TheBanyanTree: Money

[PJMoney]

Dear me!  I have an appointment tomorrow at 9.15am to discuss my pay rate.
I'm supposed to come along with a proposal.  I'd rather eat broken glass.

This all happened because, at the end of a very busy period, I dumped all my
hours into a spreadsheet (because the boss wanted the data so she could bill
the clients) and then I started wondering what I would be earning if my job
was full-time, salaried rather than contractor, casual.  It turned out that
I'm earning less than an entry-level adult high-school graduate.  

Considering that I have 8 years of completed university education behind me
that's a bit hard to take.  But I worry about pride and I worry about greed.
Both these things can bring one undone.  

I like the work I'm doing, particularly because I can do it at home.  That
is, I don't have to cope with office politics for hours on end.  When I do
have to do my work at the work place I get very anxious.  About three hours
is all I can stand and then I want to be out of there, back home using my
own equipment, able to let the dogs out when they need toileting, not being
interrupted by people who blather on and on about nothing particularly
useful and sometimes get angry without, in my view, good reason.

But the pride thing kicked in, and in, and in, and I emailed the boss and
said I was finding it hard to accept my low pay rate with equanimity.  So
now she wants to talk to me.  Mine is a rare set of skills, she says.

It would be easier if she had just said that they couldn't afford to pay me
more.  Then I would think about maybe going back to uni and doing another
masters degree, this time by research, and then a PhD.  I could die very
well educated indeed courtesy of my husband's largesse. 

So what do I say?  I don't want to think about it.  I don't want to do it.
I don't want to name a figure and face the possibility of being rejected.
Is this the same sort of problem that young men have to face when they ask a
girl out? 

Janice