Here's what I posted at Metafilter:
"My concern is that when I was hired I was a totally unknown quantity. I took a somewhat low pay offer because I was desperate and because I had preciously few references in the field. I was initially hired as a marketing grunt. I did a lot of background research for campaigns, wrote some copy, executed a few web campaigns etc etc. I also put in after-hours and weekend work at events. As time went on, I gradually evolved into the web guy after it was discovered that I knew more than a fair shake about coding on the web. That job eventually grew and grew to the point where I was running all of our social media ventures, coding PHP/SQL databases for odds and ends work, relaunching our website and, now, implementing a new e-commerce software platform while simultaneously integrating that platform with a new and expensive and complicated ERP-backend. And doing the design work for these. And, oh yeah, I'm still doing weekend/after-hours trade show work, still doing marketing grunt work. I feel like I have two jobs.
But whatever. It could be worse! The problem is that my pay (About 18k, after taxes) is no longer consummate with the work- both quantity and quality- that I'm doing and is very, very much not on par for New York City. My wife and I are used to be being broke, we make ends meet, but I'm in a position now to get a little bit more and I'm not sure how much to ask for.
First of all, my boss loves me. I'm always the first to volunteer for a goofy detail no one else wants (I once wore the mascot costume when our usual mascot fellow was a no-show), I have a generally upbeat spirit and I do good work. I'm 100% confident that a review of the work I've done will come up positive.
I'm also in a position where. To finish the ERP work, at the contracting company's rate, would probably cost $15-$25000. They're very expensive. Now, I'm not going to ask my boss for a 15,000 raise, as much as I might think I deserve it. But the usual 2-3% figure I keep seeing quoted seems incredibly tiny, useless and untenable. I'm already considering a second job- I might as well just get a new primary that pays better."
Poll
