2597: Salary Negotiation

|< < Prev Comic #2597 (March 23, 2022) Next > >|

Salary Negotiation

Title text: "We can do 0.33 or 0.34, but our payroll software doesn't allow us to--" "NO DEAL."

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a SALARY OF $61,333.3333333333 PER YEAR (ROUGHLY) - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

Cueball has been offered a new job, with a starting salary of $55,000. He is flummoxed by this high-stakes situation and starts to ramble with decreasing coherence.

When offered a new job, it is common to negotiate on aspects of the offer such as salary, and employers may offer below the market rate initially in the expectation that the final negotiated amount will be higher. Given that one's future income depends on the outcome of a one-time process requiring skills unrelated to the job one is hired for, it is advisable to take one's time and do as much research as possible. Cueball has clearly done some research, but perhaps too much as he takes out several sheets of paper and confuses himself further.

Eventually he settles on an irrational number, which cannot be paid in whole cents. However, if he would be happy with an arrangement such as a leap cent every three years, the issue would be resolved.

This can be read as a cautionary tale about taking time to compose one's thoughts before responding to a situation. The confusion caused by the wad of papers also reminds us that more information does not necessarily mean more clarity.

For more interview-related XKCDs, see: 125: Marketing Interview, 1088: Five Years, 1094: Interview, 1293: Job Interview and 1545: Strengths and Weaknesses.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[Ponytail sits at an office desk, with Cueball sitting on the other side. It appears as though he is being interviewed]

Ponytail: We'd like to extend an offer! The starting salary is $55,000.

Cueball: Wow. I guess I'm inside a negotiation! Ponytail: I ... weird to phrase it like that, but--

Cueball: I can do this.

[Zoom in on Cueball's upper half]

Cueball: I won't accept a penny over $50,000. Sorry, I mean under. Under $60. I mean, $600. Thousand. $600,000. I want a 15% cut of the salary. Raise. Double down. Fold. Pass. Fill it up with regular.

[The same shot, except Cueball is now holding three pieces of paper]

Ponytail: Are you--

Cueball: Sorry, sorry. Let me start over. Ok, my chart says... ...can I borrow a calculator? What's 20% of $55,000?

[Zoom out again. Cueball has put the papers on his lap and has raised his hand in the air, pointing. In his other hand he holds a small rectangular device]

Ponytail: Listen, if you need to--

Cueball: I won't take this job for less than $61,333 point 3 repeating!

Ponytail: Sure, $61,333 is fine. That's actually--

Cueball: [boldened] POINT 3 REPEATING OR I WALK!

 add a comment! ⋅  add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅  refresh comments!

Discussion

The second panel is me every time I haggle for something, and I have to make sure I don't end up haggling the wrong way. Or starting above my desired price when I mean to start below so that I can meet in the middle at my desired price.

172.70.91.36 23:06, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

It's not a one-time negotiation, anyway. During an annual review I'd have to suggest any pay adjustments. Was useless at it, too self-effacing. I left one job after ten years and later on found my exact same old position (which I had felt now wasn't adding much to the team, part of the reason I left) readvertised with a suggested salary range starting at twice that of what I had actually departed with. Seems they needed me (or someone quite like me) more than any of us knew. That experience didn't improve my assertiveness, though. 172.70.90.211 10:25, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

They should offer him $61,333.33 plus a penny extra once every three years.162.158.107.198 23:31, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

The way a friend solved it was to cut a penny into six pieces (like a pizza), and then give me two of them. Ruffy314 (talk) 09:42, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

This raises more questions than it answers. Why was your friend giving you 1/3 of a penny? Why two sixths rather than one third? How did they cut it? --192·168·0·1 (talk) 13:34, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I would imagine that it is significantly easier to slice a coin all the way through than it is to cut it halfway through. But I'm still wondering how: after making the first cut (presumably relatively easy given the right tools), the subsequent cuts would be against *parts* of a penny, not the entire thing (thereby decreasing the utility of making full slices). Once a penny is cut in half, the two parts won't stay together anymore, unlike a pizza where the entire thing retains its same shape the entire time. I also wonder about the utility: a fraction of a penny under 50% of the total volume is completely worthless. When someone has more than 50%, then it is worth the entire value of the penny. Cwallenpoole (talk) 14:16, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

You can clamp down the two parts of a now discected coin, for a further cut across-tye-cut almost as easily as you can clamp down the original. Harder to do the two ⅙ths and two ⅓rds (or just the latter two) to get the final four ⅙ths. Or overlay the cut halves (or thirds), perhaps, then cut through both with a powerful enough slicer.

But the way I'd do it (assuming 6 ⅙s is the target) is to make the cut across all but a sliver of one edge, realign, make a similar cut (liberating ⅙, having ⅓+⅙+⅓ still joined) then clean through at the third angle (two more ⅙s loosed), after which you just need to snip through the two cut-ends that you left to make the slotted ½ into 3 separate ⅙s.

Just snipping from edge to centre, three times, can mess up at the meeting point. Though it involves the same angles, getting them to meet (non-messily) in the exact centre is awkward, and it's easier to visually map six equilateral triangles with an edge-length equal to the radius (to execute three cross-cuts, fairly) than the three obtuse triangles (or one equilateral triangle with edges ≠2r) in planning where on the edge to start. Well, from my regular experience in actual pizza-cutting into three equal portions, before we get to the difficulty in cleanly cutting a much smaller coin made of metal. 141.101.99.154 14:44, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Any idea how Cueball arrived at the figure of $61 1/3 thousand?--Troy0 (talk) 03:33, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Arbitrarily non-round numbers are a really good idea as per [1] (which I just added), and Cueball's is one of the simplest in terms of algebraic fractional expression at the bottom of the 110-120% widely-accepted counter-offer range already mentioned (with which I agree and have heard repeatedly from associates, but rather uncomfortably is in the explanation without a source.) I would sincerely say he's being quite shrewd at that point, except for the haggling over cents and fractional cents. 172.70.214.185 03:20, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Interesting. In the UK, I was taught to call them recurring decimals. Never heard of repeating decimals. --141.101.99.20 08:46, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I just assumed the usual trans-Atlantic difference in terminology. In general I'd also say "point three three three recurring" to establish the (unvarying) pattern, or something like "point one nine one nine recurring" for a bistable pattern, etc, so that it doesn't look like all-nines to infinity. But, to be honest, I'd be glad if people didn't use "point thirty-three" or the like. ;) 172.70.90.211 10:25, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't think the 15% is meaning a 15% cut in the (offered) salary, as the current explanation has it. I think this is referencing agent-type negotiations, where the agent might take 15% of the salary negotiated for the person they're representing.172.69.79.209 09:15, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Fixed. Justhalf (talk) 10:51, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Also inappropriately used/ill-formed, in this negotiation, but "15% of the gross" might be a given film-star's deal for appearing/cameoing in a movie, i.e. variable according to the success, tying directly into the money it earns the studio - potentially quite lucrative, without scaring off the studio by risking it (excessive) debts in the event of a flop or other failure to cash in. So long as the total percentages are not excessive!

A salary that is a set percentage (other than 100%) of one's own salary is, of course, nonsensicle and paradoxical (though one could suggest an introductive percentage 'discount' for the first year, as a wary employer's inducement/guarantee, perhaps in direct exchange for a corresponding bonus against the measure of productivity that is expected/hoped to be massively increased by being hired), but muddled Cueball seems to be grasping at apt-sounding fragments of such 'business language' yet mashing them together in various wrong ways. 172.70.162.147 12:47, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Summary is way too long and overdetailed. It's more like a play-by-play of the comic than an explanation 172.69.248.145 02:06, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Seconded. Apologies to whoever wrote the existing description, but you worked too hard. -mezimm 172.70.130.91 19:37, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

As others have pointed out, $61,333.33 1/3 is not an irrational number; however calling it a rational number (and linking the page for that term) seems pointless. Could we change it to say "irrational amount" to indicate Cueball's mindset and eliminate the link?

Why not just say that the 1/3 of a cent is paid in advance in 3 year cycles? The first year will get him $61333.34, then $61333.33 for the next 2 years. He can just save the 2/3¢ for the second and third years. :P 162.158.118.58 06:49, 20 July 2023 (UTC)