Sunday 9 October 2016

Catching Up: The Job

Hi! Remember me?

I have so much stuff to write about but never had the time (or made the time) to update. Now that the cold weather has arrived (we had a major snow storm this week: see photo of me on our back deck) and yard work is pretty much off my schedule (see photo of potatoes) I'm making more time to get back to writing.

October 6th: Almost at the top of my boots!
One of the piles of potatoes 

One of the first major things to happen was I got a full time maternity-leave position at my work! I was hired back in July and the term will be until December 2017. As soon as the job was posted I got a call from my manager (I was at home that day) letting me know and if I wanted more information to call the other manager as he was hoping I would apply. I had a conversation with him and officially put my name in for consideration. Now, this is a very familiar story for me so I didn't get my hopes up about the job but sure enough a few days after the posting closed I had an offer! Which I didn't take. Nope, instead I countered for more pay. Now let me tell you, this was my first time ever countering an employment offer before and I was SO nervous. I did my research though, had reasons to back up my offer, went into the meeting with a level head: and got my raise! Technically they came in lower than what I wanted (but I went in high & knowing what my tipping point was). Also they tried to tell me this new salary would start in 3 months after my 'training' period but I flat out told them "No". The manager filled that awkward empty silence with a "Okay, it'll start right away."

I told G later that night when I got home from work that I didn't even know who I was: confident, but relaxed and at ease. But he made me realize it's because I wasn't desperate for this job. Yeah, I wanted it - it's a step up from what I was doing before and in an entirely new department - but we put ourselves in a position where financially we don't need my income. I don't feel that stress anymore.

Not needing my new income for our budget is awesome because I'm able to throw 100% of it at our car debt! Car debt???? Oh... I'll explain that in the next post.

- M

1 comment:

  1. So proud of you for advocating for a higher wage at work. I have never had the chance to do that, being in the public sector. It must have been such a feeling of empowerment and validation. We were digging out here too, but a fair bit of melting happened yesterday afternoon, even though it was cool and windy.

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