Basically, I think the bonus thing is a bad PR move. Just give people $300K salary, instead of $150K salary, $150K bonus.

I'm over here all "Guys, you FUCKED UP." If you expect to get it even when you run your company into the ground and need the Federal Government to bail you out that bonus isn't exactly a performance-based thing, is it?

Well, it's the "counts on tips" argument on a much larger scale. Not that I'm sympathetic when it comes to many banking salaries.

Personally, I think that the "I'm happy to have a job" attitude can be a bit self-defeating. I still better get a raise, if only because, if I don't, it essentially means my lame co-worker and I got the same raise. And that is unacceptable to me. If there is any sort-of company-wide crackdown, I still plan to negotiate for more vacation time at least.

Of course, since street sweepers in this city apparently make $20K more than me, I don't think I could do much worse salary-wise if I had to change jobs.

Timelies all!

I guess there is something to be said about being a federal employee. Fairly regular pay increases, even if the amount of the increase isn't that much, is something to be thankful for.

I'm currently making about $1000 more per year than I was six years ago. Grad student TAs here have no negotiating power at all.

Got an e-mail from my boss with the subject line "We all still have jobs." Her meeting was just about how to pass on the info about the raise pool, which she had already done.

Overheated koala.

I'm all caught up on Friday Night Lights.

Oh whoa. First of all, Matt broke my heart with the emancipated minor stuff. And Smash? Smash's mom made me all wobbly because she's so Corinne. I love how she just laid it out for him about what the obligations were. And as ever Coach and Principal Taylor. The For Sale signs? Yikes.

I somehow accidentally blocked megan walker-- how do I unbla=ock her?

At my uni, we have the 10% budget cuts and the hiring freeze and the no raises. And they have lowered the heat significantly-- which does not bother me at my day job, but the costume shop is freezing-- it was about 55 last night and I was wearing my clothes with a floor length all wool bathrobe over that and a cape over that!

They aren't actually freezing hiring at the School of Nursing because we are supposed to be increasing enrollments (doubling them) with two classes of nursing students instead of one per year. They did significatly cut the budget by firing my big boss (who made six figures). My old direct boss was fired by the bog boss and rehired by the school making significantly less (although she is now my boss again. And the right hand of old big boss, also making six figures left and was not replaced. But they also got rid of the associate dean's secretary who was doing a terrible job, but are re-hiring. She probably made around 25K.

I am never driving outside the city again.

Or drive out to Frederick. That's what I was doing when I had a close encounter with a deer at 70+mph. Honestly, had it hit, I figure I'd be in really bad shape, if alive.

I've seen deer in the park. And a bear in Owings Mills! Deer out there too. I always think they are weird dogs at first.

Pancreatic cancer sucks.

Work continues to try to kill me. Though one guy gave me some scripts that make my life so much easier. I want to bake him cookies or something. I've been TRYING to write the scripts for ages, but simply haven't had the time. At all.

I won't get any sort of raise if I don't do my damned appraisal. Which, given some weeks my weekly reports read "read your damned email" because I'm too busy to even make notes on what I worked on that week..... yeah. So tomorrow, even if I have to tell the gods to fuck off, I will.

I'm tired.

Well, more "it could be a hell of a lot worse" news from work--they just announced that this year's raise pool is lowered from 3% to 2%, and if anyone deserves more than 2% raise this year, they'll have to go through a lot of hoops to get it. This doesn't bother me at all, really, I'm just glad we've got jobs and they don't anticipate any further mass (meaning more than ten or so people) reductions at this point.

Count me in the "happy to have a job" group! Here, here!

I got my review yesterday. Got an "outstanding" on every single item, and my boss wrote two paragraphs praising my work.

However, company did not meet milestones, and the board voted for a 50% cut in planned bonuses. Also, instead of a 5% raise pool, it's 3%.

With all of that, I am still damned grateful to have a job I love. I had to give my staff the same news yesterday, and the attitude there was the same. In the last 3 weeks, 3 of my director or VP-level friends have been laid off (at varioud companies, including Cisco and Grey Advertising).

ETA: I did use my boss's declaration of "I'm sorry we can't do more for you, 'cause you're so valuable, etc" speech as a lovely way to negotiate standard working-from-home days! I thought that was awesome enough, but apparently she got on the horn to IT, too, because they just delivered me a 20" LCD monitor, a port replicator, a keyboard and a mouse for me to set up my home office. It's very bittersweet, since the reason we have them on-hand is the recent lay-offs. :(