Group Rationality Diary, November 1-15

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for November 1-15.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

The poll earlier this month seems to be sufficiently in favor of maintaining the current schedule that extra votes are unlikely to change things much, but if you'd really like to register your opinion, you are welcome to do so here.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Immediate past diary: October 16-31

Rationality diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for November 1-15.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Immediate past diary: October 16-31

Rationality diaries archive

When I was hired for my job, it was on a one-year contract, with the expectation of giving me a permanent contract when that expired. That one year recently ran out, making it a good time to ask for a raise. My salary felt good to me, but I did some research and asked friends and apparently it's pretty low. So I figured, okay, when the contract-renewal conversation happens, I'll ask for a 50% increase, hoping to get a 1/3 increase.

It got to a week before my contract expired, and I was still waiting for the contract-renewal talk to happen, and feeling vaguely confused as to why it hadn't; and one of my bosses told me that my new contract was getting held up somewhere in the system because the salary on it was more than a 10% raise, so he and my other boss were having to fight HR to get it for me.

At this point I realised that I probably should have made this talk happen sooner, but now it felt too late (I was probably wrong about that); and I felt very much like an NPC, waiting around for the heros to finish a quest on my behalf that I hadn't even sent them on.

The new contract came a few days later, with a 1/6 raise, which is what I'd considered most likely.