Okay, I have been at my job for two years. Most of the assistants that my boss has had ask for raises after one year, or so he told me when I started. I am the highest paid assistant that he has ever hired and he thought long and hard before giving me the job because of what I wanted. Also, because he is with REMAX, the REMAX offices require fees to be paid for each licensed Realtor and he agreed to pay all of my fees which come to several hundred dollars a month in order for me to work more in depth with him. In return, I was to work with prospects and he would get a portion of my commission to offset what he was paying for my license.
Now, I was on maternity leave when I hit the one year mark as I got pregnant practically right after I started. So, I figured I had already changed my hours on him and couldn't work late anymore and took 3 months off so I should probably wait until I did not need so many things from him to ask for a raise. When I returned from maternity leave, things at work had come to practically a dead halt as the real estate market is in the toilet.
Year two comes. None of our deals are closing. Now, the person I work for pays me out of his pocket. I just work for a guy, not a company or anything like that. So if he has nothing closing, he makes no money. He has been paying me out of his savings, pretty much. I want to ask for a raise so bad and I know that he kind of expects me to but I haven't. Am I crazy? He used to close 2-3 deals a week. Now he closes maybe 2 a month. He has me to pay, someone that does his mail to pay, and thousands a month in advertising. He is stressed everyday as he has a home and a child who just left for college and no money coming in. I did the math and after he pays everything, he is actually making about the same as I am making, probably even less. I have also not really sold anything this year because the market in South Florida is so bad. I had some rentals and a couple of closings but thats it. So most of what he has paid to REMAX for me he will most likely not get back.
So, here I am stuck. I want a raise and have been thinking about how to go about it. I was originally planning on asking for one when I managed to close one of his very hard deals - but it fell through. So did the next one. In fact, the last 4 deals have fallen through. I think he only closed one last month and it was a very inexpensive one so the commission was very low and barely covered my paycheck alone, much less other expenses. I was planning on asking for a higher amount of commission when his deals did close, but I am not even getting any of them closed. I actually have a few good buyers right now so I will (hopefully) make money off of them but I still would like a raise. He is in such a bad mood over finances lately that I wouldn't even know how to bring it up. Urgh! I can only hope that this housing crisis ends sometime in the near future so that I can go back to making money!
