Man, 2020. What a complete dumpster fire of a year, right? Everybody was stuck inside, things were weird, and I was sitting there, looking at that headline: Career Horoscope Pisces 2020 Forecast: Will You Get That Raise This Year?
I’m not gonna lie. I actually clicked it. And not just that one. I clicked every stupid forecast, read every article, all because I was completely dead-end-stuck at the job I had. I was working my butt off, putting in the hours, covering for half the team that had bailed, and I needed that raise. Not wanted it—I needed it. I watched that forecast, hoping the stars or planets or whatever the hell they talk about would align and hand me an extra five figures.
I was desperate, that’s the reality. I spent a good month or two just mentally preparing for the annual review, listing out everything I’d done. I drafted massive bullet points, I compiled customer testimonials, I basically built a small case file proving my worth. My logic was simple: give them so much evidence they couldn’t possibly say no.
The Great Budget Freeze Fiasco: The Pivot Point
The review came. I sat there in the Zoom meeting—because, you know, 2020—and I presented my whole argument. It was solid. They nodded, they smiled, they praised my ‘commitment’ and ‘future potential.’ Sounded great, right?
Then the hammer fell. “Outstanding work, truly. But… budget freeze. We can’t touch base salary until Q3 next year.”
A complete slap in the face. All that time I wasted checking stupid horoscopes and building a case for a raise that was never going to happen. It was right then, sitting in my cramped home office, that I finally snapped. I realized I was letting some middle manager and some internet mystic dictate my value. Screw that. I decided to stop asking for a raise and start setting my own salary.
This is where the real practice log began. My practice was simple: get out.
My Practice Log: The Anti-Horoscope Strategy
I immediately tossed the company narrative out the window. I stopped caring about their internal reviews. My focus shifted 100% to market value. Here’s how I executed the exit strategy:
- I Calculated My True Worth (Verb: TRACKED): I used three major salary aggregation sites. I plugged in my exact title, my specific skills, and my city. I determined the average salary, then added 15% because I knew I was better than average. That became my non-negotiable floor.
- I Built a New Resume (Verb: POLISHED): I scrapped the old one. Instead of listing duties, I listed accomplishments. I translated every task into a dollar value or an efficiency gain. I cut out all the fluffy jargon.
- I Mass-Applied (Verb: SPAMMED): I set up job alerts. Every night, after my shift, I applied to five new places. I didn’t care what the title was, as long as the base salary hit my new floor. I kept this up religiously for four weeks straight.
- I Interviewed Everywhere (Verb: PRACTICED): I scheduled interviews back-to-back. I used the first few interviews with companies I didn’t care about as pure, low-stakes practice sessions. I honed my answers, figured out the tricky questions, and perfected my negotiation silence.
- I Waited for the Leverage (Verb: NEGOTIATED): I refused to accept the first offer. I waited until I had two strong, written offers in hand. This allowed me to play them against each other slightly, maximizing the final number.
This whole process took about six weeks, start to finish. I was completely drained, working two jobs essentially, but I was focused. I knew that the time I was putting in was directly investment in myself, not in some stupid company’s ‘potential.’
The Final Realization: The Stars Don’t Pay the Bills
Six weeks later, I landed the offer. It wasn’t a raise; it was a completely new salary. It was 40% higher than what my old manager had blocked me from. Forty percent. If I had gotten that internal ‘raise’ I wanted, it would have been maybe 5-7% tops.
I called my old boss, who was still talking about Q3 budget possibilities, and I told him I was done. I left immediately. That feeling of control, of finally owning my value rather than begging for it, was better than any lottery win or lucky horoscope prediction.
My final lesson, from that desperate 2020 forecast clicker to the guy who set his own salary? Stop checking the stars, and start checking your market rate. Nobody is going to hand you that raise. You have to go out and demand it, or better yet, go out and get it yourself from somewhere else. That’s the only career forecast worth reading.
