Editing 2597: Salary Negotiation

{{comic
| number    = 2597
| date      = March 23, 2022
| title     = Salary Negotiation
| image     = salary_negotiation.png
| titletext = "We can do 0.33 or 0.34, but our payroll software doesn't allow us to--" "NO DEAL."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a TRANSFINITE SALARY INCREASE - Please change this comment when editing this page, for fun and profit. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. Sincerely, management.}}
[[Ponytail]]'s company would like to hire [[Cueball]] for a job, and she is telling him that their offer for his starting salary is $55,000. 

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 the bedrock of 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 realizes that he has ended up in this situation, but, in typical [[Randall]] fashion, he states the fact, saying out loud ''Wow. I guess I'm inside a negotiation!'' Ponytail comments that it's a weird way to phrase it, and would then probably have continued to say, ''but that is correct.'' Cueball, however, interrupts her by stating that ''I can do this.''

Cueball has clearly done some research, but perhaps too much as he is flummoxed by this high-stakes situation and starts to ramble with decreasing coherence. First he gets completely confused about the numbers. He might have said I won't accept a penny below $60,000, starting out by putting a bit more on, letting now, that this might not even be the lowest he would accept. Instead he says he won't have a penny over $50,000, thus cutting $5000 of the initial offer, and saying he will not have more than that. He realizes this was completely wrong, and corrects to ''under'', but is still 5000 lower. Then he continues to mess up the numbers. Clearly he meant to go for $60,000, but first says $60 then $600, 1 000 and 100 times below what he wishes to say. Then adds the word ''Thousand'' after a short break, and continues to say it as one word $600,000. That is of course 10 times more than he wished to try for.

Realizing that he is completely off he asks for a "15% cut of the salary". Here, Cueball seems to confuse salary and commission. "X% cut of the salary" seems like what a recruiter/headhunter may get from their employer as a commission if they successfully make their person hired. This is not the phrase to be used when negotiating a salary, as is the case for Cueball here, since it's not commission based.

The next word he says is ''Raise''. This could make sense if he already had a job, and wished to negotiate for a pay raise. But that is not the case. After this, he begins to think of raise as in a card game and starts rambling off mainly poker related terms, like raise, fold and pass. He throws in double down in between. This can also be a card game term, as in blackjack where double down means to double a bet after seeing one's initial cards, with the requirement that one additional card be drawn. 

But in everyday speak, in a fairly dramatic [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=double+down&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cdouble%20down%3B%2Cc0 rise in popular usage], to double down is to take a further risk in a situation or passionately re-commit one’s efforts to a cause or course of action ''despite'' clear and contrary revelations. This could make a limited amount of sense in a negotiation situation in which one is trying to establish the necessary self-worth. But of course not in Cueball's ramble, that finishes with him saying ''Fill it up with regular'', something you would say at a gas-station, where they still had an attendant to operate the pumps. Likely something Cueball has only experienced when watching old movies...or territories and states where mandated by law.

At this point Ponytail tries to ask him something. Maybe, ''Are you OK?''. But again Cueball interrupts her, saying he is sorry and that he would like to start over. At this time he takes out several sheets of paper and looks at some charts. But the charts are not clear enough, or only have a suggestion for what percentage he should ask for. He asks if he can borrow a calculator (something he would likely have on his smart phone) and then asks what's 20% of $55,000. This last bit seems like he is finally following a common advice{{Citation needed}} to take the initial offer and add 10-20%. The midpoint of that range, 115% of $55,000 would be $63,250.

Once more Ponytail tries to give Cueball some time to think, but again he interrupts, as he eventually have settled on a number, $61,333.<span style="text-decoration:overline;text-decoration-style: single;">3</span> He even states that the decimals of 3 should be repeating, as in forever. This is exactly $61,333⅓. He clearly states he will not take the job for less than that. The value he settles on is 11.<span style="text-decoration:overline;text-decoration-style: single;">51</span>% larger, or exactly <sup>184</sup>⁄<sub>165</sub> times the original offer. A [https://hbr.org/2016/03/dont-use-round-numbers-in-a-negotiation 2016 Harvard Business School study] found that avoiding round numbers is a remarkably effective negotiation tactic.

Since this is not that much more than the starting offer Ponytail is ready to accept this and says ''Sure, $61,333 is fine.'' She is once more starting to say something, like ''That's actually a reasonable request'', or ''That's actually within our limits''. But for the fourth time Cueball interrupts her, this time almost yelling ''Point 3 repeating or I walk!'' Because what she just offered him was $1/3 less than he asked for, and thus more than a penny less.

This last outburst is just plain ridiculous as this would only lower his asking salary by 5 parts in a million. And for certain Ponytail would accept going to $61,334.{{Citation needed}}

In the title text it shows that this is not good enough. Cueball has now confused himself to the limit that he will not only not accept less than his asking salary, he will also not accept more. So when Ponytail tries to explain to him that the point 3 repeating cannot be paid in whole cents, and tries to let him know that their payroll software only can handle whole cents, and he thus can get either 0.33 or 0.34 (the latter actually being more than he asks for), he again shout out ''NO DEAL.'' 

Since Ponytail cannot pay him out in a number with infinite decimals (1/3, pi or any other kind){{Citation needed}}, it seems Cueball will let this job slip out of his hands, because he has completely misunderstood the concept of negotiation.

The situation could be resolved if he would be happy with an arrangement such as a leap cent every three years, but maybe Ponytail would at this point realize it was probably a mistake to hire such an easily confused person, and happily let him go.

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 xkcd comics, see for instance [[:Category:Job interviews]].

This could also be taken in series with Cueball (possibly as a stand in for Randall) misunderstanding classically "adult" ideas, see for instance [[616: Lease]], [[905: Homeownership]], [[1674: Adult]] and [[1894: Real Estate]].

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail sits in an office chair at her desk, with Cueball sitting in a similar chair on the other side with his hands on his knees. Ponytails has her hands on the desk and in front of her, there is a slim thing standing up. It could be a very small screen, but there seems to be no keyboard in front of her. Maybe it is a small tablet with a support for letting is stand up. Behind that there are what appears to be two piles of papers of different sizes.]
: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, and he is looking down on them. Ponytail is talking to him from off-panel.]
:Ponytail (off-panel): Are you-
:Cueball: Sorry, sorry. Let me start over.
:Cueball: OK, my chart says... 
:Cueball: ...Can I borrow a calculator? What's 20% of $55,000?

:[Back to the scene from the first panel. Ponytail has taken one hand down to her knee, with the other still on the desk. Cueball has put the papers on his lap and has raised his hand in the air holding one finger up. In his other hand he holds either a borrowed calculator or his own smartphone.]
: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: '''''Point 3 repeating or I walk!'''''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Job interviews]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]