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Not sure why the photo above is so small, but it is the link to the video on dtube.video!!!!!

Before I jump into this vlog, I'd like to give thanks to those who have been reading my blog and provided invaluable insight. As part of my ongoing STEEM project ideas, I wanted to take this crowdsourcing mentorship and compile it into a guide to help others in the same situation.

There are a few steemians who have been giving me great tips in the comments on my other blogs and I'd like to give a special thanks to those steemians and those IRL (In Real Life) mentors of mine. FYI, I will upvote everyone who provides meaningful and thoughtful comments as an incentive! The better your comments are, the higher the upvote will be.

Special thanks to the following users who inspired me

@stephanation
@kansuze
@emjoe
@therealwolf

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My Work Drama and Steemit.com

It isn't unknown to the Steemit community that I am undergoing a lot of work drama right now, and if you picked up on the title, the drama is going to continue for a bit longer, and I've tried to turn this into a bit of digital entertainment/learning experience for you guys. This in itself might be frowned upon by employers, but I think if we all kept quiet about this, then fair and equal pay will never be achieved.

I received mentorship by the community here and via my personal mentors. Together, I feel like I have the right game plan in place to succeed. I think my plan is honest to who I am as a person, and is reasonable, which means that there is a good chance that it can happen.

Here is a promise, if I can secure a stay on bonus. I'm going to invest it directly into STEEM and power it up.

Here is ANOTHER TWIST.

I am posting this BEFORE I negotiate for what I want. Instead, I'm presenting to steemians, the foundation for how I plan to negotiate my raise and then TEST IT, LIVE with my company. I won't reveal everything until my negotiations are over with my employer which is schedule for Tuesday, January 8th, 2017. Yes, you guys will witness me put my career on the line against the concepts that I LEARNED FROM YOU.

I've compiled them into 5 core areas below. You should take each concept and see how it applies to your situation and of course, feel free to comment below and I will see what I can do to help better your situation as well. Once I complete the negotiations, I'm going to tell you guys what happened, and then follow up with a 3rd post to let you guys know if they followed through or not.

Concept 1: "Your biggest strength is that you are willing to leave".

In situations where an employee wants more pay, the employee might think their skill is irreplaceable therefore they (the employee) hav the leverage. After trying to rationalize this, I realized that this statement is completely counterproductive to the goal.

For most people, their skills are, in most cases, replaceable. There is always someone who can do your job, probably better than you, it's just a matter of finding that employee, or creating that employee through training. If you quit on that basis, all you will do is force them to choose from those two possibilities. You will quickly be forgotten once you leave. So there is really no point in thinking you are the hottest thing since sliced bread.

So instead of believing you have an irreplaceable skillset as your leverage, think instead, that the strongest tool is your willingness to leave to pursue self growth. By changing to this thought pattern, you not only set yourself up for maximum success since you are willing to change your environment to a better situation, you are also telling your employer that you aren't here to collect a paycheck. You're here to work, and you want to be awarded appropriately for it. At the end of the day, if the negotiations don't go your way, you can always leave as you planned.

Concept 2: "You should never ask for above market rate without understanding the consequences"

People often think they can squeeze a lot of money out of their employer if they have the upper hand, but you have to be clear with your objective first. Certainly there are cases where bosses are pushovers and will give you what you demand. But in most cases, if you ask for more than market rate, they're going to wonder what they are really achieving by paying you more. Some of the issues that arises from having higher salary:

• Negotiating for a raise puts you under the radar with other employees and can create a negative competition in the workplace since you leverage your raise, and the other person "earned" it.

• Asking for higher than market rate salary also forces more responsibility on you. If you aren't ready for that, don't ask for it.

Instead, I think the best approach is to interview with other companies and compare apples to apples. How much is the other job willing to pay you? Is the work similar? Are they willing to promote you out of your current title? What about the work perks? Once you get a sense of what the grass is like on the other side, you can negotiate for a raise that correlates with the title promotion.

Concept 3: "Ask for a Stay-on bonus instead"

Instead of asking for a high raise, which compounds over time, ask for a one time bonus to keep you on board. Normally, this value should be slightly greater than, or equal to the sign on bonus that the other company is willing to pay you to leave your current job. If you don't have another job to compare to, then you can come up with your raise this way. BTW, it is important to interview every year to see how much you are worth.

Here is a simple way to determine how much your sign on bonus should be worth for typical professional skills:

Take all the OT hours you've worked during the last 12 months and multiply it by 1.5x your hourly rate That should you be your sign on bonus. For example, if you make $75,000 salary, your hourly wage is $36/hr. If you worked 300 OT hours in 2017, then you should ask for a sign on bonus of roughly $16,000 (or roughly 1200 STEEM after taxes at today's rates!). Of course, depending on the situation, you may ask for slightly more or less.

Concept 4: "Work for your Money"

If you don't get OT, then you should ask for OT as part of your raise. This tactic should be used to offset some of the immediate money that you want. I don't understand this one myself, but many companies are unwilling to pay professionals OT pay.

If you ask your boss directly, they will never tell you openly that they want you to work for free, but they often say it helps with promotions and raises. While this might be true, we have to take into consideration our time value.

For example, if you worked 200 OT hours in a year, and you could have earned $10,000 for that extra work, you have to compare that extra wages to your own personal time value, which should be tiered based on your income.

If you just barely cover expenses such as rent, food and transportation, then you an extra $15,000 is pretty sweet (don't forget you lose half of that to taxes in some states, NYC is about 48% once you combine federal, state and city plus entitlement programs such as social security and medicare). But if there is no amount of money in the world that will keep you from something such as watching your child grow up, or keep you away from the projects you love the most, then asking for OT isn't worth it, but I still think you should do it because you should be paid for those few hours you do work.

Aside from that OT pay is a sign that you are willing to work for your money. It is incentive to keep pressing on and it also shows them that you are serious.

Concept 5: " Negotiate for incentives"

If the company can do something thats is cheap, or free to them, they are more likely to give in to your request. One of these examples is "paid commute". The company does nothing but turn a blind eye to how you fill in your time sheet, there's simply an extra 2 or 3 hours added to your time sheet each day that doesn't get billed to a client. You would have to have substantial role in the company for them to give you this perk. I certainly do not think I deserve this perk, and there is no way I would ask for it.

Another example would be, paid lunch time. It is 1 hour each day, but over the long run it is equal to 5 hours of OT pay each week, for the whole year. Or it means you get to leave an hour earlier each day. Labor laws may prevent you from doing this depending on your location and profession, but it's a free perk since it's just an extra hour on your timesheet that your timesheet manager simply approves.

Last example, would be asking for something that benefits all employees. Instead of getting something that benefits you only, you are asking for something that everyone can enjoy collectively, such as a monthly happy hour thats paid for by the company in the name of company moral. Doing this also establishes leadership.

And the final and last concept, which I think is the MOST important of them all:

Concept ^: " You are in control of your own life"

At the end of the day, if you have no other job to go to, and your job is critical to company, but you aren't getting what you want to compensate for your hard work, realize that you are in control of your own life.

@kansuze said this best

"Sometimes we put additional pressure on ourselves and it is not only the employer doing it. Don't resent anyone, just change your approach."

This by itself is a game changer if you can accept it. In most cases, you were not forced to work the OT. No one put a gun to your head and said STAY AND WORK LATE. You are in control of your own life, and you can chose to no longer work OT and go home just like everyone else.

If the company doesn't wish to pay you the OT, and you chose to not participate, they will either fire you and find someone who does, or they will pay you OT for your extra work. All of the work related stresses in life are brought on to ourselves, by ourselves. The last person we want to disappoint is our own ego, not our supervisor, because I'm sure most of you guy's don't really care about your supervisors life one bit.

Conclusion

Using these concepts, I created a set of things that I want to negotiate for. I won't know if what I'm about to do is going to work or not, but I have rehearsed what I want to say, and have something for all of the possible scenarios. No matter the outcome, I feel like I win. If I don't get what I want at my current company, then I shouldn't be here. If I do, then it means that I have successfully gotten what I wanted. I'll update you guys soon!

Photo of the Day
Recent storm drops several inches of snow and single digit temperature on the mercury. The city was white out with 40+mph winds. I was still at work, but everything was nice and quiet!

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