Asking for a Raise and an Allowance for Equipment for Work at The Same Time. Best Way to Go about It?

Ldumpinastump on 19/10/2017 - 12:54
Last edited 19/10/2017 - 15:53

So i’ve found myself in the fortunate position in which I carry a lot of leverage when it comes to asking for a raise at work. I wanted to get peoples thoughts on my current plan on attack for my next payrise.
A little bit of background, i’m a 24 year old male from Sydney working as a designer/photographer. I came onto this job purely as a designer two years ago and about 8-9 months ago, my photography work impressed my boss so much that he wanted to shift my role from a designer to purely photography in the coming months. I asked for 15k raise 6 months ago which he happily gave to me. After this raise I told him I wanted to buy my own photography equipment (as I wanted my own personal equipment if i ever chose to leave + for recreational use) as long as he covers insurance and breakages/replacements. We also discussed offhand that the ideal salary i wanted to be on would be a target for another 6 months down the line (although i dont know if he remembers this). In the 6 months that I’ve been working, the equipment I bought was designed for small scale product & light portraiture work. However it looks like down the line i will be expanding into different photography disciplines such as event, architecture and interior in which my equipment would not be suited for ergo i’d need to buy new equipment. Work carries equipment for the other three photographers/videographers however they use canon and I use nikon so the equipment is not compatible (the other team members have equipment that handle the other disciplines well, product and portraiture is what my equipment out-excells their equipment in) I want to bring this all up in a meeting plus the ideal salary (extra 10-15k) with him and pose it to him with 3 options:

  1. Reoutfit my whole outfit (currently worth 10k) to a canon setup, costing roughly 10k plus all the new equipment (max 10k) adding up to 20k
  2. Buy me the 10k worth of equipment - in which i will add that it isn’t ideal as I’d be the only person who can use this equipment or
  3. IDEALLY ask him to add another 5k (or should i ask for more?) to my raise and invest in me so that I can buy the equipment I need and still continue to ask for insurance, maintenance and repairs from the company.

Do you guys think this is too much to ask? I’d much prefer option 3 as option 1 would mean all the equipment I have would become obsolete and I’d much prefer not to own half of the equipment I’m using. Do you guys also think i should bring up a meeting for the raise and this equipment issue seperately so it’s not such a big cost to my boss?

Education & Work

Comments

  • firstworldproblems on 19/10/2017 - 13:38
    +1

    However it looks like down the line i will be expanding into different photography disciplines such as event, architecture and interior in which my equipment would not be suited for ergo i’d need to buy new equipment.

    • try to separate things that benefit you solely, from those that benefit the company, but you might solely benefit from e.g. camera equipment that is owned by the company but only you might use (the specifics of ownership are unclear)
    • ask for the raise (but an amount that doesn't include equipment purchases), but also mention future requirements (e.g. "$X raise, and an agreement in principle to purchase equipment as job requirements demand")
    • as job requirements progressively require it, hit then with the equipment purchases. such expenses will be justifiable if it's framed in a way where NOT buying the equipment would be seen as losing the company money (if we don't have x, then we can't accept jobs from y)
    • dumpinastump on 19/10/2017 - 13:58

      Thanks for the reply! When i mentioned those disciplines - those are the disciplines that the company is sending me to - i’ve already started shooting architecurew and interior and my gear just doesnt cut it.

      You make really valid points in terms of when to ask. I’m bringing this up all together because this is all starting to happen all together. I want to bring up with him that there’ll be more clients that want everything as a package and i want to suggest to him a few clients/sectors that we havent been targetting that heavily.

  • sydsm on 19/10/2017 - 15:23

    Seems like its all about you taking advantage of your boss TBH?

    • firstworldproblems on 19/10/2017 - 15:50
      +1

      Seems like its all about you taking advantage of your boss TBH?

      that's one way to look at it. however, i think it's more accurate to state that he's taking advantage of a situation, not a person per se.
      if, however, the boss truly felt taken advantage of, then he could terminate his employment.

    • dumpinastump on 19/10/2017 - 15:58

      Hi Syd,

      Thanks for replying, firstworldproblems says it how i see it too. I asked around and I heard a lot of people saying to treat this as two seperate conversations which I think is the better way to go about this as of now, but I wanted to know what other people think. I'm not trying to take advantage of my boss, rather the situation (again as firstworldproblems mentioned) and in doing all of this, I'm hoping that the boss can send me out to a more variety of clients and photography jobs.

  • DJR9000 on 19/10/2017 - 15:23

    When you say you have 10k of nikon gear and your stuff doesn't cut it for architecture and interior, wouldn't you be better off spending a little less money on some new lenses or maybe a different body that was still nikon rather than dumping it and restarting? I'm sure there is plenty of architecture and interior photogs using Nikon gear?

    • dumpinastump on 19/10/2017 - 15:55

      Thanks for the reply DJR, I didn't say I was planning on dumping my gear? Just getting more gear on top of the current gear I have.

  • chumlee on 19/10/2017 - 16:51
    +1

    Try your luck. Worse case the boss says no.

    Most stay at home mums are becoming photographers these days so maximise your opportunities

    • dumpinastump on 19/10/2017 - 17:16

      Haha very true. Good thing that there’s still a market for commercial level work ;)

  • [Deactivated] on 20/10/2017 - 19:50

    Time to call up your union…

  • Dan83 on 20/10/2017 - 21:42

    Whatever you do, stay with Nikon ;)

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