This is not for me, but for a mommy friend. She is single by choice so doesn't have a husband to run this by. I'm of no help, because I work in education and we don't even get bonuses or promotions in the same way.

Anyway--I have a friend who has been asked to take on quite a few extra duties in the last year and manage a couple of people, with her direct boss sort of implying that she's being groomed for the next big step up (from VP to Executive director). But then right before bonuses came out this week, her boss schedule a meeting and said the bonus pool was smaller than expected this year so she would only be getting a very small bump up from what she got last year. To compensate for that, they are going to bump up her base salary a little (10k) to the top of the range for her position but can't go higher because she's already at the top. She did not make ED this year, but her boss said he will work very hard next year to make it happen and she's in a good position to make it next year...although nothing is ever guaranteed. From what I gather from my husband, who does something similar, is that promotions aren't decided by just the direct bosses, but by a team of maybe 15 ED and MDs, who all bring "suggestions" for promotions to the table, but there's a limited number of people who can be promoted, so some each ED/MD sort of has to fight it out for their person, and all the possible promotees are compared even if they work in totally different departments. Then they are sort of numbered from "best" to "worst" (I mean, none of them are bad if they are up for a promotion) and then only the top ones get the promotion.

To me, I think this sounds good for her. But I don't work in that industry and she is EXTREMELY disappointed because apparently a couple of people who have less experience in other departments were promoted and she wasn't. And she's taken on more responsibility for the same pay and now that will continue another year. Her boss even made some statement that he knew she could probably move to another company and make more, but he hoped she stuck it out another year so she could made ED because she's a valuable team member, blah blah.

She's seriously considering quitting. She's scheduled a meeting with her boss for tomorrow and asked for advice about what to talk about/say. This is all complicated by the fact that something similar happened last year--she was told bonus pool is small but that her boss gave her the most he could...but she suspects she is slightly underpaid. And last year, she was asked to take on the extra duties with the plan that she would be put up for ED, but she didn't get it. So now it's another year of the same-old stuff for the same money.

WWYD? What kind of conversation should she have with her boss?