Book review: Negotiating Your Salary: How to Make $1000 a Minute

My latest read in preparation of my upcoming annual performance review was Negotiating Your Salary: How to Make $1000 a Minute by Jack Chapman. It was a very easy read at only 170 pages. While it focus mostly on negotiating for a beginning salary, there was a whole chapter about raises. And it was fairly easy to see how to apply the rest of book to a raise situation.

The raise chapter discussed how to keep a "job journal" to track your accomplishments. That is the first step, which you can start at any time, and easily maintain.

The second step is all about making your boss aware of your accomplishments, and getting them to acknowledge them. I never really thought about it, but the book points out "...bosses who allow efficient workers the freedom to do a good job are less likely to be aware of workers' accomplishments. Such bosses are so trusting of your work that they naturally pay attention to their problems instead of your performance."

Once your work is acknowledged, then you discuss a possible raise, using the techniques discribed in the rest of the book.

Overall, I was impressed with this book. It had lots of useful information for both new jobs, and raise situations. I am working on creating my job journal to help with performance review. Hopefully all my research into salary negotiations will pay off in the end.

Cross-stitch project update

No picture tonight, but I finally had a chance to work some more on my cross-stitch project. I went all gong-ho and worked for an hour. Then thought the spot I just finished looked a little close to the basting marking the edge of the page. I counted, and was off by 5 stitches! Not cool! I ripped out everything I stitched tonight. Then counted again, and it turns out everything I have stitched so far is 2 columns to the left!

Luckily, I started with a swirly spot in the top right corner, so I plan to just eliminate 2 columns from the that section. Wouldn't affect the rest.


I could just stitch the whole thing 2 columns over, but that would be too hard to remember, and then my lovely basting would be off. Nope, losing two columns will be easier. So tonight was not a good stitching experience.

How many is too many?

I think I have a blog addiction. Not to writing my own (obviously), but to following other people's blogs. My Google Reader is getting quite large. Some mornings there are so many new posts to read, I have to pick and choose what order to read in. Cause I can't just read a few at a time. Oh no, that list of unread items that appears on my homepage is just calling to be read.

So how many is too many? I have 41 blogs on my list right now. And that doesn't include the 10 or so on my RSS reader at work. Should I stop adding? But when I want to read something, and there is no new posts, I don't know what to do. Except find a new blog to follow, of course. I guess I really need to find something more productive to do... like school work... ugh... Why is is so depressing to say I have schoolwork when I'm almost 30? Isn't schoolwork supposed to be for all the little kidlets? I think I need to find a new, adult name for it.

Cold and flu season

Cold and flu season appears to have arrived already. In my household, all 3 of us are feeling under the weather today. The runny nose, stuffy head, body aches, and general "yuckiness" seems to have popped up over night. Makes for an unhappy household. Here's hoping that it passes as quickly as it came.

New look

So you may notice a slightly new look to the blog today. Since fall is now here, I thought I'd change to a slightly more fall-ish colour. It's so easy to do. Just click and save.

I've been thinking about giving myself a new look too. Dye my hair. I haven't done it in a long time, like pre-baby. Not sure what colour though. Either dark red or black. I've had both colours before, and liked them both. Either way, it will be darker. Which matches the season change.

Speaking of darker, how I miss the sun already. Getting up early is so hard since it is pitch black out. If only Mr Magoo would learn to sleep in a bit. Heck, if he learned to sleep at all I'd be happy. He's still up every 2-3 hours during the night. It drives me crazy, and makes me super exhausted. And leads me to hate everyone who says "oh, my son/daughter sleeps all the way through, and has since they were a wee baby". Well good for you. I haven't experienced that yet. The longest he's slept in a row is 5 hours, and that was a while ago, and only a few times. But if you'd like to know how it feels to have a child who doesn't sleep, I'd be more than willing to trade for a night or two. Or you could just take him for a weekend since your child wouldn't affect anything anyways. Then I'd get to sleep for the first time in over 16 months. Sound like a deal?