Re: That raise and promotion

[Jill Burgchardt <jburgcha -at- pestilence -dot- itc -dot- nrcs -dot- usda -dot- gov>]

Johnny,

If I were your manager, I'd have trouble accepting your argument that "Since I'm 
the only writer I think that qualifies me as the lead/senior writer." Whenever 
someone presents me with an argument, I try to analyze the logic:

Premise 1.	All solo writers are senior writers. 
Premise 2.	Johnny is a solo writer.
Conclusion	Johnny is a senior writer.

If premise 1 and 2 are true, your conclusion must be true. However, as a manager 
my response would be that Premise 1 isn't true--being the only writer doesn't 
make you a senior writer. If I don't accept that all solo writers are senior 
writers, then I won't necessarily accept that YOU are a senior writer. Odds are 
that if I believed premise 1, I would have hired a senior writer in the first 
place. Thus, you're out of luck as far as getting that raise and promotion.

I'd revise the argument structure as follows:

P1.  All tasks in set ABC are tasks performed by senior writers
P2.  Some tasks in set ABC are tasks performed for company XYZ 
Conc. Some tasks performed by senior writers are tasks performed for company XYZ 

and

P1.  All tasks performed for company XYZ are tasks performed by Johnny.
P2.  Some tasks performed for company XYZ are tasks performed by senior writers.
Conc. Some tasks performed by Johnny are tasks performed by senior writers.

Of course, you need to add detail about what tasks are in set ABC and your 
performance of those tasks. I have successfully written and presented raise 
justifications that followed this format. However, I gave the written documents 
to my boss during/after discussion of the points. 

Jill Burgchardt
jburgchardt -at- pestilence -dot- itc -dot- nrcs -dot- usda -dot- gov