Ramit – I agree with most of your post; and I know PBwiki is your small company example. But there are small companies out there, partner owned (like mine) that DO care about money a whole lot. Because dollars going to me take away from the partners at the end of the day. I think a key point in what you ask for is also to see if it’s a tax write off for your company, especially if you are smaller. Then, it’s not coming out of the partner’s pocket but actually helping them out. It’s all about ROI as Ramit said.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to find out what others make … outside of asking them (unethical), I’m not sure what else I could do.

I know I’m at the bottom half salary wise. I checked salary.com and for my role I’m about 10% less then the average base salary.

I followed the link to “Don’t Quit without Asking for What You Want’ and a fellow reader commented:

“Ramit. I’d love to hear you riff on salary negotiation. What’s the best way to play your cards when you don’t know what the dealer is holding?”

I’d like to second that reader’s request.

In my particular situation, I’ve been with the company six months and have concluded from others that the company is very ‘cheap’. When I was hired, I attempted to negotiate my pay, but was repeatedly shut down vis-à-vis the alleged “costs we’ll need to cover in order to educate you”. The company paid about $12K to “educate me”.

Once my review comes around, I want that $12K added on to my current pay and maybe even 4% raise on top of that. I can’t help but think this is unreasonable and unethical of me to ask for such a request.

I’ve taken appropriate initiative thus far. My boss and I went to lunch just last week to go over my thoughts on the workload, his expectations, etc. Everything was in check, but I felt that it was not appropriate to talk about salary six months after being hired.

I’d love to hear your two sense, but maybe this is a topic for a future post.

Keep up the great work.

-Erich

Despite the occasional frustrations, one of the biggest benefits of being at a large company is for all the reasons Ramit mentioned in this post. If you’re motivated and can sell your pitch, you really can do just about anything. In many cases, the path may already be cleared for you. The company I work for will pay for any degree you wish to pursue and the degree doesn’t even have to relate to your job.

As for borrowing money from the parents, I really hate doing this primarily because I try to keep money and family far apart from eachother. I might be forced to “pitch” them on helping me purchase a home, however, since the housing market in Southern California is so expensive right now.

- Josh