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Difficult choices

June 19th, 2024 at 05:12 pm

Found out why I got a raise so easily last time.  A couple of weeks after the raise, we were surprised with the news that we were acquired by a much larger company.  New company is part of the global fortune 500.  Since then I've been going mad with the M&A activities.  Their people do not know what sleep is!!!!  Holy moly.

My vacation that I booked a couple months ago turned into a working vacation.  My whole family and I caught Covid during this time, so I ended up working with my head in the cloud most of the time.  Thank goodness we finally finished with the bulk of it.  Now it's time to slowly transition the work over. 

The good news is that this company has a high percentage of employees who have been with them for 10, 20, 30+ years and the various people I've spoken with seem very nice.  The bad news is most of the work I've been handling will be gone.  They have multiple teams, one to handle each of my current tasks.  We're 1/10 the size of the division that bought us, and they don't have enough bandwidth to fully absorb all of our works, so some of us will definitely be staying.  However, there's a very high chance the ones staying will be assigned to one of the teams and end up doing repetitive work in a very niche area.  Which is not at all appealing.

Now on to the difficult choices.  Two of my old colleagues recently reach out to inquired if I'm interested in joining their companies. 

One works as a chief growth officer at a small but rapidly growing company and asked if I would be interested in a manager position.  Their HR however, sent out an invitation to interview for a controller position!!! What kind of bait and switch is this?  I did a bit of research as well as review the job posting and while I can handle most of the responsibilities, some will be a bit of a stretch and I'll have to go above and beyond to get them done satisfactorily.  Another issue is every single controller I've know has not been able to take a single week vacation in multiple years.

The other is my former director, currently works as a controller at a non profit organization.  She's been trying to convince me to join her company and will be creating a position tailored to my needs if I'm interested.  Although if I join, there is an extremely high chance she'll try to push me to take on the responsibilities of a director because in her opinion, I can do it.  Urgh!

Both have been bugging me non-stop.  What's the deal with people keep trying to get me to take on so much responsibilities?  I just want a highly paid position where I can just work my 8 hours and shut my brain off afterward. 

 

Success!

April 10th, 2024 at 12:42 am

Boss of boss called today with the official letter for the raise and no, I did not get the $5k I asked for, I got 10% instead. Yay!!!

Downside is my Traditional IRA contribution that I accidentally made a few weeks ago is no longer fully deductible. Darn!  I really shouldn't be browsing my financial accounts in the middle of the night and end up making stupid decisions.

On another note, I've been tinkering around with MS Copilot and while it's not yet capable of answering my tax questions without saying sorry multiple times and leaving out bits of data here and there like an untrained new employee, it's amazing in the other areas that I used it for.

Here's a poem it wrote for this raise.

"Beyond Expectations" 

In the quiet of the office, where spreadsheets hummed

I dared to dream of numbers that danced and drummed.

A raise, a whisper in the corridors of fate,

A plea for more coins, a modest sum to inflate. 

But oh, the universe conspired to surprise,

As my boss leaned in, eyes twinkling like sunrise.

"Your diligence," she said, "deserves more than you sought,

A raise beyond measure, a treasure newly wrought." 

The digits on my paycheck pirouetted high,

A symphony of zeros, a crescendo in the sky.

I counted blessings, not dollars, as gratitude swirled,

For sometimes life's math transcends the material world. 

So here's to the unexpected, the sweet serendipity,

A raise that defied logic, a leap of prosperity.

May our hearts stay open, ready to receive,

And may abundance find us, in ways we can't conceive.

I also asked it converse with me using SAT vocabulary and that proved to be a mistake that I had to promptly rectify since I had trouble understanding half of what it said, lol.

 

Forecast for 2024 is negative

March 16th, 2024 at 01:59 am

This is why I'm trying to negotiate a $5k raise.

Quick Recap

March 16th, 2024 at 01:57 am

Repost for record

Let's see, the company I worked for since 2012 laid off my manager, the person who introduced me to the job, and I had to step up to take over some of her works.  She did not handle it well.  Then in 2020, the owner sold the company to a bigger firm.  I was offered $10k bonus to stay on for 2 additional years, which I took.

After the acquisition, I had a few months of nice and easy work where I was kept busy for only a couple of hours a day because they took all my responsibilities away.  Sadly that didn't last long.  The new director found out I could handle whatever she threw at me and decided to bombarded me with tons of work. 

After a less than satisfactory promotion and salary increase, I asked for a market adjustment and got an additional $15k salary increase.  Then in 2023, I was promoted to manager, although with only a small 3k promotion raise on top of my merit increase because I wasn't expected to take on additional responsibilities.  Guess what happened......yup I ended up with a lot of more responsibility than expected. 

The same year my former manager called me up and asked me to recommend her for a position at my company, which I did, and while she didn't get the job she applied for, she got another job we created just for her. Unfortunately, she didn't get along well with the director, so the director pushed her to me and now she's my direct report.  Oh boy was that a rough transition.  Because of this, I couldn't even ask for a salary increase to align with my additional work load.

Now that the director has moved on to greener pasture, I decided to bring up my performance from last year and asked for an additional $5k on top of the annual merit increase.  New director told me they'll take care of me before the end of this month.  New director's boss also called to inform me that he's trying to push it through before first quarter. Approval from C-suite is needed and company only grew by 2% last year.  So let's see how that will pan out.  Also have around 7k to 8k in annual bonus coming this Friday.

 

2018 Planning

November 1st, 2017 at 03:57 pm

I've been crazily busy. The pay for the side gig is pitiful, but I'm learning a whole lot and I can use down time during regular work day to work on it with full support of the boss, so it's like I'm getting a bonus for a bit more work load.

Anyway, I don't keep track of monthly finance anymore, only an annual estimate of my expenses. So here's an estimate for 2018, with zero bonus and a 2% raise.

Ask and ye shall get

August 1st, 2017 at 03:07 am

Or in my case, do nothing...? Today, I managed to land a side gig in the oddest situation, have my boss offered it to me.

Turned out owner's daughter is starting a business and since daddy already has a fully staffed business with all the necessary departments, she thought to make use of it. There are just a few problems. First, we follow a different set of rules where all expenses are heavily scrutinized regardless of how immaterial they are. So no help there.

Second, after consulting with our VP and a couple of managers she threw up her hands and do not want to talk to them any longer because the subject just went right over her head.

The owner ended up recommending me to set up her books for her, on the side, with pay, and left it up to the VP to persuade me to do it by pushing the idea of how it would be a great jump start to having my own business someday.

So yeah, a very, very odd day.

A 401k adventure

July 24th, 2017 at 10:29 pm

For the financial voyeurs out there Stick Out Tongue I was comparing year to year returns and thought this looks interesting.

2012 - Salary was 34k at the time and contribution was about 10%. I bought my house around July, so it was a stretch to save this much. For all that effort, the return was pathetic.



2013 - Getting a little better




2014 - Ouch



2015 - OMG WTF.....



2016 - Recovery, whewww!



2017 - So far so good



And that's that. Nothing really exciting, but the final numbers are nice to look at.

Long break

July 23rd, 2017 at 07:56 pm

It'd been a while. I'm surprise there are still page views on here Smile

Let see, a bit of update on finance. Still hanging on at my job. Since the last job scare, I was promoted to a senior position, lol, with an increase in salary to 54k and flex work hours. I've moved from the lowest paid to the second lowest paid, while being among the most valuable. Ah well, good thing money isn't everything to me.

The downturn is real and if there is no turnaround in the next 6 months to a year, there will definitely be cuts in my department. I'm in a pretty good position, staying or going, so this doesn't really faze me.

Networth is a bit higher expected due to skyhigh stock market and real estate appreciation.

Home equity - 115
Investments - 170

Not bad at 35, no? I did have to move my retirement marker from 46 with 600k and a paid off home, to 50 with anywhere from 600k to 1M and a paid off home.

Also managed to increase my 401k contribution to 30%. Add in the bonus I got a couple months ago, I should be able to max my 401k this year. Yay!

June Review

July 28th, 2015 at 12:47 am



Gah! This pic is awful.

1. Cut 401k contribution from the second half of the month. If everything goes well, I could always fund the Traditional IRA next year.

2. ISP didn't charge until next month

Data Leak & Gone Mobile

July 27th, 2015 at 01:31 pm

I had to close a number of CC recently due to fraudulent charges. I still haven't been able to pinpoint the source of the data leak and luckily, they were caught the moment they occurred. But this is worrisome enough that I went and close off some of the unused CC lying around. This also meant that my plan to transfer my balance to the Slate card was scrapped.

On the technology front, I finally decided to be one of those late adopter and got myself a tablet. My dad has been nagging at me for months to upgrade my laptop, so he could give my old one to a poor relative, and I finally had enough and gave in. One of the reasons that prevented me from getting a tablet before was the productivity factor. But with a robust app market, why I don't go with Amazon or Microsoft, a tablet is a lot more convenient than a laptop. The only down side so far is the software that I used to keep track of my income/expense. In the app market, it didn't have the features I wanted.

Edit: I need to write more often. My english is deteriorating at an alarming rate.

May Review

June 13th, 2015 at 04:11 pm

This has been an ugly month with lots of expenses and problems.





Personal

I'm still eating one meal a day and while that has resulted in less inflammation, better skin, steady energy and weight loss, it has also increased my clothes expenditure. Most of my clothes are now too baggy to wear. Also, WO wash is not only time and labor intensive, it's also expensive.

Cars

First, my car got rear ended and after I generously let the other party go, they turned around and file against me. Then the battery died on me. On top of this, I couldn't even take public transportation due to the various appointments, many of which were canceled, to resolve the issue. Also, I couldn't believe that the police would go to the commuter parking lots to inspect cars and issue tickets.

Trickier than expected

June 11th, 2015 at 09:06 pm

So this networking thing is a lot trickier than I expected. In order to not burn some very important bridges as well as secure good references, I'm going to have to stay put until the axe falls. So for now, I'm focusing on more volunteer work, sprucing up my resume and possibly getting a second part time job.

April Review

May 3rd, 2015 at 06:12 pm



Found out that FSA transit is not a use it or lose it type and it'll continue to rollover until termination. That means I have an extra $650 for public transportation that I thought was lost from a couple years ago. I'm going to try and see if I could skip refilling gas this month.

Untouchable

April 26th, 2015 at 04:54 pm

I overhead HR talking the other day and while no name was mentioned, there was plenty of work description as well as she's untouchable thrown in. The work description happened to match what I'm doing. Business has been going down and it doesn't look like it'll improve so I've been thinking about looking around. This is certainly an incentive. Btw, I'm supposed to be the most vulnerable being a Junior with only 3 years of experience. However, I've made myself indispensable by not only doing the work of the Senior, but also exceeded the work of my Supervisor as well as taking over crucial areas of other departments. Still, if the cuts are coming, it's bound to happen sooner or later.

Full bloom

April 14th, 2015 at 02:18 am

Went flower viewing.







It was an extremely long walk.







March Recap

April 10th, 2015 at 11:31 am

New recurring expense category, but I can't call it an expense.

Fell into OMAD

March 11th, 2015 at 03:27 am

I recently attempted a 3 days fast in order to reset my immune system. Sadly, my stomach protested a bit too loudly and I ended up giving in to it by the end of the day. This process repeated several more times, so I decided to shelve the fast for the moment. The one meal a day schedule I've inadvertently been on felt wonderful though, and saved me a ton of time. I think I'll continue this for now and see where it goes.

Was it always this gross?

March 3rd, 2015 at 04:17 am

Picked up some KFC chicken today because I was hungry, lazy, ran out of food, etc... and now I'm consider dumping the entire bucket. I don't ever remember it tasted this bad. Granted, it has been more than a decade since I last ate anything other than hot wings from there, but still. Bleh! I don't think it's a matter of my palate being used to whole food. Junk food used to taste good after a long stretch of home cooked meals. I don't think a lot of the junk food now a day could even be called food anymore. It certainly doesn't taste like it.

February Review

February 28th, 2015 at 08:28 pm



My ISP didn't charge this month. Strange.

Recently discovered Cinderella of Boston. While the quality is meh, I'm still ecstatic at finally finding shoes that fit.

A couple of firsts

February 21st, 2015 at 10:10 pm

First Milestone



Solidly in the six digits

First Fraudulent Charge

When I applied for cash back CCs a few months ago, one arrived with flimsy packaging that has a large tear. I thought it was just the USPS mishandling it, but kept a lookout just the same and there it was. You may want to keep an eye out for charges from Spotify, especially if you don't use their service.

Separation

February 11th, 2015 at 02:47 am

No matter how much we prepared for it, it will always be painful to say goodbye. This last month has showed me that regardless of our station in life or how much we have, we are all in the same position at the end. In fact, having money may prolong the suffering due to attempts at keeping the body alive. I hope when it's my time, I will go quickly and painlessly.

No IRA for me

February 5th, 2015 at 03:44 am

Theoretically I have several options this year for filing taxes, either fully fund a traditional IRA and get back around $1,700, fund half and get back around $750, or do nothing and get back around $100. However, realistically I only have one; the one that keep the most cash on hand. Last year last minute contribution to 2013 Roth IRA seriously depleted my cash reserve. Plus the 3k I'm currently floating on CC with 0% interest means the cash situation is a bit risky. So yeah, bummer.

On another note, I can't believe I wasted half a night of precious sleep to read up on the petty back and forth between Katy Perry and Taylor Swift.

January Review

February 1st, 2015 at 06:06 am

First month of the year and I'm already in the red.

On the positive side:
1. Last year vacation payout
2. 11.61% raise

On the negative side:
1. Increased 401k contribution by 5%
2. Prepaid HOA for entire year
3. Charity and gift

Rare Species

January 12th, 2015 at 03:28 am

I finally got around to take a personality test and found out that I belong to the rarest of the rare group, female INTJ. I went to look it up at this site

Text is http://www.16personalities.com/intj-personality and Link is
http://www.16personalities.com/intj-personality

and had a bit of a laugh at the end. My first reaction was that it was spooky how accurate it was, only to see this "wow, this is so accurate it's a little creepy" on the conclusion page. Haha. I can see why my mom often told other relatives that I'm naturally "unintentional callous."

I actually only edge out INFJ by 1% on the T, but while the woo-woo, touchy, feeling portion came pretty close, the part about reaching out and connect with others is way off.

As I grow older, I feel like I have more compassion for fellow human being, but as a whole and not individually. On day, I hope to be able to care for every single person in this world at the same level I care for my parent. In the mean time though, I'm highly critical of whininess, especially when it came from people who are already so blessed compare to millions and millions who are suffering.

First snow of the season

January 6th, 2015 at 02:46 pm

Went out, spent over 30 minutes navigating around 2 stuck school buses, slid right through an intersection, went back in.

It's only 1-2 inches of snow, but on untreated and unprepared roads, this happened.





2014 - Year End Numbers

January 6th, 2015 at 02:37 am

It's only 11 months since I lost all the old data.



This is a lot less than I expected.



Hair and teeth. The high cost of vanity.



As expected



Cash in only. Next year will probably be more, but the aim is to reduce this number.



Much less than I expected, due to numerous free activities and a whole lot of laziness. Most of the lottery money was due to not reading the instruction on the machine, which stated "No change." Will aim to increase this a lot next year, especially for outdoor activities.



Now I remember why December felt a bit lacking. Forgot about the charities.



Less than expected, but then I'm still experimenting with various silhouettes and only managed to buy 2 good piece of clothing.



The last contribution to ROTH.



Could definitely do without the ticket.



Electricity and water are higher than expected. Then again, I wasn't setting the temp at 72 year round before.



If I take out the optional saving, it's not bad.

December Recap

December 31st, 2014 at 02:47 am

A surprisingly spartan month. I had to double check to make sure I didn't miss anything.



Also asked payroll to put 100% of any bonuses I might receive toward my 401k. So despite receiving a bigger bonus than last year, I didn't get to see a dime of it.

Technological age

December 22nd, 2014 at 09:54 am

It has been a blast living in this rapidly evolving time and seeing so many disruptive technologies come and go. But even then I still didn't think we would progress this fast. Last time I heard, we were depleting minerals needed to manufacture chips and also starting to reach the limit of how small we could reduce those chips. So it is very exciting to see these new developments:

Hoverboard

Text is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSheVhmcYLA and Link is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSheVhmcYLA

Transparent car
Text is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDk5HdGfuVI and Link is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDk5HdGfuVI

The beginning of portable hologram (imaging all the ads)

Text is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNoOiXkXmYQ and Link is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNoOiXkXmYQ

There was also the recent successful Orion launch. Now all we need is molecular transfer and we can turn Star Trek into reality.

Lifestyle Changes

December 11th, 2014 at 11:47 pm

Converted my desk to a standing desk
I’ve been doing this for a while now and what a difference it has made. At the end of the day, I don’t feel mental and physical fatigue any longer. Plus, after dropping 5lbs, I indulged and ate a ton of ice cream during the summer; yet the weight didn’t come back. Still keep my chair for those lazy days.

Gone Veggie
Not quite 100% yet. I recently discovered that adding an extremely full bodied, hearty veggie both as well as incorporating food such as seaweed, soybean paste, coconut water, etc… to veggie dishes make them so delightfully satisfying. Swapping out sugar for coconut water significantly increased the deliciousness. Even when I only ate to 80% full, my body didn’t give me that nagging feeling as if it lacked some nutrients. If this keeps up, I might be able to say good bye to the carnivorous me one day.

Started WO wash
I was prepared for the worst when I started this, but weirdly, people reactions were better than when I used shampoo and conditioner daily. Who would have thought? Still in the transition period though.

Incorporated a 2 miles walk into my daily commute
I’m not a fan of exercising for the sake of exercising. Scenic hikes are ok. Functional fitness is ok. Setting aside time to sweat ……eh……no. So knowing myself, I often try to make my daily activities more physically demanding. Finally managed to convince my boss to shift my work hours so that I could take public transit, which comes with a 1 mile walk, without much increase to commute time. I'm excited.

Going to try oil pulling next.

November Review

December 4th, 2014 at 04:09 am

Red, red month.


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