13, 2012
TeacHer Finance’s attempts to find her frugal again had me laughing over my similar attempts to find my own sanity, financial and otherwise.
I was just chastising myself the other night for craving some really lovely luggage as shared by Feather Factor here. That was after wanting to book a pricey Michelin star restaurant for a surprise for PiC. That plan was junked, btw, because it’s nearly impossible to get a reservation and he’d gone and bought himself concert tickets. Then there were sales. Lots of sales. Ignore. Never mind the new dog bed. Rental cars, hotel rooms, more travel for other obligations.
Clearly my brain’d gone, just back from a trip (pictures to come) where the cost of living was astronomical, I think my impulse control on spending and being sensible had just gone kaput. As usual, this mouse was fed a cookie and, and, and ….!
Anyway, I talked myself off that particular tower when I remembered what kind of traveler I really am: prone to dropping/tripping over/leaning on/pushing over things, going into dirty dusty outdoorsy or urban places, business traveling or back-to-home traveling, not glamorous destination vacationy traveling. That’s not the sort of person who has gorgeous luggage! That’s the sort of person who stuffs up a duffel and a pack and rolls on out the door having forgotten two essential things. (Five, this last trip.)
Aspirationally I’d love to be that fabulously coiffed, trimmed traveler with the good shined up luggage, I mentally shop like Sarah (Paranoid Asteroid) but at the end of the day, we both know that, unless someone else is doing up my hair and scrubbing out the stains in my cargos that I just dumped PiC’s coffee all over, as you do before a five hour road trip, I’m not going anywhere as anyone’s pretty little lady.
Nor will I be any kind of a power careerist simply because I’m dressed to the nines. If I am. I’m doing well just to be not-terribly-mismatched during the work week but as that in itself is a chore, I often find myself reverting to trying to buy a sense of style and fashion through the insights of the petite fashion bloggers.
Admittedly, I might succumb to a sale this weekend for a staple piece or two but the best part of valor may really be to shut off the valve of spending entirely and not even try this halfhearted resistance. We all know it barely works on me.
Besides, I have bigger things to save for, like Comic-Con!
April 7, 2012
As our feet feel like they’re just touching the ground, we’re back off to the races!
We have a brief day and a half trip planned to visit family for Easter which, though we’ve known about it, we’ve had no time to get the prep done ahead of time requires: a car wash, a dog wash, a dog’s laundry washing, a cooler packed and meals made ahead all in the span of 3 hours this morning. Also, still need to buy hosting beer for the friends who are kindly offering us a room so we don’t have to stay at a hotel.
While I love the idea of catching up with a friend I’ve not seen in 4 years (but we didn’t know each other that well) our husbands have never met so a tiny part of me wonders, is this a great idea? Perhaps paying 25,000 points and a $50 pet fee might have been worth the quiet and peace of mind at the end of a long road trip ….
We need a gift to send back to SoCal with PiC next weekend for our really good friends so that has to be done now.
I have to send a set of books back to SoCal to another friend, so just remembering that I need to pack that now to see if I can’t send it back with Easter family to get it all the way back home. Spare PiC the extra baggage next weekend.
A friend’s wedding is at the end of the month: we missed the booking date for the blocked room rates so I had to get online to see what the extra cost was. Found that the “savings” weren’t, really. Booked using points instead as it fortuitously turned out that there were rewards rooms available. We’ve been bleeding cash of late. This helps.
Their gift: I spent two hours on the registry last night agape and aghast. Finally placed the order this morning as I was determined to check the gifting off the list. Found a combination of things that were reasonably good quality and still affordable without totally breaking our budget. Funded half of it with my Company Holiday Gift Card. Thank goodness for gift card hoarding and not using them on myself anymore. It should ship direct to them and arrive in advance of the wedding. (Two and three hundred dollar serving ware pieces? For students? I … don’t even know.)
It’s nice to get most everything out of the way but it feels like a whooosh of compressed air being let out all at once. LOT of pressure. Still, I will be grateful not to be worrying at the last minute about it, I know. This month (year/life) will only get busier as we go along.
And it’s going to be hot where we’re going this weekend. So very very excited to be warm. You have no idea how much I’m looking forward to that. I am jigging.
