When a “Win” Comes with a Cost

Regardless of the challenge or adversity, the one seed I’ve nurtured consistently since my early teens has been a strong work ethic. That, coupled with so many other leadership attributes I’ve learned in the years since, helped me navigate the near-foreclosure experience, the crazy lowball offer that still has me shaking my head more than fifteen years later, and the being ostracized for taking a stand on behalf a women who were being sexually harassed. This same work ethic served me well as I took on more and more in the human resources role I transitioned to after more than a decade of intense involvement in behavior-based safety.

I don’t share my guess as to his behavioral style blend as a criticism. He was actually a relatively nice guy. In fact, that was something I heard routinely from our team members after the limited interaction they had with him. All that said, most of his time was in meetings with the rest of the management team or with his door closed - hence my thoughts about his high C blend. He put a lot of hours into what appeared to be sifting through the details of so many things.

My new boss had worked in human resources for many years, he maintained a professional credential in the field, and he had completed an MBA (Master’s of Business Administration) - which I’ll circle back to soon. However, his responsibility in this new role was wildly different from anything he had done previously. Add that with his more Reserved approach and it’s no wonder he was happy to allow me to take the lead on the handbook revision, maintain what I had been doing with the “peer review” process, handle the majority of the internal job postings and interviews, and conduct nearly all of the interviews to hire external hourly new members (as well as a bunch of other things that were actually part of the job description when I moved into the position).

Make no mistake, I’m not complaining one bit. The experience I was gaining in such a short period of time was priceless. And while I was putting in far more hours than I had in years, I was being compensated for some of the time over and above the normal workweek; I was in a somewhat rare salaried, non-exempt role. 

In July 2013, my new boss and I sat down for my first formal performance review since he had joined the organization. We interacted daily and he frequently showed appreciation so I wasn’t surprised by the glowing feedback and specific detail he shared. The organization used a “9 Box” review metric at the time and I was one of two (out of 40) salaried employees who scored in the 9th box, which was the best possible. He finished the review by sharing that I would see a raise on my next pay statement but it would only be four percent; he said that’s all he had to work with. Cindy and I had worked our way out of the deep financial hole we had been in for so long and I was already earning a fair amount more than I ever had, largely tied to the overtime compensation; my base was actually the same as it had been in the hourly behavior-based safety role since I hadn’t completed a degree. Even then, I was at the bottom of the salaried pay scale. 

At that point, I was thankful for the opportunity and for all the exposure I was getting to things I wouldn’t have dealt with otherwise. When he mentioned the slight increase, I (somewhat) jokingly referenced Galatians 6:9 by sharing that I remember reading something to the effect of “As you sow, so shall you reap,” but didn’t recall seeing his name included. Only one of us found it amusing…

For the next year, I worked as hard as I knew how. My next annual performance review earned even higher marks, but that “win” came with a cost. We’ll dig into that more next. A harsh reality we’ll all face at some point is that even opportunities that look like forward momentum can still deliver bad situations, especially when compensation doesn’t match the leap in expectations. My challenge for you now is to think about a time where a “promotion” or opportunity felt like a step backward financially or emotionally. Reflect on your immediate emotion (even now) and one warning sign you might have missed at the time.

The Sting of a Pay Cut

In late July 2014, I received the best performance review in my career. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I deserved it. I had hired nearly 200 external candidates and filled at least a third as many internal positions, secured over $150 thousand dollars in grants to offset some of the training costs tied to filling so many positions (which was close to 3X my base salary, even with the whopping 4% increase I received the year prior), and kept all the other plates spinning that I was responsible for. My boss painted a wonderful picture of the promotion he was awarding me and mentioned that a pay increase would accompany it, an increase he said I had more than earned. Looking back, I probably should have asked for specifics.

I thanked him for the feedback and immediately went back to work. My short days at that point ran from 6a to 6:30p, and those were few and far between. It wasn’t at all uncommon for me to arrive by 5:30a and leave after 7:30p, often causing Cindy to call to see if I was okay. I rushed back to my desk after that review because every minute I was away from it felt like I was falling 10 minutes farther behind.

Since I was paid on the 15th and 30th of each month at that point, and since I neglected to get details as to what my pay adjustment would look like, I didn’t give it another thought until I checked my statement on August 15 - nearly 3 weeks after receiving the glowing remarks about my performance and hearing about the amazing promotion I had earned. The one thing I confirmed in the review was that the significant amount of hours I had been working would be taken into consideration when the salary adjustment was made; my boss assured me that I’d be taken care of. When I opened the statement, I immediately noticed that it was around $500 less than each previous period in the months leading up to that point. My boss had just arrived, he often stayed until well after 5p but rarely got in before 8a, so I caught him before he could shut his door and showed him the mistake. He took a quick look and told me that it was exactly what it was supposed to be; an increase on my base pay, the lowest possible base in the salaried pay bands. That said, it was now a salaried-exempt position with a set amount regardless of hours.

While I didn’t press for specifics during the review, I did ensure he had taken all the hours into consideration when he made the adjustment. He clearly had, but it wasn’t me he was looking out for when he did it. That promotion resulted in nearly a twenty-five percent cut in total compensation. I asked if that was indeed his MBA hanging in an eloquent frame on the wall behind him. He confirmed that it was and I was quick to suggest that he asked that institution for a refund because he clearly didn’t know anything about simple arithmetic. Like my comment over a year prior about his name not being in the Book where I read the part about “As you sow so shall you reap,” he saw no humor - and I gave ZERO shits. I pointed to the chair at my desk just across the hall and told him that someone else would need to fill it within the next six months.

I kept my nose to the grind during the months that followed, and we’ll walk through that next. Before that, though, consider a past pay cut or compensation disappointment you’ve experienced. What blind spot in how you valued your own contribution did it expose? My blind spot was trusting that my boss had anything other than his own best interests in mind. I hadn’t seen him go to bat for anyone else, but I worked for him directly so I thought it would be different. It wasn’t…

Building on Adverse Experiences

The “demotion promotion” stung for sure, but it wasn’t anywhere close to the challenges we dealt with over the four or five years leading up to that. We had nurtured the seeds from each and were on much more stable ground, financially and emotionally. Truth be told, fending off foreclosure, reeling for the jolt of the lowball offer, and navigating the toxic MLM situation provided experience many people would never gain - whether we recognized it as it unfolded or not. 

Individually, those experiences offered wisdom. Cumulatively, though, the impact was incredible. Surviving each, especially back-to-back-to-back, built a level of resilience that Cindy and I have cherished ever since. Our marriage grew stronger, we developed a clear picture for what true friendships really were (and what they were not), and we became more confident about all we brought to the table - personally and professionally. The pay cut definitely spilled into my home life, marriage, and self-image, mainly because it so closely followed each of the other crazy situations we had recently worked through. But this time I was far more prepared!

Make no mistake, the confidence wasn’t me believing I was better than I really was, or better than anyone else for that matter; it was the quiet revelation that I was more than prepared for this scenario where negotiating value was again a reality. In complete transparency, had things not unfolded exactly the way they had I may still be in that same role - and utterly miserable with every aspect of my professional life. This was just the push I needed to begin considering a move away from the company I had worked for my entire adult life.

I realize some of what I’ve shared could easily seem like bitterness. While that may have been what I felt immediately, it’s anything but that today. I’m forever grateful for the changes it spurred me to make and for the seeds of much great opportunities I’ve been able to find from what was actually a very minor adversity in the grand scheme of things. Before I could do that, though, I had to move past taking it personally. Bad professional situations don’t stay professional; owning any potential ripple effects prevents resentment and unlocks cooperative growth in every aspect of our lives.

The weeks and months that followed me telling my boss he should ask for a refund on his MBA were business as usual to the casual observer. My daily grind in the office looked like it had for the two years leading up to that point. But I was modeling the analogy of a duck on water: calmly floating on the surface while paddling like nobody’s business below the water line. We’ll dig into how the most definite decision I had made to that point in my career came during that time of uncertainty next. Right now, though, think of a career shift that affected more than just your professional life, spilling into your whole family situation. What did your contribution look like, good or bad? And what’s one lesson you’ve pulled from it that still serves you today?