The Rat Race is Linear

I recently received a promotion, the first big milestone since I started my engineering career. I've taken a different route than anyone else, which demands that I act much scrappier than my peers that took the traditional routes. I don't have the luxury of taking a poorly paying job to gain experience, or the patience of working on projects that aren't moving fast and making the world a better place. I work hard, I am passionate about making a large impact, and I know the value I provide.

I got a big amount, I took a different route, I am the pick of the litter
- 2 Chainz, Big Amount

Talking about compensation can be considered quite vulgar by most. It's just yucky to talk about in western civilization. But there are many situations in life where simply asking will yield incredible rewards. Your job is arguably the biggest pile of money that can get left on the table. Especially for larger salaries, a few percent could mean thousands of extra dollars per year to save, donate, or enrich your life with. The fully loaded cost to your employer to keep you around can be over double your salary! Think about what you could do with an extra $10k. Now, what is the company going to do with an extra $10k? To end my ramble, HR won't miss a few thousand dollars nearly as much as you'd think.

Ok I used to believe all of the above. I still do, but my promotion has given me some additional perspective that shakes things up. This is the second time in my career that I have negotiated an increased salary, just for it to get wiped away. I've never backwards, but I've had my lead completely eroded.

My first job out of college I was able to negotiate a pretty significant salary increase. It put me about 10% higher than colleagues that started the exact same day, with the exact same resumes (fresh out of college). I also negotiated a 12.5% sign on bonus which felt really good as well. However, a few months after starting the whole company received a massive cost of living bonus. I want to say it was close to 12% but my memory is fuzzy. Well, everyone got that large of an increase but me. I got a paltry 2%. They just set all the entry level engineers to the same compensation which meant that I was no longer ahead. In fact, since they just gave everyone a whole percentage, increase I was now slightly behind everyone else. I'm pretty certain they let me negotiate this high knowing it wouldn't matter after my first few paychecks anyways.

The same thing just happened with my recent promotion at my current job. My compensation was well ahead of other people in my position, so when the promotion bump came through mine was about half the size that it should have been. Turns out there isn't a percent difference in compensation between roles, they just reset your clock to what they calculate is the market rate for your role and you get that much now.

This is pretty frustrating to me and just feels like a stupid way to tarnish my relationship with my employer. There is a lot of trust that goes into picking an employer, and as is the case with trust, it's much harder to gain than it is to lose. I'm still far ahead of where I would be if I wasn't negotiating hard with potential employers but I hate to be taken advantage of once I lose my leverage.

This makes me think back to one of my favorite stock market quotes:

The stock market is like a yo-yo on an escalator.
- Unknown, Every Finance Textbook

Regardless of how hard you navigate the turbulence in the market, your best bet is to just ride the escalator to the top. Pressing hard to get more money is a short term gain, and eventually you will be corrected back to the index. The linear growth is certain and your results will compound. My hope is that as my career matures and I can break away and contribute in a much more impactful way. This will hopefully enable me to create my own path. Until then, I'll be lost in the rat race.