Don't make a habit of looking for another job every time you want a raise, though, that'll breed bad blood pretty quickly.
Here are a couple of relevant tidbits:
1) My personal feeling--and I've heard this echoed by several of my own bosses--is that what a good employer wants most from a good employee is to know what's wrong before it gets bad enough to make them leave, and a chance to fix it. Of course, the strongest place to negotiate this is from the door on your way out, but you should be willing to consider coming back in if the new job isn't clearly superior in pay and type of work to the old.
2) As for why you were paid so much less before, it looks like you haven't been at your current job long enough to get a regular raise (several months), so this is your boss's opportunity to tell you what your current value to the company is.
The reason you were making 2/3 of the new salary before is that they didn't know you as well when they hired you as they do now. If your boss isn't an asshole, you should be in a good place now.
3) Never forget that the employer's *job* is to hire you for as little as you'll happily take (though some go for "as little as you'll bitterly take"), and your job is to get them to pay as much as they happily will. Of course they'll pay you less if you'll take it, just as you wouldn't say now if they offered you a million a year. Don't rag on employers for doing their job--as long as they aren't blood-thirsty about it.
From personal experience:
1) At my first job I managed to double my salary in 5 years. I started entry level and left as one of the more senior folks. That company did value my skills, and one big raise came when I had a very serious offer from another company. I'd had several sizable raises before that, and several after. I didn't see anything different in the way I was treated after the counter-offer was made and accepted. Actually, the only one who seemed to get mad was the recruiter for the other company who lost a commision.
2) When I left the company above, a year and a few months later, I told my boss that I had another offer, and I was leaving. The immediate response was "Is this going to be an annual affair?" So, as I said, don't go looking for counter offers on a regular basis. Actually, things were quite cordial after I explained I was leaving for personal reasons, and planning to move across the country.
3) At another job, a friend was looking to quit to get a little more money and more interesting work. I only knew because of our friendship. My friend never even considered looking for a counter offer. I suggested stating to the boss exactly what it would take to make it worth staying. My friend thought it seemed extravagant--more money, more flexibility, better schedule--but it was accepted in *minutes* because my friend is a very valuable employee!
In short, if you don't think your employer will dick you around or resent you for it, take the counter offer and embrace the devil you know over the devil you don't.
The people in this study are probably, from a ball-catching point of view, just regular guys. Maybe a little more athletic than average. So they probably have about-average models for how a ball travels under the influence of gravity.
Not that it is feasible (as in cost-effective) to try, but it would be interesting to see how people who catch things professionally would react.
My first hypothesis: professional baseball players would suck at this. Their skills have been honed to as close to perfection as they can get, under the circumstances they encounter, i.e., normal earth gravity. Maybe a catcher would have a better chance since they have to contend with more unpredictable trajectories and a really crappy viewing angle.
My second hypothesis: professional (or even dedicated amateur) jugglers would be better at this from the get go, and would acclimate faster. My wife is a pretty good juggler, and she has taught a lot of people to juggle and pass clubs and torches. It's a dangerous pastime--teaching club passing, that is--you get a lot of hard, spinning things thrown wildly at your head. (You usually don't set them on fire, too, until your student gets the hang of it.)
So, here on earth, my wife can catch any reasonable throw of a spinning club--high, low, straight on--and get a hand on any unreasonable throw--spinning sideways and unintentionally aimed straight at her head--usually without dropping the other clubs she's juggling.
A professional juggler who regularly juggles clubs, balls, rings, chainsaws, kittens, and inflated balloons half full of sand would probably mis-judge the properties of the ball in space the first few times. But I'd be willing to bet money they'd be able to adjust very quickly--say less than a day (rather than 15)--because they have a more complicated internal model of the trajectories of thrown things, with more parameters to tune and less hard-coded stuff to unlearn.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't make a habit of looking for another job every time you want a raise, though, that'll breed bad blood pretty quickly. Here are a couple of relevant tidbits: 1) My personal feeling--and I've heard this echoed by several of my own bosses--is that what a good employer wants most from a good employee is to know what's wrong before it gets bad enough to make them leave, and a chance to fix it. Of course, the strongest place to negotiate this is from the door on your way out, but you should be willing to consider coming back in if the new job isn't clearly superior in pay and type of work to the old. 2) As for why you were paid so much less before, it looks like you haven't been at your current job long enough to get a regular raise (several months), so this is your boss's opportunity to tell you what your current value to the company is. The reason you were making 2/3 of the new salary before is that they didn't know you as well when they hired you as they do now. If your boss isn't an asshole, you should be in a good place now. 3) Never forget that the employer's *job* is to hire you for as little as you'll happily take (though some go for "as little as you'll bitterly take"), and your job is to get them to pay as much as they happily will. Of course they'll pay you less if you'll take it, just as you wouldn't say now if they offered you a million a year. Don't rag on employers for doing their job--as long as they aren't blood-thirsty about it. From personal experience: 1) At my first job I managed to double my salary in 5 years. I started entry level and left as one of the more senior folks. That company did value my skills, and one big raise came when I had a very serious offer from another company. I'd had several sizable raises before that, and several after. I didn't see anything different in the way I was treated after the counter-offer was made and accepted. Actually, the only one who seemed to get mad was the recruiter for the other company who lost a commision. 2) When I left the company above, a year and a few months later, I told my boss that I had another offer, and I was leaving. The immediate response was "Is this going to be an annual affair?" So, as I said, don't go looking for counter offers on a regular basis. Actually, things were quite cordial after I explained I was leaving for personal reasons, and planning to move across the country. 3) At another job, a friend was looking to quit to get a little more money and more interesting work. I only knew because of our friendship. My friend never even considered looking for a counter offer. I suggested stating to the boss exactly what it would take to make it worth staying. My friend thought it seemed extravagant--more money, more flexibility, better schedule--but it was accepted in *minutes* because my friend is a very valuable employee! In short, if you don't think your employer will dick you around or resent you for it, take the counter offer and embrace the devil you know over the devil you don't.
Not that it is feasible (as in cost-effective) to try, but it would be interesting to see how people who catch things professionally would react.
My first hypothesis: professional baseball players would suck at this. Their skills have been honed to as close to perfection as they can get, under the circumstances they encounter, i.e., normal earth gravity. Maybe a catcher would have a better chance since they have to contend with more unpredictable trajectories and a really crappy viewing angle.
My second hypothesis: professional (or even dedicated amateur) jugglers would be better at this from the get go, and would acclimate faster. My wife is a pretty good juggler, and she has taught a lot of people to juggle and pass clubs and torches. It's a dangerous pastime--teaching club passing, that is--you get a lot of hard, spinning things thrown wildly at your head. (You usually don't set them on fire, too, until your student gets the hang of it.)
So, here on earth, my wife can catch any reasonable throw of a spinning club--high, low, straight on--and get a hand on any unreasonable throw--spinning sideways and unintentionally aimed straight at her head--usually without dropping the other clubs she's juggling.
A professional juggler who regularly juggles clubs, balls, rings, chainsaws, kittens, and inflated balloons half full of sand would probably mis-judge the properties of the ball in space the first few times. But I'd be willing to bet money they'd be able to adjust very quickly--say less than a day (rather than 15)--because they have a more complicated internal model of the trajectories of thrown things, with more parameters to tune and less hard-coded stuff to unlearn.
-Trey