Need feedback on job negotiations

[Feliponius]

In my other, more depressing mindset thread, I recently pointed out that I'm being underpaid in my field and was feeling defeated.

My boss noticed. He pulled me aside, and I went ahead and laid it out to him. He "agreed" that I should be making more money (???) and that he had totally been planning (???) to give me a raise at my annual review, but sooner than that even. He needed an evening to think about what kind of raise he could offer me.

I'm leaving out an exorbitant amount of details because it's a lot. Like 3 years worth of back and forth about my pay. The key info is that for the past year-ish I've been on a track to become a manager who makes money on the productivity of the techs in the business. Sounds good right? Except there's no numbers. And there's no techs. We have retained exactly 0 techs out of the numerous ones I've invested months of training into. The moment they are sent out into the field they either quit, or have a nervous breakdown...and quit.

Come next day we sit down to meet about my "raise". For further context, I want to point out that in the last 3 years my pay increases have not paced with inflation and I'm currently being paid $3000/y less when accounting for it. That is alongside doing more high-value work, working long hours, and training and doing some managerial toe-dipping (there's no-one to manage lol).

In this meeting he made me two offers. Presented them as long-term and short-term.

Short-Term is he moves me to straight commission. Doing the math on my current productivity my pay would increase from 55,100/y to somewhere around 74-76k/y depending on whether I can perform the same or more. Knowing how I was behaving the last year I feel I can do better largely because I wasn't motivated to stay on top of my production and was lazy in many areas.

Long-Term is I receive no raises and we continue doing what we're doing because earning a percentage of all the technicians I successfully train is effectively Infinite Potential™. Kinda reminded me a bit of an MLM pitch. Of course this might take years. But I will make significantly more money Eventually™ assuming the stars align, we finally hire a tech who stays, and produces.

Currently he's supposed to be putting together how much I'd be paid on a newly minted technicians production so I can project out exactly how much potential there is here. Frankly, I expect it to be trash. I'm being sold a pipe-dream, and no matter how nice it sounds when he presents it, when I put an ounce of thought into it I smell BS.

Key Questions:
- When I go back in to meet with him I plan to come with my own offer. I've been playing this game his way and I have enough leverage it's stupid of me to do so. What's your perspective on this as business owners?
- Knowing the forum I'm in, would you guys even bother going down this road any further, or would you recommend finding a hold-over job and whole-hogging a fastlane business?
- Have any of you guys ever been in a position where you're providing high-value and been taken advantage of by a kind presenting boss? What was your solution and how did you overcome?

 

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