Negotiation Dreaming

Here is some preparation in advance for the anticipated future events to take place, probably on multiple occasions, during what is shaping to be the very successful professional career.

Two of them, Boss and Z were sitting in the meeting room on Level 8 behind the closed doors. Z is not a big fan of the office space on Level 8, much more preferring his comfy corner cubical on the 4th floor. There are quite a few reasons why he finds Level 4 much more comfortable, but considering Z’s strong dislike of air-conditioners, the least of them is definitely not the room temperature that is kept at rather low levels on the 8th floor. And with just two people sitting in a modestly sized meeting room, yet the one with the two outlets vigorously pumping in the air-conditioned air, and having closed door, for Z, it gets cold really quickly in there.

As the conversation already took quite a few minutes, and Z, in addition to feeling the air-conditioned breeze slowly crawling trough his nicely ironed shit and chilling out his body almost as though from the inside, felt that the negotiation process is getting him nowhere. So next, he decisively said: ‘Yes, it is a team effort, it always is. Though, the main, 0iginal idea on top of which everything else is build upon is usually generated by one person only. And, in the regards to BlubberyPie revamp – our biggest project to date, EVER – the person who came up with the most of those ideas has been me. Most of the time I was responsible not just for the ideas but for all of the content provided as well, starting back with the business case proposal, all the way through the analysis and design work until today. Yes, the team did try to help, but I have to say, I’m only grateful for their trying effort, but not for the resulting contribution provided. Most of the time, pardon the programming, whatever they did was not even close up to the standards, leaving me to rework their portion by myself. I am sorry that you haven’t seen this – it is my responsibility and my fault that you haven’t seen it yet – and hence, that you don’t appreciate the difference that my contribution has been consistently making. Also, I don’t think there is much point at this time to get into conversation about the positive effect my ‘happy go lucky’ attitude has on the overall staff morale. If you don’t mind sir, I will move back to my cubicle now to continue the work. At any point in time, should you wish to resume this negotiation process you know where you’ll find me. Thanks for your time.’

a)
Z, then slowly gets up and walks out from what will turn out to be the last meeting of that particular type, in that particular meeting room. Two more weeks that he still had left on the current contract will pass by quickly, very quickly. For the next two weeks, Z will work even harder then ever, exercising his professional range on the pursuit of the perfection at everything he did.

Or, the most preferable but definitely less likely scenario:

b)
The Boss smiles, and says: ‘I am well familiar with your contribution, both tangible and intangible, but I must admit that I definitely didn’t know about your negotiation skills. That’s something we can definitely utilise a lot better from now on. Sure, you can have the 50% increase on your base salary.’ At this point Z fleshes his big bright smile and enthusiastically gets up - more like jumps up - from his chair to shake Boss’s hand, and Boss reciprocates ... And just then, right in the moment of Z’s utter feelings of satisfaction, Boss throws him a surprise. While shaking hands, he says: ‘and to really show you just how much your contribution is appreciated around here, we’ll double your bonuses. I’ll get HR-Flirt to prepare the new contract.’

c)
Something between the two extremes would be just fine – also can, lah...!