[Ms. Bridgette Jones]

Thanks Guys! After reading Chrissy's last post, I realized I needed to be a little more political and not burn any bridges. I held off on the letter I was going to present which turned out to be a wise choice.

My boss called me from a business trip about a week later and said that the raise was meant as a compliment to me and that at this time they were not willing to go higher but that it did not mean there was a cap on my salary in the future. I think they were a little insulted.

Anyway, I shredded the letters and sucked up my pride and sent a letter to both my boss and the CFO thanking them for the promotion and raise and for the opportunity to grow with them. I apologized for coming off as unappreciative and left it at that. That seemed to improve relations after that; however, the funny things is...the fact that I promoted myself via PowerPoint during my evaluation put me into a funny situation.

Now they are having me do even more and giving me even more responsibility and have had me doing "Power Point Presentations" since we lost our Marketing Person. They are not going to put me into that position because my Excel skills are average and not superior. However, I rose to the challenge, finished the job and now I keep getting more jobs.

Part of me is flattered, part of me is a bit overwhelmed with all the responsibilities and I guess the smart side realizes that this is a good opportunity and yet one more thing I can add to my resume and to my evaluation for the upcoming year.

It's kind of funny though that I ask for more money and now I am being slammed literally with multiple tasks and even more work than ever. Not sure how to take that one??? I did make a joke to my CFO that if this was an attempt to keep me from asking for more money in the future that it wasn't working and he actually laughed and took humor in it. So at least they know I'm taking it in stride. Really trying hard to be assertive yet positive at the same time without burning any bridges.

Thanks Virgobrean for the positive comments! I think at the end of the day, we all have to promote ourselves and never let anyone undervalue us. We can either be our own worst enemies or our best promoters! They did Saturday Night Live skits for a while called Positive Affirmations and the guy was like "I like myself, I like myself, etc...." but honestly we have to do that to ourselves daily. I have to tell myself "I rock!" on those days when things are stressful and just use a lot of positive self talk to get me through. Good luck!

[danyel.bailey]

Please educate me! When you refer to a recruiter, do you mean someone at a temp agency or something different? Thanks.