The Daring Book for Girls - Andrea J. Buchanan [121]
2002
Winter Games: Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
Short track speedskater Yang Yang is the first Chinese athlete, male or female, to win a gold medal at the Winter Games. Vonetta Flowers and Jill Bakkan become the first ever winners of an Olympic gold medal in two-woman bobsled, and Flowers becomes the first black athlete to earn Winter gold. Ice skater Naomi Lang is the first Native American female athlete to participate in the Olympic Winter Games.
2004
Summer Games: Athens, Greece
Women’s wrestling is introduced, with twenty-one nations qualifying to send wrestlers to the games. Nineteen-year-old Mariel Zagunis becomes the first U.S. fencer (of either gender) to win a gold medal in one hundred years.
2006
Winter Games: Turin, Italy
Claudia Pechstein becomes the first female Winter Olympian to win medals in five consecutive Olympics (1992-2006), and is the most successful German Winter Olympian of all time, with five gold medals, two silver, and two bronze. Croatia’s Janica Kostelic becomes the first woman to win four golds in alpine skiing (the other three she won in 2002). Tanith Belbin, along with her partner Benjamin Agosto, wins the silver medal for ice dancing—the first medal for the United States in ice dancing in 30 years. Tanja Poutiainen earns the first medal in alpine skiing for Finland when she wins silver in the giant slalom. The Swedish team wins women’s curling and become the first curling team to ever hold Olympic, World, and European titles at the same time.
How to Negotiate a Salary
for dog-walking, errand-running, babysitting—or anything!
Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.
—John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, 1961.
THE WORD “negotiate” comes from the Latin word negotiari, meaning “to trade.” When you negotiate something, you are essentially asking for someone to trade you something, and making a case for why that would be a good idea. There are several steps to a successful negotiation: preparation, presentation, contemplation, and sealing the deal.
Preparation
Define your goals. Do you want a higher salary? Do you want more hours? Do you want to be paid extra for overtime? Narrowing down what it is you want will help you approach the task of asking for it.
Do your research. Find out what the going rate is in your neighborhood for the work you do—how much do your friends get paid for the same work? Does the amount they get depend on the level of responsibility they have? Once you know the answers to these questions, you’ll know the facts about what other people are paid, and you’ll be better prepared to ask for what you want.
Presentation
Plan what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it.
Begin with lower-priority requests, if possible, and work your way up to the big ones. (When you get to the big request, you can trade off some of the lower-priority requests if necessary.)
Accentuate the positive. This is not the time for modesty—emphasize your accomplishments and abilities and point out why it is you deserve what you are asking for. Smile, be confident, and be friendly.
Contemplation
Listen. Sometimes the most important part of a conversation is the part when you’re not talking. When it’s time for the other person to respond, listen carefully to what he or she has to say.
Think. You may be presented with a counteroffer—an offer made in response to your offer. You don’t have to respond to a counteroffer right away. You can take your time and think about it, even if that means not giving your answer for a few days.
Sealing the Deal
Sign on the dotted line. Once both parties have reached an agreement, it’s a good idea to put that final offer in writing, and have both of you sign the document. This will prevent any future misunderstandings or miscommunications about what was actually