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I realized we were both like singing but like looking down like well, I wasn't singing so much. I was supporting it, supported bop. I love the support of black Girl blop.
Okay, So we got a nice chalky email from anonymous, but we're gonna.
Call her mm hmmm pregnant and needing a raise, pregnant Penny.
Pregnant Penny.
Okay, pregnant Panny says Hi, Mandy and Tiffany, this is pregnant eating a raise aka pregnant Penny. We're calling you that girl.
First of all, I.
Would like to say I love your podcast and habit of the voter listeners is discovering the podcast last year. We love that she's writing for the first time for some career advice. She's been with the same company for many years and held just a bunch of different positions on different project products projects.
So earlier this year she transitioned.
To a new role, and although her previous role was comfortable, she sought this new position out because she wanted more of a challenge and knew that she was capable, yes, capable, Queen of contributing more than what she was in her previous role, so when transitioning, she was just given her normal five percent merit increase.
After being in that role for three.
Months, the project, the product, the project experienced some funding challenges, especially this is last year.
I get it because this was happening.
With the contract and they were forced to make some personnel cuts, so they let go some people. They got rid of the project lead, her supervisor and put her in his role, okay, and she accepted without asking for more money because she felt lucky that she still had a job with some of her colleagues being moved to other projects or let go all together. Me and Manny kind of read this prior. We both said at the same time, like not asking for money during that time.
After being in this project lead position for a month or so, another project lead resigned and then she was asked to be an interim project lead for that project as well, and they are looking for a permanent replacement. Now she's leading two projects and there's no clear timeframe of when the replacement for the second project will come.
That's a lot for part one, many go do part two.
I would love to do part two. So part one, she sets us up with what's happening at work right now, But here's real life, so she says, with the increased responsibility and extra workload. I want to ask for a raise, but I'm not sure how. I'm not sure or how to do so. I'm not Oh, she says, I want to ask for a raise, but I'm not sure how to do so. I'm pregnant with my set child do in November. I have a first child is fifteen months,
so I'm going to have two under two. With daycare being so expensive two three hundred dollars per child and DC living expenses so high, my current salary of one hundred and thirty nine thousand dollars just won't cut it, even though I don't have any debt, car payment, student loans, et cetera. So without debt, one thirty nine is not cutting it. I'm nervous about asking for a raise because I know that I will also have to tell them I'm pregnant as well as and we'll soon be taking
three months of maternity leave. Please advise on how I should go about this conversation when asking for a raise. Should I be upfront and tell my manager that I'm also pregnant and will be taking maternity leave, or try to secure the rais and then drop the bomb that I'm pregnant afterwards. Or should I wait a little longer to see if they bring on a replacement soon. Oh, there's a lot of g's and h's. I'm not sure. All I know is that I need more money to
be able to comfortably so for my growing family. Whoo, pregnant Penny, there was so much here. Okay these I'm so glad that we're answering your questions soon after you submitted it, because I think we can be a lot of help. Yes, okay, this is such a common scenario. I just want to say first and foremost that often the opportunities for advancement come not in the traditional sense
of like you're ready, here's your promotion. It's more like, oh shit, they just quit, or like oh no, they got let go, and now we got to like scramble and move things around. And you were positioned well, you know, for whatever reason they kept you, so you were positioned well to pick up the mantle and pick up this additional responsibility and show what you're capable of. I too have benefited from someone else's getting left getting fired, and you know you don't have to feel any ounce of
guilt about it. And I also completely understand why you would feel because of the way that they were let go, like detective and like you just want to let's not make too much noise about this because it could be me next. That's completely natural. That being said, there was an opportunity for you to ask for more at the time, and you haven't, but you have another opportunity any time
you choose to have. One. My biggest concern right now, and I want you to like really understand this is you do not have to tell them that you're pregnant. In fact, don't do it. It's none of their business. It has nothing to do with why you deserve a promotion. And I was a little concerned because she said, like I I'm worried because I know I will also have
to tell them that I'm pregnant, says who pregnant? Pen Because it is not required and honestly, it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that you have a bigger title, more responsibility, and do not underestimate your leverage right here, because they need you, and in fact, they need you so much they're the only person they could think of turning to when the other project lead left. But be cautious because one of the reasons they may be turning to you is because, oh, turn to pregnant pen.
They're not calling you that turn to Penny because she says yes, really, Fashi isn't ask too many questions. She hasn't caused me too much agree if she's not asking me to find more budget. And it's just an easy person to saddle something. It's an easy person to saddle with stuff. And if you become that person and they don't recognize that, they need to, like you know, come
correct with how they're valuing your time. If you don't stand up for yourself, then you will continue to be so blessed with opportunities and additional workloads and so trusted and given so much and they couldn't bear to lose you ever, But they will not be actually matching that with dollars, which is what you want at the end of the day. Right, like you said, you got bills to pay.
How soon an advanced before needing maternity to leave. Do you are you supposed to be asking like what's.
The Well often in HR like they will have like it's not even something you have to tell your manager, Like you can ask HR, hey, what are the policies around parental leave and is there any you know, details you can share with me? And they may say that you have to fill out this form and you know, submit it such and such. But like, let's say you
have no idea that you're pregnant. You're like on that TLC show, I didn't know I was pregnant, and all of a sudden, like you give birth, Well, you're gonna need to take maternity leave like parental leave at that time. And whether or not you gave them enough notice or not, it may not even matter. Federal Medical Family Family Medical Leave Act, which is a federal law, says that your
job must be saved for you for twelve weeks. Doesn't mean they have to pay you, but your job is protected if you have a child, you know, while you're employed, so I think, But at the same time, that's the law, but you also want to be considerate. There's ways of being considerate for your own absence that have nothing to do with like telling them. You could do some pre planning on your own, like, Okay, I'm gonna be on Matt leave. I'm a leader now, so here's here's a
three month plan. Like I'm assuming it's three months. Maybe you have less or more parental leave, but you can do a lot to lay the groundwork for your absence in advance. And it doesn't have to be like a you know, hey, I'm going on myce you leave, you better figure this stuff out. It's a good opportunity for you to show leadership and start planning for your own absence and start deputizing people. And this is a difficult time for the company, but that doesn't mean that your
life has to stop. It means that you can find other people to delegate to or find out what resources you need so that things can get covered while you're out. They've told you that they want you to lead these projects, so lead them by figuring out the plan for you being gone for a few months.
I'm trying to think on the employer side, like.
Sometimes, I mean, I get it why she didn't ask for the because it was like, yikes, the contract was cut, so there's no money. I've been there where someone has deserved the raids because of the work, but there's just not any money, you know, Like I've already done all the cuts, you know. I remember at one point, I was my salary. I cut my salary in half. I was making half of what everybody else was making, intentionally
just to try to make, you know, ends meet. And I'm was like, oh my gosh, this person does deserve a raids, but I just we don't have it.
So I don't know. Sometimes I guess.
I mean, I don't know, she doesn't know they don't have it, or she doesn't ask.
That's true.
And if you fired salaried employees, which it sounds like there's budget that head count, like that money, if you chose to allocate it toward labor, there can.
Sometimes you fire because you're actually in a deficit, like you know, meaning like it's not like, oh.
I fired it and I have extra hundred thousand dollars a year.
It's like, no, I was over one hundred thousand dollars and so I fired to get myself. Yeah, So I don't know, I mean, to Mandy's point, it doesn't all that to say I've never been mad an employee asking me for a raise they ought to, and I told them, I know this is really hard.
I'm proud of you for saying it. But let me show you how we don't have no money. But we worked it out.
You know, y'all worked it out by giving them like a profit share because but I don't know that I would have come up with the profit share plan had they not asked for the raise.
It forced me to be creative.
So to Mandy's point, you know, because I saw so much value my employees, I figured something out. So yes, asking but knowing that, like you know, not everybody's just hoarding money. Sometimes it is like, yeah, you know, I mean not these big companies, they're all liars.
But she just needs the confidence to ask, and at least even if the answer is no, the message is going to be clear. And that's what I was trying to get out earlier when I was talking about how be careful not showing up for yourself, because you will become you know, every house has that junk table or the junk drawer where you just kind of throw stuff because oh, well it's over there, they don't complain. That's
what you can become. And it happens to women. So often because we are expected to take on additional unpaid work all the time. So people are really comfortable taking advantage of us for our time, and like we are also conditioned to just enjoy it to be needed. I love to support be a team player. Anyhow, you're playing yourself if you don't stand up and say, okay, I'm given these additional responsibilities. So when can we talk about
compensation and how that'll be reflected. And if it's not directly able to be reflected in your compensation, then what about a discretionary fund or a budget that you can use to hire your own contractors, to outsource things, buy tools or software that could help you do your job a little bit better. You just want to stand up for what you need within reason, okay, so that they don't get the message that you're not going to complain
or be a squeaky wheel. The question about like strategically, she has sort of two or three things she wants to raise. She also has the news about being pregnant and needing to go on maternity lead, and she also
has the second project that they foisted upon her. I know, so if I were going an order, I would say focus first on the rais and the compensation for the job that you have now the second project to me that comes in the same I think the same conversation as the maternity leave, because that can be a justification for why, you know, I think for the long term good of this project, it's better to maybe find someone
else to delegate this to, or I can. I can, I can be on this project for the next few months, but you know what that project timeline is, and if it's whether or not you feel like it's okay for you to sort of last minute or not so last minute, But is the project going to be completely thrown off the rails if you were to leave for a few months, Because if that's true, then the responsible thing is to prepare for that and let them know I'm happy to take this on, but we need we need some sort
of transition plan because I'm not going to be available post like November or whenever you're having the baby. But I would say, like, get the title and the compensation squared away for your current role first, and then the other stuff can come after. And I would definitely not mention your pregnancy, so and the it shouldn't be part of the calculation. I know that to if you mean, you employ a lot of women, so you probably have
been in that position. So I can see your face being like, but it's nice to tell us in advance.
But well, I mean I get everybody. I haven't really I haven't been handled. No, we've all I mean, I remember there was a young young woman on our team. When she told us, she was like, we had just hired her, and she sounded nervous to tell me. But I was like, and I knew she was nervous, so I made sure to be like, oh my god, that's so great gratulation to be like, girl, we're going to focus on the blessing here and we'll figure the rest
of this stuff out. Like and so if we did, we've had I'm trying to think how many women have on my team had like left from attorney leave at least two or three and so and we navigated and we managed, and it's like for me, it's nice to know ahead of time because then we you know, we've no one has come back to no job that just has not happened. You've come back, and you know, we were like, yay, we have more helping hands. We just
navigate and manage around you. Yeah, and so, but it taught me to also create like a buddy system, which we still use today. Where is there someone on the job that make it do your job at least as a see at a C plus if you're not here, you know, so it allows you to go on vacation and stop checking your slack. It allows you to you know what I mean, because that worried me.
I saw a lot of.
People were still working when they shouldn't be working because they're like, if I don't do it, it's just going to pile up. And I'm like, there's always someone on a team that could do your job at least to a C plus so you can come back to be like, Okay, it's not so crazy when I've come back.
So yeah. So, I mean, but you know you're you know that's me and how we navigate with my team.
You know your you know your company and like how accommodating they are. But if you have some questions and you want to ask us, you get, oh wait, we have more questions.
I don't think we did our we disclaimer.
I was just about to do that. I was about to do it.
Before we could sued her.
Right sound if you have some question, If you have some questions, we'd love to answer them.
But here's the thing. We're not your mother, not your father, not your sister, but your friends.
We're not your doctor, your attorney, your financial advisor, you're any of the people that you paid for advice, honey. So what you're gonna do is you're going to listen to the podcast with the smallest and smallest of grains of salt, and then you're gonna moze on over to the people that you do pay for professional advice, and you're going to do what they say. And you might mention what we say, but you're gonna do what they say. And you're not gonna sue us because I didn't tell
you to do that, right. Me and Manny was just like, this is what we think, But child, what do we know. We're just two smart, cute brown girls on a podcast, just talking.
Okay.
Random just came just showed up one day and there was a microphones here and people wanted to know what I mean.
Well, we're not We're not. We're not your advisors, honey. Okay, So take that disclaimer, But if you do have questions, please please please go on over to.
Uh brannabision podcast dot com and there is a contact less button there, but we prefer brown a Vision podcast on IG Sliding.
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That's our favorite place to find them. Or you know, you can email us if you are a boomer and I'm just joking at Brodision Podcasts at gmail dot com.
Be careful now, gen x Is are the new boomers.
I know I'm a boom. Well I don't even care. I know I'm a gen xer, but I don't care. I email.
So yeah, r NBA fan, thank you for listening. We'll see you guys Monday Wednesday Friday. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Bye