Grasping the cold steel handle of the office door, I took a long deep breath and walked inside.
Before me sat a plump man in a loose navy suit with a white button-down. A stern look was visible across his face, and a black ballpoint pen rested on his left ear.
As I stumbled forward to take a seat by his desk, he swirled round and round and round in circles on his chair, completely dismissing my presence.
“Sir, I have something important I’d like to raise to your attention.”
His eyes evaded mine as he continued to swirl in circles like a merry-go-round.
“I would like to request a raise.”
Over the past six months, I had worked tirelessly to deliver value. I aligned key stakeholders in meetings at the appropriate time. I had advocated for the use of agile methods to deliver value to users faster than ever before. I identified actionable success metrics and embodied operational excellence in my work.
As boss man lifted his eyebrow, he began to giggle. Then he started chuckling, and without a second delay, he was full-out laughing.
Today, I would not be receiving a raise.
When I reached home that evening, I sprinted straight to my desk, typed in the word “password” to unlock my laptop, and opened up a word doc to begin drafting ideas. If my boss wasn’t going to give me a raise, I would need to become an alpha male and take it myself.
At the top of the document, I wrote the phrase “How to be an Alpha Male”
Here are the five strategies I laid out:
- Wear aviators and a Rolex to work in order to give off the appearance that you are the CEO.
- During meetings, casually take notes with both your left and right hand to flex that you’re ambidextrous.
- Sporadically send emails to your colleagues at random times in the middle of the night to convince them that you never sleep.
- Skip lunch breaks with the team in order to get more time to close sales and complete tasks.
- Bring an inflatable mattress to work and place it by your desk to convince your coworkers you sleep in the office.
The game plan was finalized, all that was left was execution. Over the next couple of weeks, I began rocking aviators to work, rotated hands when taking notes, sent random emails in the middle of the night, skipped lunch breaks with the team, and brought a mattress to work.
At first, my coworkers thought I was a weirdo. But then when I outperformed them I thought they were weirdos.
Strangely, my tactics seemed to be weighing on my coworkers. A fellow coworker also began skipping lunch in an attempt to match my productivity. I watched as sweat protruded from his forehead as he battled hunger.
Another guy tried taking notes with both hands but stopped trying after his notes looked like that of a kindergarten student.
During stand-ups, my once confident peers began to stutter as I confidently boasted my progress.
What I had done, without their knowledge, was defeat them all mentally. Even my boss feared messin with me.
After two months had passed, I knew it was time to demand my money. I strutted to my manager’s office and pranced inside. This time, he dropped what he was doing and met me eye to eye.
“So sir, I’d like to request a raise”.
That night a deposit hit my bank, and at that moment I knew I had won.
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