Lunch Prep and Hunting for a Raise

As you may recall, for the last 4+ weeks I've been itching to go FT w/ benefits at my job. I've already been heading that direction with recent increases to my "up to twenty hours a week" contract.

Back in October I spoke with the Associate Director about this whole need-a-real-job thing and she has been delicately, but semi-regularly advocating for me. Also it sounds like the Research Director has been asking the Big Cheese about my future. So lately it has felt like everyone is on the same page as me... except my boss.

Until last week when she oh-so-casually dropped in an email about something else "maybe you and I should go for lunch some time."

Ka-Ching!

Even if she intends for this lunch to be a review/evaluation (which I doubt because as far as I can tell, those don't happen), I will be steering our conversation in the direction of future plans.

Lunch was supposed to be Friday, it (unsurprisingly) got postponed till Monday. Which is actually fine because this has given me more time to think about what I'm going to say. Also, awesome Associate Director suggested that post-conversation I write a brief follow up email reaffirming how excited I am about working at Job and what assets I bring to Job and what a great fit it all is. I haven't worked on that email yet, but another good trick to have ready.

Although I'm not technically an employee there (but a contractor), I've been treating this like a raise, not a new job hunt. That means I have my previous job performance to lean on. It also means no suggested salary range, as I would for a new job.

Here's the basics I plan to cover tomorrow.

1. What I've accomplished so far since being there (1 large grant application, 1 smaller grant application, 3 final reports, 1 ethnographic-y project, the beginning of another research project, several blog entries).

2. What unique skills I bring to the organization (I'm the only who can/is willing to write grants, I'm a bad ass interviewer, and I can do lots of qualitative research and basic quantitative research).

3. What I want (Full Time, benefits. I'm asking for a $45k salary, which is on par for average salaries of PhD researchers and grant writers at the nearby university)

My trump cards:

1. Well, I can always write more grants to support my salary....

2. After January Job can officially say they have a PhD on staff

3. I am willing to plan and manage a major meeting/summit/convention thing with potentially a list of 400 invites. For March 2011. (This is my absolute last gasp because I really do not want be an event planner for the next 4 months).

Will report back. Who knows, maybe she just wants to talk about running and book clubs over lunch...