How to Make More Money at Work | Cup of Jo (2024)

Oh this is so good!! I’ve been the “baby shower planner,” the “homemade cookie baker” … and several other things that I was ok doing once, maybe twice, but not as my side gig at work. It makes me sad that women are more often put into these roles, and meanwhile their male peers get to go about their work instead of splitting their time in planning baby showers, engagement showers, Secret Santas, etc etc.

Very cool advice. I’ll write it down on a piece of paper and hang it before my eyes!!)))

amara, it sounds like you’ve thought a lot about this, and the right decision is clear to you. i’m excited for your next steps! i’m sure you have a wonderful job and future ahead. xoxo

Amara, I did it! After playing it safe and working in a “professional” job for a few years out of college, I decided that not only was I unhappy, I was also pretty bad at sitting behind a desk. After hearing a friend wish she could just leave her office and work at her favorite retail store, I realized I would love to do that too. Best decision I ever made. I loved every second of that career, and would do it again in a heartbeat. There were definitely a few people who wondered why I’d give up a full time salary for a job some kids do after school, but I flourished and you will too!

Amara, both my parents were immigrants as well so maybe there is something ingrained in us to “tough it out”. I also was in a bad work situation – not as toxic as yours, but underappreciated and underpaid. I am very risk-averse and was anxious about leaving, but I finally did. I actually stumbled upon this quote that somehow flipped a switch in me, about how power is not something you are given but something you already have inside you. It is one of the best decisions I made; there was something better for me. It is a job-seekers market right now. The only advice I have is to have something lined up before you quit.

Amara, have you considered going on a leave of absence due to your work stress? Depending on where you work you should have some state or federal job protection while you are on leave. Research FMLA and state leave laws to see what’s available. The leave of absence can help you deal with your depression and anxiety while you look for a non-toxic place to work. Wishing you the best on your new adventure! xx

Don’t quit the job until you have another. Take some time to look around and decide what you want to do.

I’m sorry you’ve had this experience, Alicia. You’re not alone, as you already know. Many of my female friends and associates have had the most awful female bosses both in Nigeria and abroad, which makes me more grateful than ever that throughout my career, my female bosses have been fair, kind, wonderful and encouraging people. In a plot twist, one of my big sisters works in international economic development and throughout her own career, her female subordinates have tried to sabotage her while her male subordinates haven’t. In another plot twist, my younger sister is very good friends with her former boss – let’s call her V – who happens to be a woman. V went out of her way to create a healthy, friendly work environment for women because she’d since vowed to do better than a nasty female boss of hers back in the day. The problem has its roots in our childhood when ‘society’ (that vague word that really means ‘all of us’) begins to teach girls to see other girls as their number one competitors and enemies. It can be hard to unlearn such a high level of social conditioning, and I hope we get there in my lifetime and yours. And yes, we can be powerful and still be kind. Thank you for these words.

A few things I’ve learned after more than a decade in advertising:

– Do your job well.
– Don’t try to please people.
– Don’t need to be liked. If you do, you’re merely setting yourself up to be disliked.
– Invest in your appearance; looking good and being smart aren’t mutually exclusive. You can be clever and like clothes, as Theresa May once said.
– Sit at the table. Always. No tiny corner chairs or ‘backbencher’ seats in the boardroom, please.
– Don’t be pleased about being the only woman in the room. If anything, it should be a deep source of anger and discomfort for you.
– Wish other women well and give them a seat at the table.
– Do your absolute best to avoid office affairs. Don’t sleep with your co-workers and your bosses and don’t be fooled by the happy oooh-we-met-at-work stories out there. They make up a very slim 1% of reality. Most times, office affairs end acrimoniously and women get the short end of the stick. I know brilliant women who have been forced to move cities, countries and even continents because of an office affair turned sour. If anyone at work claims to be ‘crazy’ about you, let them resign and then ask you out to prove just how ‘crazy’ they really are.

Happy International Women’s Day. Two days early, I know. But still.

All this! Always. Sit. At. The. Table!

So well said!

I agree 100%. We can talk up our strengths without using a comparison as a put-down. Equality means looking for the good in all. If you wouldn’t like it with the genders reversed, don’t say it.

COULD NOT AGREE MORE. speaking as a woman manager.

Yes!!! Love her.

Taking the seat right next to the Executive in charge, has proven to be worthwhile as well.

I would ask for a pay-grade higher, about 30% (or more if it seems reasonable!). There’s no harm in asking, and it’ll only show that you take yourself, the work you’re able to do, and the position seriously.
You’re so qualified – your current pay shouldn’t be the baseline for this position, the new pay should be as they are different jobs. Consider that the ground floor and see if you can start a little bit further along.
If you end up being talked back down to the starting salary or a middling point – you still win a great position!
You got this!

Is master’s degree the required education? Or is it a bachelor’s level required job? If you have relevant education to the job that is above what the job description requires, I think you have good leverage for asking for additional salary. If your master’s degree is in a different field or if it’s already required for the job, you might have less luck getting a higher amount.

This is SUCH a great tip — thank you. He sounds like a wonderful man and mentor.

Yes!!! We will get on it! Xoxo

I keep a stack of mini cards next to my desk. My goal this year is to write a note to one person per day. Even just a quick, “you rock!”

Good luck!

Ceridwen, I was just going to comment the same thing! I LOVED the “Week in Outfits” with Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman so another duo would be fabulous, in my opinion :) (Also, I – too – love this community.) xoxo

Seconding the motion for a week of outfits!

My career motto as is to just stay at the table! Leaning in at work and being an engaged mother at home are often contradictory — just try your best to stay at the table at work in any way you can, while supporting fellow moms stay there too. That’s my goal and it’s more realistic now when the demands of motherhood and being a corporate lawyer can at times feel completely overwhelming (I’m writing this sick on a business trip so I feel very in the thick of it right now).

Knowing that I am making sure that a woman’s voice is included in the conversation at work is a great motivator, even when I feel like I’m not able to give my best in that moment.

Love this. Thank you!!

Chantal I love hearing this and feel the same!! Get better! Xo

i’ll ask her! :)

I feel the same about the pants!

They both have shared their beauty routines on their podcast, A Few Things! Might be a couple years old at this point but a good starting place :)

Really love seeing all of the career advice about salary negotiation here!

At the risk of being deemed opportunistic, I feel like some of y’all would benefit from my organization’s (AAUW) Work Smart salary negotiation course. We do a ton of research on gender pay and leadership inequity, workplace bias, and negotiation, and in turn, have stellar in-person trainings across the country and a new online course. Also, everything is FREE! Heyyoo!

The skills we teach are equally useful for people looking for a raise or a promotion, and we have a special program for college students getting ready to enter the workforce. You can sign up here: https://salary.aauw.org/

From one well-paid lady to soon-to-be others :)

THANK YOU

They really withdrew the offer? That’s so wild. I wonder how common that is. You would think they would just reiterate that the salary offered is the highest they can go and let you decide from there. That scares me that trying to negotiate can mean losing the opportunity altogether.

Also true for most state government jobs!

This sounds like a bullet dodged! A company that won’t even say, “I’m sorry, this is the best we can do,” probably has other fishy management practices. Red flag!

I agree completely. I have a similar experience but related to flexibility. I was interviewing with an international organisation in Switzerland and was told that I was their top candidate. I asked (during my interview) about their stance on flexibility with regard to working hours. They telephoned me back to discuss and asked me to propose a schedule. I proposed leaving early three days a week and staying later for two days. Not only did they not come back with a competing proposal, they wrote to me to say that I was ultimately unsuccessful in my application!
They not only declined to negotiate and discuss further, but they also went with their second choice instead of according me the flexibility I’d asked.
We are told to aim high and ask for what we think we deserve. I was so shocked to be shot down.

Yes! I’m a nurse and unfortunately all the extra hard work I put in (heading committees, extra certifications, etc) means nothing! I get paid based on years of experience. End of story. I’m in school to become a nurse practitioner right now and hopeful that I’ll be more successful at negotiating when I graduate.

I am scared of the same thing – I work in a very male-dominated field that is full of hipsters and there are very few examples of older women b/c the field itself is so new. It’s scary!

Ooh love this!! I just heard these wonderful ladies on Forever 35 a bit ago, highly recommend their interview, very fun and insightful.

Adding to not comparing yourself and your success to others’, in addition to not getting the full picture of anyone else’s life (might not actually be so rosy), try and imagine that it really is super big and successful and wonderful, and that’s actually great. And instead of, crap, I’m not so good, in response, see what you can learn from their successes. See how big and gracious your heart can get noticing and celebrating them. Their success does not mean less for you. It’s like when you see a beautiful woman with enviable hair, clothes, confidence, smile, whatever and you say “she’s beautiful! AND I’m beautiful too.” Room at the table and enough to go around for all of us. People who are truly gracious in light of others accomplishments are so wonderful to be around and attract goodness to themselves.

Sasha this is wonderful. What a joyful way to look at things!

“in response, see what you can learn from their successes” = brilliant

don’t be afraid of making a decision, even if it doesn’t turn out to be the right one. Reading between the lines, having an EVP say this to me showed me it’s ok to be wrong, but the real take away is to trust yourself b/c odds are your instinct is right and it’s better to speak up and have a POV vs being passive.

Also, Tina Fey’s book Bossy Pants. All of it.

YES! bossypants. such a good one.

OK to be wrong – yesssss

Hmm. I agree that making decisions based on the big picture is usually better one factor alone. But I just don’t think you can have a good job with a bad boss? I would leave any job, even if it had my dream title, if the person I reported to limited my potential or made my day to day experiences mostly negative.

I have to say, I agree with Andrea. I had what I thought was a dream job last year, and had the most horrendous boss and was miserable for 7 months, before I finally made the decision to leave. I’m so glad I did, and to me, a good boss is equally, if not more important, than the job itself. The job I had before that wasn’t necessarily the most prestigious or glamorous sounding, but I had the most amazing and supportive bosses who trusted me and gave me responsibility and let me flourish, and I am incredibly grateful to them for that.

I agree with the above sub-commenter. This is terrible advice. A bad boss can be detrimental to your current well-being as well as your growth. It is not necessary to stay and “tough it out” and in fact it may hurt you. I was transferred to work under a terrible supervisor and because I had been given the advice to not leave because of a bad boss I didn’t and it was awful and for 7 months he did not believe in my work, which is a really crummy feeling. At the end of those seven months my position was eliminated but I feel that he had a big part in placing an x on my back. Lesson learned do not feel like you have to stay if your supervisor is bad.

I’ve taken the “see the big picture” approach, and it was the right decision. I have a job I really like, but a previous boss was a pretty miserable human being. She’s long gone, and now I have a wonderful boss (also female), and I’m glad I stuck it out. I think the key is to look at your individual circ*mstances and decide what you can and can’t tolerate. In my case, Karen’s strategy worked.

I don’t agree with this advice at all. I had to quit my teaching job, at a school I’d been at for ten years, due to a truly terrible and toxic principal who constantly denied my boundaries and put kids in harm’s way by not firing my partner teacher who verbally and emotionally abused students. There were other problems as well, that I won’t get into here because they still bring up a lot of pain for me, but that year I wound up deeply depressed, having panic attacks at least once a week on my drive to school because I didn’t know what kind of trauma or abuse my students or I would be facing that day. It absolutely broke my heart to leave the career I’d dreamed of, but my mental health was severely suffering because of this boss, and she/my job was not worth what it was doing to me. Eventually I’d like to go back to teaching, but for now staying at home with my four month old is the best for my recovery of that traumatic year.

My dad gave me the same advice as Karen’s. And it’s worked for me. However, I work at a huge multinational corporation where things really do change all the time. (The the point where new hires need to be warned that they have to be able to go with the flow and not expect anything to stay the same). If you are truly unhappy with your boss at my company, odds are you or your boss will be asked to move to a new position at some point in the near future, or you can speed it up by applying for a different job internally. (The company hires from within for most jobs, and it’s viewed as a good thing to move around internally). Lastly, I’m going out on a limb here, but I also wonder how crazy bosses at large companies with a strong culture and large HR department can really go. So I think it depends on the place of employment and of course how bad the situation at hand is.

The advice from Karen’s father has worked for her, and she’s passing on what for her has been an important piece of advice. Just because some people believe a different approach to a bad boss is better doesn’t mean the advice is “terrible” or “wrong.” It means, as with all things, it’s a piece of advice that you may (or may not) want to weigh along with other advice you’ve received and your own intuition when making a decision.

I agree with others that this is terrible advice, but I do think it works in reverse… that a great boss can make a bad job worthwhile. Having someone who supports you and advocates for you is huge and can go a long way towards making a bad job great. But if your boss is not supportive or is bad at managing a team, it will make even the best job miserable.

I agree with the others who disagree. I’ve had a mix of really amazing and supportive bosses, and crappy ones. For my first crappy one, I left. I didn’t tell recruiters that she was the reason (I said there wasn’t scope for development) but it’s a small industry and people found out. As rubbish as she was, I made a point not to bad mouth her unless someone else said something to me. I then got a couple of good bosses, then back to a bad one. Fortunately management realised and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse to move sideways. A bad boss can make you miserable and stressed. Not worth it

Unless the bad boss is the owner of the company and you report to him directly …

I’ve outlasted a bad boss, and have enjoyed many wonderful ones, too, all at the same job. I am still working at the same place and am very, very happy I didn’t leave. It is a tough thing, though, and as with all advice, it depends on many factors whether it’s the best advice for you or not. (Eg: Think fish: The advice is that it’s very healthy for you! But we all know that is the wrong advice if you have an allergy or hate the taste. No advice works for everyone). :) Sometimes the healthiest thing to do is to get out, but sometimes sticking it out turns out to be the best choice. It probably depends on just how bad that boss is, how much you like the actual job, and how closely you have to work with that boss. But I think one thing that is universally true: having a bad boss is a horrible thing.

Bad boss is relative. Someone grumpy who has unrealistic expectations can be waited out, but I had a horrible manager who to my face told me she disliked my personality and that it was all wrong for the company, but she didn’t have the juice to fire me so she started taking me off all her accounts, reducing what I was contributing to nearly nothing and making me a prime target for firing. I tried to repair it and told her that I could do more and that I had been happy on those accounts and she goes, “well I think I’ve been pretty clear about the fact that I don’t want to work with you. We’ll just see who wants to pick you up but it’ll be boring while they try to find teams who want to work with you. Who knows? Maybe you’ll prefer not having to work and decide to leave. Being bored might be good for you” Whaaaaaaa? I gave myself ten minutes to pace and cool off in the park around the corner because most senior staff were at a conference and I didn’t know who to tell. After those ten minutes were up I marched into the CEOs office and relayed the whole conversation. My manager was forced to apologize to me and they had new accounts for me the next day and I think it damaged her reputation a bit, but I started looking for a new job that weekend and was gone within 6 weeks. She is still there.

Best career advice I ever received: PICK UP THE PHONE & TALK TO PEOPLE.

We have become so reliant on email and texting, it’s hard to remember that business associates are still people. I’m a lawyer, so I often work around people who are frustrated, angry, and scared. When I sense the email conversations getting unreasonable, or need to have a difficult conversation with someone, I pick up the phone and call the person to say, “It seems like there is more going on here than I grasp, and I’d like to have an honest conversation with you. Can you help me understand?” After the call, I write a short email to sum up and memorialize the conversation: “Thanks for talking with me today. As I understand it, [XYZ]. So my next steps will be [ABC].”

This almost always de-escalates the situation and leads to a better business outcome for both parties. Even the angriest CEO is still just a person who wants a human connection.

that’s really wonderful advice. i’m definitely going to keep this in mind.

Yes, agreed. I’ve seen this in action many times. A conversation can really clear things up and get the business tended to.

I find this to be so true in teaching as well – while it is tempting to communicate over e-mail, it is often so helpful to connect with families via phone or in person!

This is true, speak and pour out your feelings rather than just jot them down. Talking one to one also helps you know the situation better so that you can respond effectively and promptly.

Yes! I work in communications and phone calls are a must in so many situations. Years ago, my boss said “On the phone, you should sound like you’re smiling.” I remind myself of that every day.

I was on the phone at 6:45 this morning, and before the call I thought, “is this really necessary?” and after the call I thought, “I’m going to use the phone more often!” (but not at 6:45.)

i use the three email rule – if you’re on your third email about something, pick up the phone!

This is also great dating/relationship advice.

Me too. It is so frustrating because I know I have a good gig, and I have a young kid, so flexibility (and $$ to pay for daycare) is a big deal. But there is no growth. Do you suck it up and treat it as a job for a couple of years (and say have another kid) or do you take a pay cut to go elsewhere?

Kate (and others)- I took a pay cut when I moved to my current job but I’m SO much happier here. 100% worth it. Happiness and job satisfaction include much more than salary!

You aren’t alone E and Kate. I’m in the same place. How come all the other men are moving up in the company but I’m staying stagnant?

yes!!! love this point. my mom used to always say, “if they can figure it out, you can figure it out,” or “if they can do it, you can do it,” and it made me feel confident (or at least, more confident) no matter what situation i was in. everyone is just trying to figure things out! you will learn quickly!

Whenever I’m doubting something about my career, my friend likes to ask me, “What would an average white man do? Would he think twice about this?” This has been very instructive in allowing me to more boldly negotiate salaries, assignments, work arrangements, etc. – because if an average white man has the confidence to do it, why can’t I?

Penny, I agree! I loved this article and the advice in it, but also kept scrolling back up to those perfect trousers Claire is wearing. They are the work pants of my dreams.

Yassss. Can we please find out where these pants are from? I am swooning.

Jo – Claire’s long curly hair days is giving me Jenny Slate lookalike vibes… lol