My father was very high-achieving in business, so when he gave me the following piece of advice, it was truly unexpected. He told me, “if you can get away with only putting in maybe 85% and still get things done, maybe only give 85%.”
I expected some holier than thou “you must give it your all,” but he taught me to coast when I can do so and still meet expectations.
Still wasting your time tho… so the system wins whole you’re getting older
Get better hobbies. Career trajectory is far from everything.
The best hobbies don’t help, if you work 40+ hours and you’re too tired after work to do anything. Work 32 hours or less if you can (I know it’s a privilege) and enjoy life for the rest, cause it’s short.
This. This is exactly it. I could earn a bit more money working 40 hours, but I decided to do a 4 day work week with only 32 hours and my health has increased drastically.
What’s funny about this, is that I’m also a coder and I used a lot of my spare time and regained power to learn new tools, frameworks and programming languages outside of work. Ultimately, these will result in higher paid jobs. Can’t do that when you’re constantly tired.
And even while working less, you are still working more than said boss
Get your rise by changing the company.
Every year baby
Better every 2-4 on average. Companies don’t like too fickle candidates. Except if you’re top of the créme.
I can go digging through my old research to find a citation, but for Western labour markets this has been proven to be true. Generally speaking who move between employers every few years generally earn more than people who remain at the same employer for long periods of time. This does not apply to individuals who occupy incredibly neich professions, like if fewer than 100 people total in an entire country are capable of doing that job.
This has become truer every year as benefits are cut (or costs raised), pensions are removed, and unions are eliminated.
Yearly “raises” barely (or sometimes don’t) cover increases in cost of living. Unless you’re getting something else out of it (such as experience), you’re better off switching companies (especially if you move positions and the company leverages you as a resource for that old position).
fight smarter, not harder.
🤮
I don’t know what you’re barfing about, but you should get that checked out by a doctor.
Last year I started working less for even more money. Another company wanted to poach me, so my boss had to make me an offer. Went down to a 32 hour work week with Fridays off while also getting a significant raise, so I stayed at the company. He didn’t like it, but there wasn’t much of a choice because we’re severely understaffed.
Let’s see if I can do this again this year. Not working less hours (32h is fine), but getting an even better offer.
Probably he might fire you after getting trained staffed. This is very old strategy. Hold onto a employee till a cheaper replacement. Enjoy while it last start searching for better company
This is definitely how the first CEO role was created.
Matter of fact, when you do get a raise you need to ask yourself if it’s truly a raise. Inflation decreases the purchasing power of your salary, so if you get a raise you might be getting what was your initial salary.
You did a fantastic job, blew all your metrics out of the park. You were herr 6/7 days a week for the whole year and did the work of 3 people. We couldnt be more proud of you. So I went to bat for you, really fought like hell, and managed to get your raise increased from 3% to 5&!!!
Inflation was 8+%
In Belgium we have mandatory wage increases to combat inflation.
Companies aren’t allowed to call them raises because that isn’t what they are.
Last year after Covid, we had an increase of 11-12%. Which was very nice.
Honestly this should be the norm everywhere.
All of a sudden all projects are much harder and require your utmost focus.
So you put on headphones and watch a show.
