firstplanthendo

People working on a product spend a lot of time thinking about the challenges and issues related to it. They are well equipped to write about these problems because of that hard work. If they also include something self-promotional in the piece, it doesn't diminish the value of the other points they make. And I'd say if they've taken the time to write and share their specialized knowledge (which you find interesting), it's not unreasonable to also include a message promoting a relevant product.

The conclusion of the article- that the easiest way to ensure you secure large raises every few years is to job hop, is probably true. But I think it takes a very defeatist attitude towards negotiating raises with present employers:

"In 2014, the average employee is going to earn less than a 1% raise and there is very little that we can do to change management’s decision. "

Most good managers know that it costs much more to find a new employee than to retain an experienced one- it takes a lot of time and effort to find a suitable candidate, and then to train them. I believe that given an opportunity, they'd rather pay up a larger raise than originally budgeted, to keep a good performer, than to have to find a replacement. But this rarely happens.

Why? I blame poor communication and avoidance. Most employees are loath to negotiate with their employers, and they're usually not very good at it when they do. Negotiating is hard- it can be scary, uncomfortable and awkward to "demand" hire pay from your manager. It's easier to just think "there's nothing I can do to change their minds, so I'll just have to go find a new job elsewhere". That path allows you to avoid negotiating and still be offered a 10%-20% raise.

What would happen if, before any employee decided to leave for a new job, they met with their manager to discuss the situation? And really thoroughly discuss it- meaning a well prepared case for a solid raise: An outline of the employees successes during the year, details of how they've contributed to the company's bottom line (even in a tangential way), hard stats on what the current job market pays for a someone with their experience, and a soft/gentle reminder of the costs of finding/training a replacement. All done in a calm and professional way.

Would every single manager just hand them a 20% raise and an apology? No. But managers are business minded, and are usually evaluated based on the costs and revenues associated with their team. I'd like to think that given a convincing argument like the one above, a good number of them would respond logically and offer larger, more reasonable raises.

Ideally a high performing employee shouldn't have to do that- management should recognize their contributions and the costs of find a replacement. But that's not reality. Pushing for a 10-20% raise for employees at the annual budget meeting would be met with responses that a manager is prematurely trying to solve a problem that hasn't yet presented itself.

So I believe the best solution is for employees to have those difficult negotiation meetings before they decide to jump ship. It won't work every time, but it'd work more than not having those discussions at all.

Using the program Little Snitch on OS X 10.8 now to block everything except Firefox (recommended by u/ef4 here)- successfully helped Safari pass this browser test.

Can anyone else comment on if this is a decent solution?

Like someone else said, it’s because it’s a Southwest flight… Southwest isn't shown on the results of the big airfare search engines (kayak, expedia, orbitz) when searching from the United States because it refuses to pay those websites' fees.

Looks like you’ve found out that they are shown on Canada based version of the Kayak site. Most likely because the fee arrangements are different or because Southwest is willing to pay them, probably to get exposure to markets that wouldn't otherwise know about them because they don't have a marketing presence there.

Somewhat different area, but earns me around $300 a month- Churning credit cards for rewards. So called “award/travel hacking”. 2 new credit cards per calendar quarter, conservatively estimate each signup bonus is worth $600 (if you know how to redeem them, usually that means for travel).

Have to live in the U.S. and have good credit to do it, but I’ve been at it for a few years now and haven’t paid for airfares or barely any lodging costs on almost all my travel. Working on an online class that teaches how to do it, looking to sell that for some “real” passive income.

There are some theft and risk concentration concerns, along with potential feature problems (accidental card selection change), but this would be great for credit cards rewards hacking- a lot of cards have different bonus areas.. 3x-5x points/cash back on different categories, like dining, gas, groceries, travel expenses, specific department stores, etc. This would easily allow you to maximize your rewards without having to carry around all the different cards. 2x-4x extra back means this will pay for itself pretty easily.

One of the points of a validation test like this is to be broad in your product offering, and seek feedback to guide the development/refinement of your product and its features.

Your own questions provide exactly that- Maybe nobody cares what type or brand of salsa it is, just that it’s different each month. Or maybe 2/3s of potential users ask that question, and he knows he should add that as a feature/description.

Or maybe he hears people want guacamole and sour cream delivered as well, and he then tests that offering out. Or nobody signs up, it fails, and he’s only lost a few hours of his time.