[codeonfire]

If you want more money you have to go find a job that pays more money. High value projects get you better jobs somewhere else. The problem is you may not have any perspective on how your employer sees the situation. I suggest hiring someone to work for you even if you don't need to, like a maid or something. Experience the psychological roller coaster of trust/distrust and the utter unwillingness on your part to pay one more cent. Then I think you'll see that your boss's boss's boss by default wants to fire you no matter what you bring to the company. There is no one in your company, absolutely no one, that wants you to have more money or wants to give you more money. The only reason they gave you a raise is because there is a compensation department that is trained to look past the human aspect and psychopathic management and make a cold hard calculation of what $x dollars more per year will do to their numbers. The fact that those same cold, hard HR drones are also trained to make counter offers, if merely to screw over their competition, is the only minute chance you have of getting more money. So the point of this message is that you need to get out there and meet some people with money and forget about ever asking for more money where you're at.

[mcherm]

Wow, I get the sense that you had a really terrible experience someplace. I hope you get over it.

I do agree that there is a strong psychological component to the interactions with an employer over salary, and that it is good to keep this in mind when negotiating. But "forget about ever asking for more money where you're at" is demonstrably bad advice.

[codeonfire]

It's not demonstrably. Asking for a raise you're not going to get after you just got one is going to get your name on all sorts of lists such "person unhappy with his or her compensation", "ungrateful employee", and "people that haven't learned the game yet." Is that worth an extra $1-2k per year if you can just get $10k more somewhere else? Even if a company did give a small retention raise the employee would just be docked at the next review time.

[mcherm]

Many people have requested raises and received them. This demonstrates that "forget about ever asking for more money where you're at" is untrue. Perhaps there is truth in "it is often bad to ask for more money where you are at", or perhaps not, but your blanket statements, knowing nothing of the original poster's company or his role there, are simply unsupportable.