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Promise to Raise Your Expectations

Expect little and you'll be pleasantly surprised by whatever you get.

May 19, 2006
Amanda Long

If the promise had been playing Skee-Ball and eating pizza, I would have been thrilled. But when you're expecting Mickey and you get Chucky, you learn to lower the bar.

Throughout my career, I've always gone into my annual review without much expectation of a significant pay increase.

Whatever you gave me, I was happy to have it. Even if I knew I'd done a great job, I was just happy to get out of that awkward, number-saturated performance review.

I've never liked meetings, especially those with the potential for confrontation, never liked talking about myself, and I absolutely hate talking about money.

Isn't that just like a girl?

According to statistics, it sure is.

Working women earned 80 percent of men's median weekly earnings in 2005, up from nearly 63 percent in 1979, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A big reason women are not making as much money as men is that we're not asking for it. A few weeks ago, contributing columnist Rebecca Shambaugh cited several frustrating facts in her article:

  • 20 percent of adult women say they never negotiate at all. Women are also more pessimistic about how much is available when they do negotiate. They typically ask for and get less -- on average, 30 percent less -- than their male counterparts.
  • In a comparison of men and women from the same prestigious graduate program, men negotiated for an increase in their starting salaries by an average of 7.4 percent, or about $4,000.

What opened my eyes and dropped my jaw was this: When asked to pick the metaphor that most closely approximates negotiating, men picked "winning a ballgame," women picked "going to the dentist."

I'm not normally one to let others determine her fate, except when it comes to money.

Money has always been beyond my control. That's the lesson I learned at the malleable and mushy age of 6, when our financial situation shifted. I lost all my trust in the system ever working in my favor.

It's a defense mechanism that's served me well. In college, I overworked and overstudied, always ready for that financial aid and scholarship rug to get pulled out from under me.

In my 20s, it saved me many an anxious hour on the phone with friends trying to answer the "Do you think he'll call?" question. No, I did not think he'd call. If he did, yea for me. If he didn't, yea for me for being right.

Nothing promised, nothing broken.

In D.C., this defense shield gets a real workout.

Just consider the D.C. Council's lengthy game of pingpong with baseball. Keeping up with the play-by-play has exhausted fans to the point of skipping games.

And what about that commuter tax? It comes and goes as often as the mayor leaves town.

And do you really think the Orange Line will ever make it to Dulles? I'll be shopping in the western suburb of Charlottesville by the time Tysons gets a Metro stop.

This isn't the ranting of another cynical journalist. I promise I'll believe it when I see it. I don't doubt the intentions of the those doing the promising. I've just seen too many circumstances beyond one person's control get in the way.

People flub up. Fights happen. Traffic can suddenly become mind-boggling slow. Emotions can derail the best-laid plans.

But here's what I've learned. My salary is not beyond my control -- unless I relinquish it. I don't have to worry about someone else not coming through if I'm the one fighting for it.

And neither do you.