She had been at the company for six years. She had never negotiated. She had accepted every offer that came and told herself the number was fine.
A colleague, someone who had been there two years less and done less, mentioned their salary in passing. The number was significantly higher.
She asked her manager for a meeting. She had prepared for weeks. She laid out her case. She said the number she had decided to say.
They said yes without hesitation. She walked out of the meeting and cried in a bathroom stall. Not from happiness. From the realization of how many years she had not asked.
Many people, especially women, spend years being paid less than they’re worth because they never asked, and never asked because asking felt dangerous in a way that the shortfall didn’t. The yes arrives and instead of relief there is grief. The clarity of how much was left on the table. How many times the answer would have been yes if only the question had come.
I know this grief. The retroactive cost of not advocating for yourself. Not because you were passive, but because you were taught, in ways both direct and subtle, that being paid what you’re worth is something you prove rather than ask for.
She asked. They said yes without hesitation.
That is the answer to the question of whether she should have asked sooner.
She knows that now. She wishes she had known it six years ago.
The habit of not asking is usually not about laziness or low self-esteem. It is about what asking has been made to feel like. Entitled. Pushy. Not how things are done here.
She asked. The answer was yes. The grief was for all the previous questions she had decided to answer herself as no.
Some things worth sitting with:
- Is there something you’ve been not asking for because asking felt more dangerous than the shortfall?
- What would change in your life if the answer to asking was yes more often than you expect?
- What have you been quietly accepting that you haven’t been willing to question?
It connects, in its own way, to She Called It a Passion. Three Years In, She Wasn’t Sure..
Inspired by a real story shared anonymously online.