Your palms are sweaty and your heart is racing faster than the last time you hit the gym. You walk gingerly into your boss’s office and slowly choke out your short yet incredibly anxiety-ridden request: “Can I… um… have a raise… please?” You probably know this is not the way to request a raise. But how do you go about asking for a raise effectively? When is the right time to ask what’s the right amount — and how much is too much? And what happens if you get a “No”? Malky had been teaching at an elementary school for a number of years. She’d heard of other teachers receiving raises so she decided to test the waters and scheduled a meeting with the principal. She assumed that she’d simply mention the extra education classes she took and the great programs she ran at the school and bam! — the extra cash would be hers. To her astonishment the principal was not impressed by her continuing education and didn’t feel that the programs she organized equated to more pay. What really made her heart fall was his statement that they simply didn’t have the budget for it. “I was shocked by his response. I wasn’t able to go through all the details of how I’m a better teacher because of the extra classes I took. I also wasn’t ready to go through point by point what I was doing ‘extra’ at the school and why exactly I should get paid more.”