Reflections on a Promotion and a Raise

If you’re a long-time read­er, you’ll be able to vouch that I don’t tend to stay in one place or one job for very long. Since 2014, I’ve worked for 4 com­pa­nies, held 6 posi­tions, and moved 10 times. I saw a friend this spring and she con­grat­u­lat­ed me on stay­ing with one job for over 2 years. While slight­ly rude, she was­n’t wrong. This job is the longest I’ve stayed in one job in my entire career (if you exclude the mil­i­tary, which I do since I was forced to stay in for 6 years). When all is said and done, I will have held this job for 2 years and 9 months.

A dif­fer­ent friend sug­gest­ed the rea­son I stayed for so long was due to all the upheaval and uncer­tain­ty in the oth­er facets of my life. While that was cer­tain­ly part of it, the peo­ple I worked with and the job duties were a much big­ger rea­son why I stayed. I gen­uine­ly enjoy being around the vast major­i­ty of my cowork­ers on a day-to-day basis. The respon­si­bil­i­ties of the posi­tion played well to my strengths and the chal­lenges posed kept me engaged. 

There were a few things that both­ered me about the job. And, now that I think about it, those things weren’t even real­ly about the job itself. I start­ed the job in Decem­ber of 2019 with a salary of $76,000. Cur­rent­ly, I make $80,400. An extra $4k in pay a year is noth­ing to sneeze at, and I’m grate­ful I got rais­es, but my salary was not keep­ing up with infla­tion. There was also absolute­ly zero room to nego­ti­ate for a high­er raise, which led to a lit­tle resentment. 

In addi­tion to pal­try rais­es each year, there was also no imme­di­ate career pro­gres­sion plan. I came in on one rung of the lad­der and there I would stay unless I took on a lot of work and proved my wor­thi­ness to move up in advance.

I knew I did­n’t want to leave the com­pa­ny this time. I’m not vest­ed in the 401(k) or pen­sion, and I think my com­pa­ny is a great employ­er that is doing very valu­able work in the US. I talked to a few dif­fer­ent peo­ple in my divi­sion about what I might do. Most of them were able to com­mis­er­ate with me but did­n’t real­ly have any advice to offer. One of the man­agers not only offered me some advice but told me about an upcom­ing open­ing on his team and encour­aged me to apply for it. 

So, I did. 

And I got the job! 

It was my first time inter­view­ing for an inter­nal posi­tion, so I did­n’t quite know what to expect. One of my friends at work is a senior man­ag­er, so they gave me the list of ques­tions com­mon­ly used in inter­nal inter­views, did a mock inter­view with me, and helped me hone my answers. I don’t think I would’ve been any­where near as pre­pared with­out that expe­ri­ence, so I’m incred­i­bly grate­ful they took time out of their busy sched­ule to help me when they did­n’t have to. I def­i­nite­ly owe them din­ner or drinks some­time to express my appreciation. 

There are a ton of things to look for­ward to with this new job! I’ll be going from the IT Sup­port world to the mys­te­ri­ous and com­pli­cat­ed world of IT Secu­ri­ty. My job will be to trav­el to clients in our dis­trict and eval­u­ate their IT envi­ron­ments for excess risks. So, I’ll get to trav­el to new places with­in the Mid­west, talk to new peo­ple about IT, and write reports. All things I like to do, and I’m good at doing all of those things!

The job list­ing stat­ed the posi­tion would be a lev­el 5 job, but can­di­dates with less expe­ri­ence or who were miss­ing qual­i­fi­ca­tions could be offered a low­er lev­el posi­tion. Since I don’t have much IT Secu­ri­ty expe­ri­ence and I don’t have a CISA or CISSP cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, I did­n’t qual­i­fy for the lev­el 5 posi­tion. How­ev­er, I do have a decade of IT expe­ri­ence and a less­er cer­ti­fi­ca­tion so they offered the posi­tion to me as a lev­el 4. I’m cur­rent­ly a lev­el 3, so this is a rung up the lad­der and pay scale for me. My cur­rent pay scale tops out at $113k while my new pay scale tops out at $152k. That’s a lot more room to move up! There is an estab­lished career pro­gres­sion path for this new job. If I pass the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion exam for the CISA and/or CISSP cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, I will move up into the lev­el 5 posi­tion which means my pay ceil­ing will be even higher!

I was expect­ing to try to nego­ti­ate with HR for a 10–15% raise for a salary over $90k. I was very pleas­ant­ly sur­prised to be offered $106,500 instead! I did­n’t expect to be earn­ing six fig­ures any­time soon, so I played it cool and imme­di­ate­ly gave my ver­bal accep­tance. I’ll have a few posts com­ing up on the new salary and the poten­tial for all the things I can do with an extra $26,500 a year in income when I get a few pay­checks under my belt and can wrap my brain around my new income lev­el. If any­one has any advice for high­er-income earn­ers, I’m all ears! 

Since I’ll be trav­el­ing part of the time, I’ll have a new sched­ule. Cur­rent­ly I’m in the office 2 days a week. My new job only requires me to be onsite 4 days a month! And, if I’m trav­el­ing to a client, those days count as onsite. It could be a while before I’m need­ed at the office, which is pre­cise­ly why I’m also los­ing my desk. Con­sid­er­ing I don’t need to keep mis­cel­la­neous IT equip­ment on hand for peo­ple at my desk any­more, I’m not too upset at los­ing a spot of my own when I’m rarely going to be there. It does mean I need to fig­ure out what to do with all my desk dec­o­ra­tions, though! When I’m on the road, I’ll be get­ting per diem to cov­er my food expens­es. It’s not going to be glam­orous busi­ness trav­el like you see in some jobs. I’ll usu­al­ly be dri­ving in the com­pa­ny car with my cowork­ers to the site de jour, which are more often than not small­er towns. This means we’re going to be stay­ing in basic hotels, not the Four Sea­sons, so I’m not sure how much I can take advan­tage of the trav­el with cred­it cards and mem­ber­ships. I’m a tiny bit con­cerned about trav­el­ing while gluten intol­er­ant, so I expect to trav­el with some food of my own in case I can’t find a safe restau­rant to eat at. Final­ly, we’ll be on a ⁹⁄₈₀ sched­ule. This means I’ll com­plete 80 hours of work in 9 work days instead of 10, so I’ll get every oth­er Fri­day off! I’m stoked at an extra 24 days off to do things like run errands and sched­ule doc­tor appoint­ments dur­ing the work day. And, of course, 3‑day week­ends are eas­i­er to get some trav­el in over the reg­u­lar short weekends. 

I’m grate­ful I live in such a won­der­ful build­ing that has such a strong com­mu­ni­ty in it. I would not be able to take on a job with trav­el require­ments and have a cat with­out hav­ing neigh­bors who are not only will­ing to look after Bartholomew, but are eager to do so. They love him just as much as I do, so I feel con­fi­dent about leav­ing my fur child in their com­pe­tent hands. 

There are so many things to look for­ward to with the new job! I’m stoked to get started! 

As always, thanks for read­ing! Please drop any advice for me in the com­ments on being a high-income earn­er if you have it!