Indispensable?

Teaching at UW may offer compensation far beyond that which appears in your bank account on a monthly basis. It is also true that the dollar compensation that has been trickling in has not been subject to much of an increase in recent years. Market forces aren’t necessarily determinative in setting pay scales in an academic setting. Nonetheless, occasionally, the devil in me wonders if I’d fare well were I to make a case to the administration for an adjustment to the salary I have been receiving, given that I, like everyone else I suppose, would love to believe that it is not commensurate with that which I bring to the university. Today being “pay day” made me all the more happy that there is indeed a tool out there – a “meter” in Fortune Magazine that allows me to predict the probability of success were I to go begging for a raise (look for it here).

A series of basic questions leads to an assessment of how indispensable I really am. The result is not really surprising. The title of the questionnaire says it all—you need only ask yourself “are you indispensable” without even plodding through the questions. This will save you some anxious moments where you check off boxes page after page knowing that each answer is placing you even closer to the category of “you will never get a raise at all because you are just so damn dispensable,” a place where none of us want to reside.

One might well ask how many faculty at the Law School are truly irreplaceable? My “score” indicated that I have an indispensability rating of “Medium to Low.” I could, I suppose, tweak the answers to reflect some more intangible indirect contribution that my enormous talents are supporting (I may be replaceable, but is the replacement going to love her students as much?), but at the most basic level, responding in terms of the unique value of my field of expertise (there is great value, but I have doubts as to the uniqueness of it), the questionnaire couldn’t be more blunt in telling me that I best forgo the plug for more dollars.

I did for a moment consider reading the link at the end entitled “How to Get a Raise When the Well has Run Dry,” but gave up after I fully grasped the meaning of my mediocre indispensability rating.