| What does the company have to lose by your going, and what do they have to gain? If you are asking to take personal time off in the middle of some critical goal/deadline, I could see how your going would negatively impact the business. In fact, it has happened to me while working on projects. Some key person is off at a conference, while we're all charging to get the thing done, and it's not a good feeling. In my experience, tech conferences tend to be more for developers and less for the companies and businesses that hire them. Let's be honest with ourselves here. It's kind of self-indulgent, like a mini-vacation. It's not like you can't watch the videos online or go read whatever tutorial or documentation. I'm only speaking to my experience here, so maybe your conference has something the typical tech conference doesn't have. I would only go to a conference if I knew that going would more than pay for the cost. If I were certain it would lead to many more opportunities than what I've got going on at present, I would say it's worth paying for the airfare, hotel, and restaurant food. It seems like you could stand to gain quite a lot from going to this conference, and your company might just lose you. They are justifiably afraid of that, but so what? This is capitalism, man. It's ruthless. Everyone's in it for themselves. Your company is subject to market forces. You are subject to market forces. They would need to find another developer to train up if you left, and if they let you go because you went to a conference, they would be taking on the risk of having to replace you. So there's an inherent risk in going (on both sides). Can you currently afford to take that risk? How much do you have saved? How much debt do you have? Would you be okay with being unemployed for a few months while looking for the next thing? When someone else's interests are naturally at odds with yours, there is little negotiation to be done. They simply don't want what you want, and that's okay. Can you afford to go get yours? |