Or a scantily clad and panting Mel Gibson for three hours . <| sep |> I always smile back but sometimes I just have to accept that some people just have unfriendly faces . They ' re friendly and nice but they won ' t smile . <| sep |> Here ' s the thing , though . No company is going to voluntarily pay someone more than they have to . If your wife was amicable to working for a certain amount of money , then they ' re not going to give her a huge raise if they know she isn ' t going to quit over it . Now , some people are stupidThis is why I highly suggest looking up your own job on job posting websites on a regular basis . Think of yourself as a business owner and your product is your skill set . The market is what sets the prices . It all depends on supply and demand how many people with your skill set are looking for work , versus the job opening that require that skill set . I ' ve been working for my company for three years and I make $ 5 more an hour than I made when I started . After I was there two years , and being relentlessly hounded by recruiters , I decided to go on a few interviews and see what interest I could generate . I ended up with a standing job offer for $ 5 more an hour . I gave them my notice , and a few days before my last day , my boss came to me and asked what it would take to keep me , I told him to match the offer and I ' d stay , so they did , and I did . Not only did I get the raise I was hoping for , I didn ' t have to go through the rigomorol of starting over at a new company , further away from building up more vacation time , lose my paid holidays , and do it all over again when my contract was up . It ' s a sad thing , and it might make you feel a tad disloyal , but that ' s just how things work now . When your negotiating for a higher salary , nothing gives you more leverage than a standing job offer for more money . If a company really wants to keep you , that takes away all of their negotiating power . If you bring them job postings , they can pick over them and how they ' re not exactly the same so it ' s not a good comparison , etc . But if you tell them you ' re leaving , and you don ' t need them because someone else is willing to pay you more , that ' s the ultimate . That ' s what gets their attention . It sucks , but that ' s the way things are now . People don ' t stay in their jobs for 30 years anymore because companies aren ' t giving out $ 2 hour raises every year to keep them . That ' s a big advantage of unions . You don ' t have to worry about negotiating because not everybody is a good negotiator and it ' s not fair for you to make less money just because you ' re not good at it . In a perfect world , a job done to certain standard gets paid the same regardless of who does it .