The Savvy Life

Over the past few days I’ve read a few other blogs that have stated in their long lists of ways of improving financial situations that one of the ways of accomplishing this is to ask for a raise.  There are entire sites devoted to the methods in which a person can ask for a raise.

I’m intrigued about other people’s experiences with getting raises.

My company has a Byzantine bureaucracy built around reviews and tie pay raises to a complex formula that gives the appearance of impartiality but is still fundamentally arbitrary.  Requests for pay raises are easily dismissed  by referring the employee to the yearly review process and the standard 3-6% raise that this review process produces.

It seems to me that companies develop this process to protect themselves (and their budgets) from unexpected requests for pay raises.  This means, though, that if I poorly negotiated my initial salary, I am forever on a weak financial track with the company with no hope of ever catching up unless I get that rare opportunity for a promotion.

I do believe all rules can be broken.  I see it done often enough to know it is possibly, yet it is annoying to me that I am made to feel that the company I work for has intentionally created barriers to my getting paid what I am worth.

Do others feel this way?  How common is this methodology in other places of work?  Do you feel like your company is assisting you in financial success or hindering you?

I’m in the midst of writing a complicated post regarding money lessons I learned the hard way which has put me in a personal finance mindset.  When I saw 21 Money-Saving Sites from Around the Web, I felt a need to pass it along.  This entry from the Get Rich Slowly site contains such a wealth of resources it is almost shameful.

I haven’t written much about dating, relationships, and sex and there is a reason for that. I can’t say that I have a lot of great advice to offer in these areas and planned to collect the advice of others and present it here as a clearinghouse.

Dan Savage’s Savage Love Podcast has been the best source of information on all things sex – not necessarily all things dating and relationships, but definitely the best source of realistic information regarding sex.

In Dan Savage’s latest podcast Episode 64, dated 1/8/2008, he is helping a woman deal with her boyfriend’s porn collection when he makes the following pronouncement that made me pause. Sometimes it is hard to see the forest for the trees when you are in the thick of it.

The world is stacked against guys. Male sexuality, heterosexual male sexuality in particular – they get the raw end of the stick because male sexuality is pathologized. It’s not healthy, it’s not good to want to fuck a million people. It’s not healthy, it’s not good to want to look at pornography. Or want to not be monogamous. Guys are derided for having standard issue heterosexual male fantasies like a threeway with two girls. Guys can’t seem to catch a break. Guys are told that love is not wanting to sleep with someone else, when actually love is refraining from sleeping with someone else.

I can’t speak for women, I can’t speak for homosexual or bisexual men, but I can speak as a heterosexual male that I understand this statement so well. If a man wants to have sex more often than his partner, then there is something wrong with him. If a man doesn’t want to have sex as often as his partner, then there is something wrong with him. If a man wants to do something kinky, he is a pervert. If a man doesn’t want to indulge his partners fantasies, he is a prude.

Yes, I am certain that women also feel these constraints, yet women exploring their sexuality is generally encouraged by men. Men again are just considered perverts.

There isn’t much here other than a general recommendation of Dan Savage’s podcast for quality raw information about sex.