When an employee asks for more money because other men are being paid higher wages in the same office, or because he has prospects of better pay elsewhere, or even because of increased costs of living, he makes an unfavorable impression on the man from whom he requests a raise.  His purpose in presenting his claims is evidently selfish.  He appears to be looking out only for Number One, and the employer naturally looks out for his Number One when responding.  By using methods that suggest a wholly selfish purpose, the applicant decreases his chances of gaining what he desires.  Yet most employees ask for raises in just this way.

[Sidenote:  The Quid Pro Quo]

Contrast the impression made when an employee approaches the boss with a carefully planned demonstration of his capability for increased service, as the basis of a proposal that he be promoted or given a higher salary.  He comes into “the old man’s” office with an attitude that produces a favorable impression.  When he explains exactly what he is doing, or can do if permitted, that is deserving of more reward than he has been receiving, he presents the idea of a “quid pro quo” to his “prospect,” just as the salesman of goods presents the idea of value in fair exchange for price.

If the service now being rendered by the employee, or the new service he wishes permission to render, is really worth more money to the employer, the applicant for a raise is practically certain to get it, provided he has chosen a fair boss.  And, of course, a good salesman of himself does not go to work in the first place until he has prospected the squareness and fair-mindedness of the employer.

[Sidenote:  The Saleswoman Secretary]

A young woman was employed in a secretarial capacity shortly before the world war began.  In the course of the next two years her salary was voluntarily doubled by her employer.  But her necessary expenses increased in proportion; so she was able to save no more money (in purchasing power) than it would have been possible for her to put in the bank if there had been no increase either in her earnings or in the cost of living.  That is, if the war had not happened, and she had continued at work for two years without any raise at all, she would have been practically as well off at the end of that time as she actually found herself with her doubled pay.

As the months of her employment passed, she had made herself progressively much more valuable to her employer.  She was rendering him now a very large amount of high-grade service.  But in effect she was being paid no more money than when she was engaged.  The young woman knew her employer intended to be fair with her.  Undoubtedly he felt he had treated her well by voluntarily doubling her salary in two years.  If she had gone to him and had asked for more pay in the manner of the ordinary applicant for a raise; if she had stated her request without skillfully showing the difference between actual conditions and his misconception of the facts; she likely would have made an unfavorable impression.  But she was a good saleswoman of her ideas.  She made a discriminative-restrictive plan of approach to gain her object, and used first-class selling skill to get into her employer’s mind a true conception of her worth to him.