32.2 The Icing 801 he was leaving that position and therefore would not be involved in the next renewal negotiation. If bridges were burned, his successor could use another famous technique: Blame the predecessor to get on the good side of a vendor. “Oh, he was a jerk, but I’m the nice guy. So let’s begin this relationship with a fresh start.” This trick works only once. If you are a harsh negotiator too often, people will eventually stop dealing with you. Variety is good, too, as we see in the next example. Use a Variety of Techniques Tom had a manager who successfully repeated one negotiating tactic: She was so im- possible to deal with that people always gave her what she wanted. He soon realized, however, that this was her only tactic. Soon enough, people avoided dealing with her al- together; her career stalled as she became isolated. Be wary of burning too many bridges around you. 32.2.1.4 Set the Format of a Negotiation Meeting The general format for an effective negotiation meeting is to define the terms, get agreement on the common ground, and then work on the more difficult parts. It sets a positive tone early on to resolve the easy issues. If something thought to be easy starts to take a long time, table it until later. Often, you will get to the end of the list of issues only to discover that there is very little disagreement or that the one item that you disagree on can be dropped. Commonly, you will discover that both people are on the same side, in which case the negotiation should be more along the lines of seeking agreement and making commitments. 32.2.1.5 Additional Negotiation Tips These tips relate to making requests and offers. They are particularly useful during salary negotiations but apply to all negotiations. • Ask for what you honestly, honestly want. Don’t negotiate against your- self. Some people start off with a reduced request because they are em- barrassed by asking for what they want, feel guilty that they want so much, or think that their opponent will think it is unreasonable and will refuse to continue. Don’t be silly! Reducing the request is your oppo- nent’s job, not yours. Don’t do the other person’s job. You’ll get more respect if you are honest about asking for what you want. You’ll be 802 Chapter 32 Being Happy surprised at how many times the request is accepted. Your job is to ask. The other person’s job is to agree or disagree. Do your job. • After you make a request or an offer, close your mouth. You also shouldn’t negotiate against yourself when making a request or an of- fer. People make the mistake of stating a proposal, getting nervous at the silence they hear, and immediately making a concession to sweeten the deal. Your job is to make the offer or request; their job is to accept or reject it. Sometimes, people are silent because they need time to think or because they are hoping to make you nervous so that you will upgrade your offer without even being asked. If silence makes you nervous, fill your mind by repeating the phrase, “The next person to talk is the loser.” Give things time and wait for their response. • Don’t reveal your strategy to your opponent. Although you shouldn’t be paranoid, you also shouldn’t reveal your strategy to your oppo- nent. Don’t reveal how low or high you are willing to go, just the offer you are making at that point. If a real estate agent, recruiter, head hunter, or other such agent is negotiating on your behalf, the per- son really represents whoever is paying him. It is always acceptable to directly ask an agent, “Who pays your commission in this situa- tion?” You don’t want to be surprised to find out that it is you! If he won’t tell you who pays him, he is not being ethical. Being told, “Oh don’t worry, you don’t have to pay a thing” means that he is being paid by your opponent. If he is paid by your opponent, he is an ex- tension of your opponent and you should reveal only what you would reveal to your opponent. He may say that he represents you, but if he receives a commission from the employer, landlord, or whomever, he “represents your position” to the other side, but he is acting in your opponent’s best interest. Therefore, if he asks how high (or low) you are willing to go, address him like you would your opponent: Reveal only your current offer. If he demands to know your low and high range so he “can negotiate on your behalf,” give him an artificial range. 5 • Always refuse a first offer. Every first offer has built into it some room for movement in case it is rejected. Therefore, always reject the first offer. 5. Speaking of not revealing your strategy: We would like you to know that we haven’t revealed all our secrets, so don’t try to use any of these techniques against us. We have countertechniques. Really! 32.2 The Icing 803 (This recommendation is brilliantly demonstrated in the 1995 film Clueless). This trick works only once. Don’t automatically think that if the offer was sweetened once, it can be sweetened again. If your op- ponent isn’t willing to budge, put your tail between your legs and accept the first offer. This is a risky technique; use with caution. (This isn’t a binary search; employers usually don’t make a second iteration.) 32.2.1.6 Use Silence as a Negotiating Tool As mentioned previously, being quiet is a critical negotiating skill. Silence from your opponent may simply mean that she is thinking, has nothing to say, or is trying to make you nervous. Most people get nervous when they hear silence during a negotiation and respond by offering concessions that haven’t even been requested. Another important time to be silent is when you get to an agreement. We’ve seen two sides finally get to an agreement, only to have them ruined by someone bringing up new issues. You’ve got what you were asking for, so shut up! Be Careful What You Say A woman was moving to a different division for an opportunity that gave her a raise and a promotion. Her new boss told her what the new salary would be and then asked, “Would you like it to be more?” She replied, “Yes.” She was dumbfounded that anyone would ask such a silly question. Is there any other answer she could logi- cally give? He should have simply waited for her to sign the paper and offer more money only if she rejected the offer. Now that he had offered to increase her salary and she had agreed, he had no recourse but to increase the offer on the spot. She later com- mented that she wouldn’t hire someone who answered no to such a question. To her, it would be like failing an IQ test. She also mentioned that she wouldn’t let anyone who asked such a question work for her. The person might trade the family’s last cow for magic beans. Although all these negotiating techniques have worked for us, we’re not high-powered negotiation experts. Luckily, some real experts have written books on the topic. Often, books are specialized for a particular profession or situation. There is no negotiating book specifically for SAs, but The Haggler’s Handbook (Koren and Goodman 1992) is a very good general-purpose book and has the benefit of being one tip per page. You can read one page per day when getting dressed in the morning; in a matter of weeks, you will be a much better negotiator. 804 Chapter 32 Being Happy 32.2.2 Love Your Job The happy SAs we’ve met love their jobs. This isn’t an accident. They didn’t fall into jobs that they love; they worked in many jobs in many types of com- panies and started to realize what they liked and didn’t like. They then could become more focused when job hunting. It can take years, even decades, to figure out what motivates you to love your job and find a job that pro- vides those qualities, but it is something to think about as your career evolves. 32.2.2.1 Enjoying What You Do The 1999 film Office Space makes an interesting point. Imagine that you’ve won the lottery and don’t have to work anymore. What would you do to fill your time? Your answer is what you should be doing as a career. If you would spend your days rebuilding old cars, become an auto mechanic. Maybe you are an SA because you would spend your time playing with computers. What are the aspects of computing that you enjoy so much? Consider integrating those things into your career. Following Our Own Advice Christine has been a fan of Formula 1 racing since she can remember and has always wanted to work in that industry. She decided that it was time to pursue that ideal; after the first edition of this book came out, she started working in the Formula 1 racing industry. She loves her job and is glad that she took the risk of making a career change. Tom has always wanted to be more involved in politics. In 2003, he quit his job and worked on a political campaign. He found it a very interesting and fulfilling experience and will look for other opportunities to get involved in political campaigns that he believes in. Campaigns are increasingly relying on technology to succeed, and he wants to be a part of that. 32.2.2.2 Being Motivated Being motivated about your job is no accident. Satisfying, long-term moti- vators are different for different people. Money motivates people but only in the short term. We find that it doesn’t sustain motivation very well. Some people are motivated by the good feeling they receive after helping someone. It sounds simple, but helping people is habit forming. The good feeling you get from knowing that you’ve helped someone is so powerful that once you’ve had a taste of it, you crave it even more. You want to return to that good 32.2 The Icing 805 feeling, so helping people becomes even more important, and you strive to help even more people. This is highlighted in the film Scrooged. The compliments people receive are habit forming in the same way. A compliment propels one forward. Imagine every compliment you get from your boss propelling you, motivating you to continue to achieve great things. The problem is that those compliments take a long path between your ear and the part of the brain that accepts the compliment. Somewhere in that path is a minefield known as your critical inner voice. Sometimes, that voice reaches up, grabs that compliment midair, and pours toxic waste on it. Then that compliment is tainted. By the time it reaches its destination, the toxic waste has corrupted the compliment into something that hurts you. Thus, instead of a stream of incoming compliments that propel you, you have a stream of negatives that sap your energy. For some people, this critical inner voice is a small, manageable little beast. For some, it is a loud, bellowing giant. Therapy can help manage that giant by helping you deal with the source of the problem, be it an overly critical parent, an overbearing significant other, or shame. Shame comes from feeling bad about something and holding those feel- ings inside rather than letting them out. People often feel that personal prob- lems should stay at home and not be discussed at work, but bottling up these problems can be unhealthy and wreck your productivity. Suppose that one of your parents is ill and that you haven’t shared this or how it makes you feel with your coworkers. The positive feedback you receive should make you feel good and motivate you, but instead the toxic shame of, for example, feeling that you aren’t visiting your ill parent enough negates the compliment: “Oh, they wouldn’t have given me that compliment if they knew what a terrible daughter I am.” Therefore, it is important to accept compliments. When people deflect compliments, they do a disservice to themselves. People tend to reply to a compliment with, “Oh, it wasn’t a big deal” or “I did a small part; Margaret really did all the work.” If someone is being polite enough to compliment you, be polite enough to accept the darn compliment! If you aren’t sure what to say, a simple, “Thank you!” will suffice. Shame can take other forms. Fears of racism, sexism, or homophobia can hold people back from reaching their full potential. You might invalidate compliments you receive if you feel that your manager is biased against your sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity. You can turn these issues around by discussing these fears with your coworkers and working to gain a better understanding and appreciation for your differences. If your 806 Chapter 32 Being Happy corporate culture discourages openness about personal issues, you may find it useful to at least open up privately to someone, such as your boss or a close coworker. An Unsafe Workplace Is an Unproductive Workplace A bisexual SA lost a week’s worth of productivity because he overheard a coworker in the next cubicle saying that “queers should all be killed.” Would it be safe for him to walk to his car after work if this coworker found out he was bisexual? Would the coworker sabotage his work? Every time he tried to work, the memory of his coworker’s words distracted him. The next day, he brought up this issue to his boss, who refused to talk with the coworker or move the SA’s cubicle. Eventually, the SA left the company. The manager could have saved the cost of recruiting and training a new staff person if he had taken the time to make it clear to the coworker that such comments are inappropriate in the workplace and that their company valued people by the quality of their work, not by their race, sexual orientation, gender, or other nonwork issues. The manager could have also explained that the diversity of the group was what made it strong. 32.2.2.3 Happiness Cognitive theorists believe that being happy or sad is not driven by whether good or bad things are happening to people, but by how they react to what is happening around them. How can this be? Again, we return to the concept of the critical inner voice. Some people can shut down that voice when they need to; others pay too much attention to it. For example, suppose that a tree falls on someone’s house. One person might think, “Of course it fell on my house; I don’t deserve a safe home.” Someone else might think, “I’m glad nobody got hurt!” and look forward to the opportunity to redecorate once the repairs are complete. The opposite situation can also be true. You typically would think that getting a raise would be a good thing. However, it might introduce a big barrel of worries for some people: “I’m already working as hard as I can; now they’ll expect even more. I’m doomed to fail!” The first part of The Feeling Good Handbook (Burns 1999a) gives further examples, as well as some excellent solutions. A little insecurity is normal and healthy. It keeps people out of harm’s way and encourages people to “measure twice, cut once.” However, too much can cause problems. Luckily, you can retrain yourself. The first step is to recognize that this critical inner voice exists. People can be so accustomed to it that they believe 32.2 The Icing 807 it without pausing to evaluate what it is saying. Once you have recognized that it is speaking, pause to think about what it is saying. Consider the source. Is it simply doubting everything? Is it viewing the world as black and white? Is it repeating negative things you were told by outsiders? Case Study: Consider the Source One SA had a major breakthrough when he realized that his critical inner voice was always saying negative things that his hypercritical mother had said to him when he was young. In fact, the voice sounded like his mother’s voice! He realized that these thoughts were simply echoes of the extreme negativity he had received as a child and were not useful bits of advice. He set out to develop the habit of ignoring those thoughts until they disappeared. It worked! Retraining yourself is not easy, but it can be done successfully. Many people choose to do it with the help and guidance of a therapist. Others do it on their own. Burns (1999a) includes a large number of techniques and a useful guide to selecting the ones that are right for you. Take advantage of the confidential employee assistance program (EAP) if your employer provides one as part of its mental health benefits package. 32.2.2.4 Good Boss/Bad Boss Your manager affects your ability to love your job more than the kind of work you do. A bad job with a great boss is better than a great job with a bad boss. Suppose that your job was the best, most fantastic job in the world. For example, suppose that you were being paid to eat chocolate all day. If your boss was a jerk, you would still hate your job. On the other hand, if you had a terrible job, a great boss would find a way to make it enjoyable. Our personal experience is that most people leave their jobs not because they don’t enjoy their work but because they didn’t like their bosses. 32.2.2.5 Accepting Criticism In addition to accepting compliments well, it is important to take criticism well. Everyone receives criticism now and then. Some people interpret all comments as criticism; others let the smallest criticism wreck their self-esteem. That’s not good. However, if you take criticism positively, it can help you change your behavior so that you improve yourself. Criticism is a good thing: It prevents people from repeating mistakes. Imagine how terrible it would be 808 Chapter 32 Being Happy if everyone made the same mistake over and over again! Rather than accepting criticism with disdain for the critic, it is healthier to thank the person for his honesty and think about what you can do better in the future. It is important to distinguish between constructive and nonconstructive criticism. Nonconstructive criticism hurts feelings without helping the situ- ation. Be careful of the nonconstructive criticism you give yourself: Don’t “should” yourself to death. “Should” is a scolding word. When you think to yourself “Oh, I should have done such and such,” you are scolding yourself about something you can’t control: the past. It is much better to replace “I should have” with “next time, I will.” 32.2.2.6 Your Support Structure Everyone needs a support structure. Everyone needs someone to talk with now and then. Your support structure is the network of people you can go to when you need to talk about a problem. Having different people you can go to for advice on office politics, technical advice, and general life advice is very important when you feel that you are over your head. It takes time to develop these relationships. Sometimes, the right person is your spouse or significant other, a friend, a coworker or manager, or even an email list of people who share a common interest. 32.2.2.7 Ask for Help It is important to ask for help. We find that SAs tend not to be very good at seeking help for personal problems and instead are likely to let a problem build up until they feel like exploding. Maybe it is related to some “macho” culture of being self-sufficient. Maybe because they solve problems before their customers notice them, SAs expect other people to read their minds when they themselves have problems. Maybe it’s because SAs are expected to solve technical problems on their own and try to carry that into their personal lives. Even when SAs do reach out for technical help, it is often to nonhuman resources: web pages, FAQs, and manuals. Even asking for help on electronic mailing lists has an air of not talking about your problems face to face. Successful people know that it is not a weakness to ask for help. In fact, people respect someone who takes responsibility for getting help. It creates less of a burden on others to deal with a problem when it is small rather than when it has escalated into a large emergency. Most important, problems are solved more quickly when many people work on them. Share the wealth! Friends help other friends. It’s like a bank account: You make a deposit when 32.2 The Icing 809 you help your friends, and you shouldn’t feel bad about making a withdrawal every now and then. Should Have Asked for Help Everything would have been better if one SA had asked for help. He was going to present a paper at a very large SA conference. When he didn’t show up at the designated time, 15 minutes before his presentation, the coordinators went through a lot of pain to reorder the other speakers. He did show up just moments before he was to speak, when the session chair was on stage introducing the replacement speaker. He was late because he had brought only overhead transparencies rather than his laptop with the presentation on it. Seeing that all the other speakers were projecting directly from laptops, he asked a technician at the conference whether it was possible to use transparencies. The technician was unaware that such equipment was available and erroneously told him that it was not possible to use overhead transparencies. Instead of asking one of the conference coordinators for help, he got permission from his boss to rent a laptop for a large sum of money. The rented laptop ran only Windows, and his presentation had been written under Linux, so he then spent several hours retyping the presentation into Windows while his boss made the presentation available over the Internet in case he could find someone with a Linux laptop that he could borrow. Had he asked for help, the coordinators would have been able to find transparency equipment or would have been easily able to find a Linux laptop for him to use. Instead, he created a lot of stress for himself and others and spent a large amount of money to procure a temporary laptop. He should have asked for help. We have other similar anecdotes that involve other personal issues, such as finance, health, relationship and family problems, and even drug and al- cohol abuse. In every case, the person’s friends wished they had been called on sooner. That’s what friends are for. 32.2.2.8 Balance Work and Personal Life Finding balance between work and personal time is important to mental health. Although it can be gratifying to be a hardcore techie who works day and night, burnout will eventually become a problem. Taking time for yourself is key. Taking breaks during the day, getting regular sleep, having a social life outside of work, and not working yourself to death are all critical habits to develop. Treat your significant other with the respect he or she deserves. Many SAs work so many hours that their significant others become “technology 810 Chapter 32 Being Happy widows.” That shows little respect for them. Family time 6 is important time; take time for them. Schedule it in your datebook. Give them the thanks and admiration they deserve. Put pictures of them on your desk, so you are always reminded that you do it for them (Crittenden 1995). The most valuable thing you can give your family is time. Nobody’s last words have ever been, “I wish I had spent more time at the office.” Respecting your body is also important. Listen to your body. If you are tired, go to sleep. If you are hungry, eat. If you aren’t feeling well, help your body repair itself. It’s ironic that we often meet people who take care of immense networks but don’t know how to take care of their own bodies. Your employer gives you vacation time. Take it; the company gives it to you so you won’t burn out and then be completely useless to the firm. Long ago, employers discovered that vacations benefit both the employer and the employee. You don’t do yourself or your company a favor by skipping vacations. Many times, we’ve heard from people who prided themselves for not having taken a vacation in years: “The company can’t live without me” or claims that skipping vacations shows your dedication. Actually, the opposite is true. If you don’t disappear for a week or two once a year, there is no way to discover whether your job is documented properly or that your fallback coverage is properly trained. It is better to learn what coverage is missing during a vacation that you return from rather than when you quit or, heaven forbid, get hit by a truck. 32.2.2.9 Awards Wall Finally, we have one more recommendation for maintaining positive self- esteem and loving your job. Maintain an “accomplishment wall,” a place where you post all the positive feedback you receive: a note from a customer that says thanks, awards you have received, and so on. Make sure that these are in a place that you see every day, so that you have a constant reminder of the positive things you’ve done. If you are the team leader, you might consider having such a wall for all the team’s accomplishments located in a place that the entire team will see. When morale is low, you can look at the wall to remind yourself of times when people have said good things about you. 6. By “family,” we mean a very wide definition. Single people have families, too. Some people have chosen families, rather than biological ones (Small 1993). [...]... and Lucent, the SAs went through a lot of extra work to split the network on time They received token bonuses when the project was complete (Limoncelli, Reingold, Narayan and Loura 199 7) This is an example of a properly administered bonus Such a large project was atypical and out of the scope of their job descriptions The bonus was well received If the SAs had been hired specifically to split the network, ... 40 hours of professional development a year The technical manager is responsible for ensuring that her management understands the value of professional development and funds it appropriately The technical manager should also work with her employees to make sure that they get the most out of that money and that they share what they learn with the rest of the group She should make sure that the group... for her team by handling bureaucratic tasks and supporting people in their interactions with the rest of the company She should support them in the work they do She should accept blame for failures that the group is responsible for, deflect the blame away from the team members, and not seek to assign fault to individuals while nonetheless expecting the team to do better the next time The responsible... career path should be The technical manager should make suggestions only after employees have exhausted their ideas of where they could go Typical suggestions are along obvious paths: junior SAs to become intermediate and then senior SAs She should help them to become proficient at what they do and then gradually increase the scope of their jobs so that they gain experience and proficiency in more areas... chain and in her customer base The key components of a successful relationship with nontechnical management are communication and setting and meeting expectations Use graphs and quantitative data to address issues relating to the business goals of the company and of the group The relationships with the nontechnical managers are key to the technical manager’s success and job satisfaction Use Analogies They... computing support and affects users as a result of systems being down We have had cases recently in which people have used addresses already in use by critical servers, printers, other people’s PCs, and the like This has the same effect as if someone walked up to another person’s PC when no one was around and pulled the network connection out of the back of it That person is affected, and the computing... (fiber) The two routers were in different parts of the building He asked the two engineers to go to the server rooms and pantomime the change (see Section 18.2.5) to make sure that all the right connectors were delivered and that the fiber was the right length He had done this in front of them during previous projects They laughed at Tom for making this suggestion, and Tom had a feeling that they weren’t... still involved at some level in the technical aspects of running the site Her role includes mentoring more junior SAs and helping them to develop both their technical and interpersonal skills The members of her technical staff look to her to deal with red tape or roadblocks they may come across in the course of their work, so that they can focus on the technical issues The technical manager also interacts... operator at the university computer center One day, he walked to the director’s office and stated, “I want you to know that I want to be one of the student managers here, and I’ll do what it takes to get there.” At the end of the school year, he was told that if he worked hard and was on his best behavior for the entire summer, he would receive the promotion before the new school year He worked hard and was... more recognized and involved in the field They should work toward advancing the profession of system administration by getting involved in organizing conferences, as well as presenting at them; or by working with the IETF or various open source communities to play a part in the specification and design of future technologies Others may want to explore management as a goal Give them the opportunity . choose to do it with the help and guidance of a therapist. Others do it on their own. Burns ( 199 9a) includes a large number of techniques and a useful guide to selecting the ones that are right. your datebook. Give them the thanks and admiration they deserve. Put pictures of them on your desk, so you are always reminded that you do it for them (Crittenden 199 5). The most valuable thing you. day, he walked to the director’s office and stated, “I want you to know that I want to be one of the student managers here, and I’ll do what it takes to get there.” At the end of the school year,