Wednesday, September 05, 2007

September Goals

And some goals for September:

1. Continue to carefully monitor medical reimbursements.
I called today to inquire as to the status of a claim that I had to resubmit and was told that I need to wait at least another week before they're outside the 30-day timeline. I found this surprising because my previous claim was processed quite quickly. I also submitted a new round of bills (the ones I paid out of the Freedom Fund) for reimbursement, and will need to make sure that those come through.

2. Add $200 to the Freedom Fund.
That's $100 above my autodrafts.

3. Discuss a raise with my bosses
My annual review is coming up in a week or so. At that time, I plan to inquire as to the direction of the sub-department I work with and mention the fact that I'm doing work well above and beyond my job description.

4. Begin setting some money aside for fall clothing
I'm definitely going to need a few new things, so my clothing allotment isn't going to be able to go to the Freedom Fund for awhile.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've heard that it's usually best to bring up the raise in advance of the review. By the time of the review, often the raise has already been set. You should bring it up anyway at the review, but something to think about for next time.

Anonymous said...

I second anonymous.

Good luck!

Anonymous said...

Getting a raise is very tricky. You really need to plan thoroughly for this. The best way to do it:

1. Earlier in the budget year is better than later, b/c, well, there's more money early in the cycle for things like salary increases.

2. Try not to make it a contest or showdown b/t you and your manager. I did this by telling my manager that I highly valued my working relationship with him, and didn't want a salary debate to change that, and so therefore I was going to take it up with HR and get him out of the middle (HR approves all salary increases anyway).

3. I thoroughly studied my current market price (i.e. what my job is worth on the open market), and compared it to my then-salary. I had a concrete dollar value for what increase I would need to put my in the top 25%.

4. I began preparing to leave the company in the event that they did not meet my minimum acceptable increase. I.e., I was bargaining from a position of strength.

5. Never indicate that you are even contemplating leaving your job b/c of salary issues. Doing so will get you fired or put on the short-list for the next downsizing.

6. If you can find out what others in your company are making, that's a huge advantage. I found out that I was making much less than others who were much lower contributers than me.

At that point, I knew where I stood, and it was just a matter of properly handling the delicate communications and hoping that the budget existed for the change.

What happened? I got fired. JUST KIDDING. I got a hefty raise and my manager pushed it through. He appreciated that I didn't want to get him in the middle, but said that delivering the raise was "his job". Good luck!