Quitting etiquette

[Excelsius]

Hey guys, I have been working in Colorado as a research assistant in neuroscience for several years while I am preparing to apply to grad school. Fortunately or unfortunately, I really like research and pretty much got stuck in the lab collecting data, analyzing, and publishing, instead of spending my time to apply to grad school and move on. Anyway, over the course of quite a few years I have gained expertise in the rather difficult field of brain recordings. I have also taught myself complex statistics with SPSS and SAS, and am currently the only person in our department who can completely analyze the complex datasets we produce. Just a small snapshot.

My problem: despite all the skills, experimental improvements, and new techniques I have brought to this lab, my salary has pretty much remained stagnant, other than the ~2% annual cost of living adjustments done by the university and the rare, local conferences I am being sent to. Usually they take the data that I produce (using my own methods, completely independent experiments, and with my own analyses they don't really understand), and present the posters at conferences. This resulted in a disaster one time when the research assistant professor who had presented my work had incorrectly answered a question about statistical calculations on the poster... Currently, my salary is 10% below what I should get according to glassdoor, and that's for the average RA worker, not someone who basically runs the entire grant. For someone with my skills, my research indicated a rank of an associate and an estimate of ~40% higher salary. Even though I am for sure going to finally apply this coming year, I don't think I can take being in this lab any longer and allow them to just use my work without significantly upgrading my salary and rank, or showing more respect. So I wanted to ask for advice about how to approach the main PI about this. I was promised a raise with the new grant over a year ago, but the raise never materialized and I didn't say anything. I was thinking about making my request in writing this time and including specific calculations about how I have improved the experiments. It's very likely I won't get the 40% raise given how cheap they've been in the past, but in that case my concern shifts to quitting and avoiding possible retribution. I want to leave with a 1-2 week notice and have no desire to work overtime trying to teach someone else my skills, most of which I have acquired on my own time, not that we have anyone who could learn these skills. Further concerns shift to unpublished papers that are in the form of a manuscript, including first authorship. My understanding is that as long as the paper is at least submitted, I can't be dropped as an author even if the paper is rejected and resubmitted. I do have concerns about the PI calling schools or other labs in an attempt to harm my future endeavors, but I don't know how much leverage PIs have in cases like this.

[dr. t]

I'm not sure you can accomplish both your goals if you mean "apply this coming year" as putting your application in next month.

You haven't laid any groundwork here to let your PI know about how you feel undervalued. No, asking once a year ago doesn't count. So if you drop a request for a huge raise, your PI will (rightfully) feel blindsided, and even the most objective person would have some difficulty writing a good letter. In other words, the situation is extremely volatile, and the best approach to achieve your goal (getting into grad school) is to not play with fire. If your applications are successful, you will have some more leeway to make demands (even the most outraged PI probably can't get an offer pulled), but your work will also have less incentive to acquiesce.

If you intend to apply next cycle, then you have some time to lay the groundwork over the coming months. Plot a campaign of careful conversations over the coming months. You need your PI to know you're unhappy without thinking you're whining - a delicate balance to strike. Again, be prepared to give up this fight. Even if you win it and get into grad school, the victory could well be Pyrrhic as the PI is, I assume, in your field and thus will probably be able to have a hand in everything from your job searches to tenure review to grant committees. Do not make an enemy without need.

 

[Excelsius]

What do you mean by careful conversations over the coming months? The discussion about a raise can happen probably only once and I'll get either a yes or no answer. It's not something I can bug them about. Or am I missing something? And the PI knows quite well that I am pretty unhappy about my position and salary because the previous discussion was extremely blunt as a result of rather disrespectful incident towards me due to a misunderstanding. It's more like willful ignorance than blindsiding.

The PI is not directly in my field of interest or the university of interest and the degree I'm pursuing is MD/PhD. One of the reasons I'm posting here is that I actually don't want to burn bridges, but make them understand that it's a purely business decision, which it is. I really need to make some extra money before I am stuck in school for so many years without a salary. I'm not a recent grad anymore. Do you think an enthusiastic letter about a raise, a description of how I love what I do, and a polite request to match my position to my skills will be a bad approach? There will be no threats or anything, but I definitely want to do this in writing to have recourse in the future, if needed, and also so that my request is taken seriously. If the request is denied, I won't make a big fuss. But I will apply for a different lab position and regretfully quit. And it's not just money - I don't have anything else to learn from this lab and am not growing scientifically. The PI actively prevented me from collaborating with other PIs who wanted my help with their work as a collaborator. Smells somewhat sinister, I don't know. As far as letters of recommendation, I already secured them.

[dr. t]

You need to have multiple conversations that aren't you asking for a raise, but which prepare them, mentally, for the question. But it sounds like there are some other, more toxic issues at play. It's much more difficult to give any advice on those via internet forum. 

With what you've said in your last post, your intended approach seems fine. In some situations, you can't really mitigate the other person's reaction. You can only seek to insulate yourself from it as well as possible.

FWIW, don't rely on Glassdoor. Do your own research as to what your peers are making.

[TakeruK]

I agree with @telkanuru. Especially on the advice against using Glassdoor. You really need to know what the right salary is in your area for your type of work. A 40% raise is a huge blindside, but it's not impossible to get a large raise if you have a good case for it. I know a person who got a 25% raise after 1 year of good work because they accidentally undervalued their worth when accepting the job offer. 

You are in a harder situation because your salary is funded by a grant. Most grants are not very flexible on salary, especially those in some fields like yours. What you need to do is to compile a list of all your actual job duties. You should research your university's and other school's job openings for RAs and use the same words to describe your duties as in the other postings for your area of work (**Note: it does NOT have to be in the same field, just something similar enough). Typically the job postings do not indicate a salary, but if you research their HR pages, you can find different salary grades. Then, you can compare your duties and salary with the range of salaries for similar duties from other schools (or even your own university). The range of salaries posted often encompass something like 0 years of experience up to 40 years (or something like that) of experience, so you can't expect values on the higher end. I would take the lower end and then add 2% to 3% raise each year. 

Getting a 2% boost is pretty typical each year---it's not very good but that's normal in science, I think. Your best case for a raise is if they are paying you for a different level of work (like you kind of mentioned).

When you make your request, ask for a meeting with whomever decides your pay and present your document. Have a specific ask (i.e. an annual or hourly amount in mind). But, do NOT make it an ultimatum (don't imply that you'll quit without the raise) at this time. You have nothing to gain by this extra pressure. What normally happens is that they will say they will review it. You have to be patient---it's okay to ask for a timeline though and follow up over the next few months. 

I think this might be what @telkanuru meant by a series of conversations. You don't just make a raise demand with the threat of walking away (unless you have an offer from another position in hand). It's also more professional to do it this way instead of abruptly quitting if you don't get your ask. It could take a bit of time to approve the funding allocations to change salaries. 

[dr. t]

10 hours ago, TakeruK said:

I think this might be what @telkanuru meant by a series of conversations.

It is.

[Excelsius]

Thanks for clarifying. Yes, of course, I was going to make the request for the salary and then follow up, while asking for a specific timeline. No threats since that's not beneficial to anyone. And I have saved many job postings over the past 2 years, all of which have salary info, including from our own university. I am going to submit them with my letter. But it's a good idea to frame my responsibilities more along the lines of the advertised positions. The rank should be an associate and not an assistant from everything I have read and the posted positions I have seen. What makes this especially wrong, is that we had several $100K funding surplus that had to be used up and all that money was purely used to order equipment and supplies. Ironically, I was asked to decide most of the orders, which I did and upgraded the lab. And this was after I had already made a request for a raise. It's unfortunate, but I don't think good work is rewarded by default. At least in the US, it seems you always have to ask and almost pester about money, which I hate to do.

I presume that you guys don't see a problem with me giving a 1-2 weeks notice, if it becomes necessary. I also intend to talk to HR to find out some direct information about my employee files and reviews, which has not come up since I started working with this new PI some years ago. Based on working with my previous PI, annual reviews are mandatory, and my previous PI always discussed them with me. Also intend to ask HR about salary grades. Let me know if you think this could backfire. I don't think HR can disclose my inquiries to the PI, but I'm not sure it would be such a bad thing even if the PI is notified.

[TakeruK]

12 hours ago, Excelsius said:

I presume that you guys don't see a problem with me giving a 1-2 weeks notice, if it becomes necessary. I also intend to talk to HR to find out some direct information about my employee files and reviews, which has not come up since I started working with this new PI some years ago. Based on working with my previous PI, annual reviews are mandatory, and my previous PI always discussed them with me. Also intend to ask HR about salary grades. Let me know if you think this could backfire. I don't think HR can disclose my inquiries to the PI, but I'm not sure it would be such a bad thing even if the PI is notified.

I think doing all of these things should be okay with a possible exception. It might backfire, but I would take it as a warning sign that this is not a good place for you to continue working. So, my advice would be to choose a good time to make these inquiries, so that you are in a good place in case something bad does happen from it (unlikely though).

The exception is that 1-2 weeks notice isn't a lot of time if you want to leave the lab on good terms and get good letters etc. You say you don't want to work overtime to train someone new, that's reasonable. But, would you be willing to work your regular hours to train someone? If not, then that sounds a bit weird. If you gave 1-2 months notice, that would give them enough time to hire someone (4-6 weeks?) and then you can spend the last 2 weeks training someone instead of doing your regular duties.

[Eigen]

I don't know of any major grant where funding surplus can be used for salaries, nor any major granting agency that would allow the change under the situation you describe. So having $100k funding surplus means very little in whether or not you get a raise. 

Also, as mentioned, your rank with the University and HR matters less than what the institution funding your grant considers "normal" wages. Take, for example, NSF and NIH postdoctoral wages as a starting point. 

[Excelsius]

Given the issues with project management and the crazy amounts of planned experiments, it's almost impossible to come up with a good time period when leaving wouldn't have palpable consequences, whether it's a 1 week or 1 month notice. For the same reason, overtime will have to be involved when training someone. Without going into the details, I don't have an issue training someone to carry out the job, but given the highly complex nature of the experiments and the significant skills I have gained on my own time or while interning independently with other PIs, I don't have a particular desire to teach all the extra nuances given the treatment and lack of acknowledgment I've received from this person. In either case, I know the field well enough to understand that they will have to bring a highly experienced and motivated postdoc or a junior PI to fulfill at least some of my duties. An RA will not be replacing me. Several RAs in the lab had tried to learn, unsuccessfully, in the past and further attempts to train them were halted years ago. Several newly hired postdocs themselves quit before they were brought fully up to speed, partly due to the volume and demands of the work. You can't do this stuff if you don't love it - each experiment lasts several months. If it's done half-assed, next thing you know you spent five months doing experiments that were invalid because one of the steps was consistently missed, as happened with one of the postdocs and two techs.

The surplus grant money in question was indeed available for salaries and a small portion of it ended up being used to temporarily add extra help. Not to mention that even when there are strict limitations on how the money can be spent, there are all sorts of manipulations that are done to repurpose money from one grant and use another grant that doesn't have that limitation to overcome such rules. I've been part of the financial planning and justifications for the grant agencies and such switches aren't uncommon here.

In the end, the amount of notice I can give might be dictated by my new position, which might require me to start right away. And I can't just go to the PI and notify that I am applying for new positions - all sorts of different business guides stress that this should not be done for obvious reasons. I don't know if anyone knows of a realistically better way to handle this. As for the letters, I have already secured them with a recommendation letter service. I don't know if they can be retracted. Of course, I also don't know if they are good enough to be particularly helpful in the first place.