EP. 29 / New Year, New Income! How to Boost Your Paycheck by 30% with Cinneah El-Amin aka Flynanced
SHOW NOTES:
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If you’re struggling with measly % increases in your paycheck, listen up! Cinneah El-Amin runs Flynanced, a community for women to get paid our worth in the workplace. Cinneah brings advice on how to boost your salary -- up to 30%– and has scripts to ask in interviews and even initial phone screens to maximize your salary. Plus she helps you identify skills you already have and how to market them to earn the money you deserve! (yes!)
Kim gives herself a ‘yearly review’ on her last year’s resolutions (some A’s some C’s) and tells you how you can boost your bottom line as a business owner this year!
Then Teacher & Side Hustler Vonda Rogers of Ohio has a great parenting story.
Mom business owners & side hustlers→ I’ll be showing you how to raise their revenue through video! *Get a special discount on Kim’s brand new group coaching course HERE!
LISTEN BELOW! And don’t forget to ‘follow’ and leave a rating & review!
Show Takeaways:
“You can go 20 to 50% jump in salary just for switching either internal or external.“
“The biggest thing that I think that we could all be doing is really understanding our transferable skills and then applying those to other jobs where we could be growing our income, growing our skills and our opportunities.”
“The most classic example I think about is someone who comes from a customer service background or may have spent years in a sense of administrative assistant, they could be working as a program manager without doing any type of upskilling, without going out and getting any additional degrees, any additional training. Just learning how to rebrand their current skillset as a program manager from an administrative assistant.“
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EPISODE LINKS:
-Flynanced on Instagram Flynanced Website
Kim Rittberg (00:02):
If your resolution is to make more money than this show is for you, we have an awesome guest today. Cinneah, also known as Flynanced. She's going to teach you nine to five hotties, how to make 30% more at work. She calls you corporate folks, nine to five. Hotties. Yeah, she's awesome. It's going to be a fun one.
This is Mom's Exit Interview, the show for moms who wanna craft the career and life they want. Each episode you'll meet inspirational moms across various industries and levels. We're working and living life on their own terms, and they'll bring you actionable tips from finance to business development to happiness, to crushing that imposter syndrome. I'm Kim Rittberg. I was a burnt out media executive at Netflix, US Weekly and in TV news. I wanted a career where I was fulfilled at work but present at home with my kids. So I started working for myself and I love it, but not every day was easy or is easy. I wanted to explore with all of you how other moms were creating careers on their own terms. They're carving out flex jobs, starting their own businesses. They're taking back control. Join me and make work, work for you instead of the other way around.
Very exciting news over here. You're listening because you wanna create a career that works for you. Maybe you run a business and you're looking to reel in clients while you sleep, right? Cuz we all are. Or maybe you have a side hustle, you're not a writer, you don't like to promote yourself. Maybe you're shifting between being home with the kids, returning to work, or you're building a new business. Don't worry, I got you. I have been helping small business owners supercharge their business with content through personal branding and content strategy. What does that mean? What does that mean? Well, I work with you closely to make a blueprint. I am your buddy. I do the planning, the strategy and the execution so you get a look and feel scripts, a plan of what to make and where to put it across video and social. I'm basically your executive producer in a box mixed with your accountability partner and of course your fun BFF <laugh>.
You get to use the secrets about content that I learned in my 15 years, Netflix, pop sugar and TV news. And so I am starting a group coaching course. This is really exciting. So grab a spot on the wait list. It's at kimrittberg.com. It is growing your business while you sleep with content because while you're sleeping your video and your social media is doing the work for you, I'm going to help you hit your goals, bring in clients, bring in revenue while you sleep. And it's a new year. Yes. Do you do resolutions? I actually truly wanna know. So drop me a message. Let me know what you do. Every year I type them up and I send them to my brother and he does the same thing. This year I started instituting a look back where we review how we did each year.
But it's a nice review. It's mostly positive. It's not, not nitpicky and mean. So a few of my resolutions from last year were spend quality time with the kids and be present. Virtual quality time. I degrade. I coached my daughter Lily's soccer league, which I feel like counter for a lot and I am trying to always be more present. I co work in progress for life, do something that scares me, was another one of my resolutions, which hosting a podcast definitely falls into, even though I've been a producer for over a decade, being in front of the camera or behind the microphone is new for me. I have been on camera, but it's been a small portion of my broader career. I've mostly been writing and producing and helping other people build their brand. So that was really exciting. I also put my art in a gallery show that was fun and a little bit scary.
And my big one was to do work that has impact for ownership. And I produced a big series for it Gets better and LGBTQ plus nonprofit. This series has people speaking about their own experiences. It was educational but also really beautiful with great sets and colors and celebratory. It was really fun. I was so proud of it no matter what. And then we won a bunch of awards. So the client was super happy and I'm just so proud to be doing work that puts such positivity into the world. So great year all around. I gave myself some not so high marks on eating and exercising. So that's going to go right back on the 2023 resolutions.
I am so excited for you all to meet Sun a. She runs financed an amazing business where she teaches women how to get paid their worth in the workplace. Basically. I wish I met her 20 years ago. She has great tips on how to boost your salary up to 30%. Yeah, no, like silly, 3% increase. She offers scripts to ask and interviews and even initial phone screens. I would say get your notes app ready to jot it all down. But I have an amazing newsletter that you can sign up for. I send it all to you every single week. So make sure to sign up for that.
Cinneah El-Amin (Flynanced) (05:12):
You talk a lot about nine to five bodies building generational wealth and getting paid for our worth in the workplace, which I love. What is your advice for people to get better paying jobs? Yeah, so I mean for my nine to five ERs, I think the biggest thing that I think that we could all be doing is really understanding our transferable skills and then applying those to other jobs where we could be growing our income, growing our skills and our opportunities. So I get this question a lot. Hey, I feel really stuck in this one job that I've always done at this one company. My salary is not growing, I don't feel like the opportunities are growing. What can I do? And I think oftentimes we think that our career have to be linear, that we can only do the one job we've always done.
But what I wanna encourage you to think about is how your transferable skills may also apply to other jobs that you may not have even considered. So I think the most class example I think about is someone who comes from a customer service background or may have spent years in a sense of administrative assistant, they could be working as a program manager without doing any type of upskilling, without going out and getting any additional degrees, any additional training. Just learning how to rebrand their current skillset as a program manager from an administrative assistant. And that is an opportunity that they could do to earn more money to break into a new industry, to break into companies that they wouldn't have considered. And the skills are nearly identical. If you are listening right now and you are an administrative assistant, I encourage you to go look up program manager roles because I promise you, you'll then see that you have been severely underpaid for skills that could be put towards roles like program management and you are doing that as an admin assistant.
So that's, I mean, I think that's the biggest thing that I think we could all be doing. And then I think what we can all be doing is really assessing what growth have we had in the last one to two years, right? Yes, we're all going through the same volatility, the same uncertainty in our job market, but if you have not seen your salary grow by at least seven and a half, eight or 9%, you are now underpaid compared to the rate of inflation. And I think that is always a great litmus test for me in terms of am I seeing my income grow? Is my income growing as much as it just costs to live in this country? If it's not given those kind of dusty one to 2% merit increases over the last two years, this is your sign to leave. This is your sign to find other options.
Whether that is making an internal pivot to another team at your company, whether it is taking your skills and going to, like we mentioned before, Kim, a competitor in your same industry that'll likely pay you 20 to 30% more money than you're making right now. Or if you want to even make a bigger jump and jump into a new industry that you've never worked in, you have so many options available to you. So I would say that that's my big advice is to not stay in a role that you've stayed in too long. Really think about what are those transferrable skills that you have that could be worth so much more. And most importantly, not to let fear keep you paralyzed or keep you stuck in the same place. If you are tuned into too much industry news. If you're watching too much of financial market news, you may get scared of making a move, right?
Oh, there's so much uncertainty and recession coming, inflation volatility. Oh, I should just say where I'm at. I should just stay underpaid where I'm at. But that could literally cost you thousands of dollars in earned income, which could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars lost in terms of potential wealth that you could be building by just staying still. So that's my short advice and if you're looking for more strategies, talk to me on Instagram. I would love to help you if you are in a nine to five, kind of figure out what other opportunities are out there for you. Because trust me, there are so many career paths out there, so many kind of misunderstood opportunities out there in terms of just different jobs that exist, different free programs that exist, so many opportunities even for career pivots that you don't have to just feel stuck in that current role that you're in.
Talk to me about the transferrable skills that can earn you a lot of money. I had seen you post on this that there are transferrable skills that can earn you a hundred thousand dollars. What do you mean by that? Yeah, essentially what I mean by that is there are key transferrable skills that many of us have that we have earned our work experience through our freelance experience, through our entrepreneur experience. That equate to literally being able to apply and get offers for roles that are paying six figures or more. So some of those skills include project management, not being afraid to really say that that is a skill and a proficiency that you have. If you are someone who has led any project start to finish, whether it was a volunteer experience, whether it was your own entrepreneurial venture, whether it was just a project that your boss dropped on your desk or sent you over email, that is a highly paid and in-demand skill right now.
I'm not saying that you have to then go out and become a project manager tomorrow, that's now a job title that relies on that key skill. But there are many jobs that are looking for candidates that have that ability, that ability to successfully drive projects forwards from start to finish. Project management is such an underrated but highly, highly paid transferrable skill. Another stakeholder management, I think sometimes we take for granted if you have been a person who has had to manage the expectations of customers, outside vendors, your executives, other people on your team, that is a flow of stakeholder management. You've had to manage the expectations of multiple stakeholders to get your work done. And that is such an underrated skill that could be helping you make more money in product management, project management, all these other types of job functions that really rely on someone who is comfortable being at liaison across multiple stakeholders.
So that's what I mean by there are transferable skills that you may have as you're listening to this podcast. You might say, Hey, yeah, I do that at my job. I didn't even know that was a skillset. Right? If we start to learn how to talk about it and advocate for ourselves in the job search and in the job interview process, we can take those same skills and pivot into other jobs that exist out there and earn more money. It's interesting cuz I saw you post about this and some of the other skills that were transferrable that are highly valued are cross-functional collaboration, teaching and coaching and verbal and written communications. To me, I think of those as well. Of course that's a bullet on my resume, but I don't think of it as, oh, that's something that really gets you so much more money data analysis.
I think that's interesting. A lot of people, they think they're not good at data analysis, but almost all of us, we're not doing the data scraping, but we're looking at the data. Almost all of us can be like, oh, 10% month of a month. Great. Yep. We're telling a story. What's the data? Right? Exactly. I feel like a story with the data and I think even people who aren't necessarily good at math do have that skill, but you don't think of yourself as that skill. So sometimes it's the storytelling in our own mind. It helps have an outside perspective on what skills do you really have. Absolutely. And getting that help from outside. Absolutely. And you know what it is, I think also Kim, is that we sometimes underestimate how much our soft skills are also valuable in the job hunt and in the job search.
So I like to think of it in terms of hard skills are what get us to the right jobs. So some of those more technical, tangible, quantifiable skills that we've either learned on the job or learned through our degrees, those are going to help us find those right jobs that are out there for our skillset. But we should also remember, and especially if anyone who's briefly taken an interview, most of the interviews that we then go through our behavioral, so we know that soft skills are what ultimately help us get the offer. It's so important to think about those two together. How many times have you been in an interview where someone asks you tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult customer or you had to work through ambiguity At that point they're not necessarily looking for, tell me about all these technical skills that you have.
They're looking for how about does this person work? Are they a team player? Are they someone who's going to be able to problem solve? These are then all soft skills that I think we often underestimate in terms of, oh that's not really important. But that could be literally different between going through an interview and closing an offer. So I think it's so important to just remember that our hard and soft skills are always going to be valuable in terms of helping us not only find the right jobs, but then ultimately get those offers that we want for high paying jobs. So don't forget to expand on that in the interview in really concrete ways. So if you're putting on your resume strong at stakeholder management involved heavily with cross-functional collaboration in person say, oh, many of my projects, many of the projects that I managed as a project manager were involved five other units and I had to work closely with them.
It's a good reminder to tell those stories cuz a lot of times I think myself included, a lot of people forget to first person story tell and those are more effective than listing out verbs or adjectives. But telling those stories cuz a, it's more real and someone's like, oh they're not just making up a list of things, but it really helps explain and color the picture of who you are and what sort of employee you'd be. Absolutely. Absolutely. How much of an increase can people get when they're switching jobs? What percent are you looking at? Yeah, so if I think about my past clients that I've worked with in 2022 alone on average, those people who have followed my strategies and have been able to just take their same skills and either pivot into a different function at their current company or even just jump companies into a similar role are seeing anywhere from 20 to 50% increases in their salary. So you can go 20 to 50% jump in salary just for switching either internal or external. That's correct.
Yeah. So we're talking about life changing money and I can even say for myself in the past two years I've job hopped twice. So I've jumped to two different companies since the pandemic started in March, 2020 and I have grown my base salary by over a hundred thousand dollars. How much money do you earn? I know it's probably cuz you've posted on social media. How much money do you earn? Yeah, so right now I have five and a half years of experience. I make $206,000 plus bonuses, equity, other things that make up my total compensation and that does not include the money that I make through my business. So yeah, there's a lot of money to be made outta here. When you really understand your value as a candidate, you understand your strong transferable skills and you really pivot into those high end demand roles. I'm a product manager, so discipline of product management continues to expand.
Companies are always hiring for product managers because we are really the lifeblood of creating the products that help those companies make money and drive revenue. So as a result, I'm always in demand. So that has allowed me to be able to really own my story, advocate for what I've worked and know that even if there aren't things that I love about my current job, I know that I can always take my skills elsewhere to earn more money to look for additional opportunities without having to necessarily reinvent the wheel about my professional background. She also told me about her own experiences asking for and getting more. Yeah, I mean I have been negotiating throughout my entire career. So even before I knew anything about any of this stuff, I was negotiating just by asking, even in my very first role, hey I would love to just have 5,000 extra dollars in my base salary.
I mean it's simple to the escape for more. I think sometimes we think negotiation means the scary confrontation when negotiating could literally be as simple as, I would just love to see that base salary be closer to X. What can we do to close it? Or can I get extra five that, I mean that's literally how I asked at first in my career, I did not have such have all of the best scripting around what to say. I just was literally like, could I have an extra $5,000? And back then it felt like a big deal because it took me from $68,000 to $72,000. But that was what I wanted because I wanted to be in the seventies when I kind of started my career. So I would say for me in terms of negotiating, I am pretty much negotiating every year. I think that's given me the confidence and courage to kind of know what to say and what to expect.
So yeah, if I think about my trajectory since 2019, that's been the last, what, four years? 2019 I got promoted, negotiated 2020, I jumped companies and negotiated 2021. I interviewed and negotiated for more 2022, this is our current year. So I accepted a new role and we're at the end of the year. So I'm definitely thinking about how I tell my best story to set myself up for negotiations for early next year. So it's kind of just an ongoing muscle that I continue to flex and that's what I recommend to my followers and clients is to continue thinking about how you can just flex that muscle, that negotiating muscle. And it could be even as simple as continuing to take those phone screens, those informationals when a recruiter is sitting down to talk with me, not being afraid to ask them, tell me about the total compensation package.
I can expect. What is the salary range for this role? Or Hey, I saw online a huge range that you guys published for this role. How do you actually determine where candidate salary falls within that range? Those are ways you can get comfortable kind of flexing that muscle even in a, I would say low risk environment, right? Because you don't necessarily have a job on the line, but you can still get comfortable asking those questions, understanding how you can get that information and then leverage later. I really appreciate this advice cuz I think it took me a long time in my career to ask the questions. I think a lot of us are afraid of uncomfortable pauses in conversation and I think if you can just ask a question, let it sit, not talk to break the awkwardness. Yeah, see what they say. It took me a long time to do that.
But I liked your point about negotiation. I remember my very first job I was earning, maybe it was my second job, I was earning something like 40 something thousand and I had been accruing a lot of skills. I was writing, I was produced, I was learning to write better. So I had writing samples, I was interviewing people for tv, I was putting together segments, but I was an associate producer so I wasn't a full producer. And I got interviewed for a job and I had asked no, I didn't ask what sellers and then they asked me what I wanted to earn. I was earning like $47,000 and I said 80 being like there's no way anyone's going to give me a 75% jump or whatever that math is. But I thought there's no way someone's going to take me from 47 to 80. Cause I didn't tell them what I earned and then they did.
So my first reaction was, yes, I'm so amazing. I'm the best. I'm a bongo. Then I thought, yeah, oh man, there was probably more money there cuz if they just said yes and didn't even negotiate me down, there's no money. But it was a good lesson of you never know what the ceiling is, you actually don't know. You should try to always ask and then I have a go. Another negotiation win is that I had been working somewhere and I had been recruited to go back to a company that I had been at in a different role and I think they sort of knew around what I was earning and so they offered me similar to that. So let's say I was earning around a hundred or something. So they tried to earn me, offer me one 15 and I was just very firm. I wasn't dying to leave and I was like, here's the deal.
I'm at a place where they like me and they respect me and they're not going to wanna see me go. So they're going to try to keep me with my 8% merit raises. I'll be earning that in a year and a half with no fear of you. Churn a new job could mean a new ending. You could start this job and you could hate it and it could be over in a year. Whereas I'm in a job for three or four years, I know they like me or five years I know they like me, I know they'll keep me. So I use that concept cuz the rules are changing now around what you can or can't say in salary negotiation, but establishing how valued you are and what you bring I think is important. And I ended up negotiating like, sorry, an extra like 30k, no 50k, I don't know, a lot of money. <laugh>
Ended up negotiating a lot more money cuz I said this is a big risk for me to leave this big job. The next step is X. And so it is helpful when you think about it's not just numbers dollars and cents, it's what your skills are, how you're valued, how your current employer values you. If you know they're going to fight for you, absolutely you should use that in your negotiation. Yeah, I love this conversation. I'm remembering all these things from a while ago. I've been, yeah, now I work for myself so I haven't had a salary negotiation, but this has been really, really helpful. Besides the actual salary, like your yearly salary, what are some other things you can negotiate to get more money in your pocket at your job? Yes, I love this question because these are also things that I've had to learn across throughout my journey that I think can absolutely help someone else.
So I kind of think about a negotiating kind of order of operations. So I think many of us know you should ask for more money year based salary, but I don't think many of us think about anything else on that or of operations. So I like to kind of go from salary to bonuses to paid time off to equity if it's offered to me. And then any other kind of stipends or compensation. So when I think about things that you could be negotiating, another way to kind of think about that is what else makes up your total compensation? That could be anything from commissions if you work in a sales role, it could be bonuses, which could include performance bonuses, sign-on bonuses, relocation, bonuses especially. You're right, we're in a hybrid world, so you might have to be closer to your primary team is our relocation bonus that you can get associated with that pay time off.
Really thinking about, especially if you're working at a company where you get a set amount of vacation time, what is the cash value associated with that time? You can easily do that. Mathematics in your head, what's your daily rate? Multiply that by the number of days you get at your previous company and then compare that when you're negotiating for a new company for example. Other benefits, are there just other benefits that your current employer provides? Right? Wellness benefits. I know companies that provide gem memberships, these are all things that you can quantify and then be able to tally up and understand what money you might potentially be leaving on the table by leaving a company or leaving a certain team and being able to use that to negotiate effectively. Another one that I didn't mentioned, retirement matching. If you work at a company that is really giving you a really healthy contribution towards your retirement or towards your health insurance, really make sure that you understand what that is because that's going to all make up your total compensation.
I think sometimes we get so fixated on our base salary that we forget, oh wow, by being an employee at this company, I might have an extra 10, 15, or $20,000 of additional compensation that I need to be thinking about as I pivot to another company. Whereas I compare offers that are going to help me make the best decision, but also make sure that I'm not leaving any money on the table. So in my own career, I think about when I most recently pivoted to my current job, I was offered a base salary, wasn't really able to negotiate it much more than what was offered to me, but I was able to negotiate, I said on Instagram a $20,000 bonus, but it was actually $29,000 bonus simply by asking, right? I was at the end of the performance cycle at my previous company and I would've to forfeit my annual performance on it.
So I told my new employer, Hey, this money is going to get left on the table and I could have it if I literally stayed an extra month or two. What can you guys do to help me recuperate that so that it's really easy for me to sign and software letter today and I pretty much gotta make good bonus. And again, it wasn't necessarily part of my base salary, but it was cold cash in my pocket, which is going to again contribute to my overall total compensation. So I kind of gave that list of things that you can think about. That order of operations is really helpful for me to think about if I'm in that negotiation. Okay, we talked about base, what can I do to kind of ask about bonuses? What can I do that kind of makes sense relevant to any money that I'm leaving behind?
And then just kind of go through that list that I mentioned before and really make sure that you're not leaving any money on the table as you're making that cruise switch. That's super smart. And not necessarily that a company will always negotiate on certain things per person, but at some companies that I had been at when I was at Netflix, if you didn't take their insurance, they gave you money. And I never had that offer by any other company. I didn't know that was a thing peop places did. And I think that's interesting to just get you out of the mindset of salary and maybe a bonus, but there's these other things. There's matching. Yeah, there's health insurance. Some places if you're not taking the insurance, they're saving that money. Some places won't negotiate on that, but you should ask cuz if you're on your spouse's insurance or you're dependent or whatever.
And then the other thing I thought was interesting is one of the places I had worked at that wasn't super generous salary, but they did have stipends per semester to take professional classes. And to your point, as you're adding additional skills to your resume, you're making yourself more valuable. So if that company is willing to put a few thousand dollars a semester into advanced classes, classes, I remember I took an editing class and I took something else that's making me more valuable both at that company but in the future. So I like the idea of changing our framework to say, what's this total comp package? How can someone else compare with that? And also not letting yourself be blind to things that you do have because the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence. Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that goes back to what we said earlier about throughout your process, not just at the final negotiations conversations.
Don't be afraid to ask these questions. I think these are great questions to ask. Even in that initial phone screen, this is a job that you applied to and you're excited about it, ask that recruiter because it's their job to make sure that you're an informed candidate throughout that process. Really asking what does a total compensation package look like? What are some of the benefits that new hires receive? Hey, I have this at my company. I can't really find out what it looks like at this company. Can you share? Right, what is the vacation policy? What are there ways that I can continue to grow? To your point around like educational stipends, asking those questions, I think even early in the process makes it a lot easier to then be able to negotiate effectively and to your point, not leave money behind or just kind of get caught up in thinking, oh, the other company is always going to pay me more better.
But also what can I do to just make sure that I'm closing the gap? But I mean, even as I've seen stories of other people who really focus on negotiation tactics or even help people from an executive recruiting standpoint. I mean there are all types of things that companies are willing to give you, especially if you are a new and demand candidate. Everything from, I mean, this has not happened to me in my own nine to five, but what I've seen is even things like housing, helping your kids get into certain schools and certain districts, there are just so many things. I think especially depending on your seniority. Again, those skills that you bring, again, the fact that you've made it through an interview process and you are that candidate they want to hire. Absolutely. Thinking about what is going to make it either difficult or easier for me to not only accept this job but do it well, once I'm in the role, really think about those things.
I mean, especially with us being, again in a hybrid environment, home office reimbursement. Does the company offer that or are they going to ship you out your own electronics? Or are you expected to kind of furnish your home office yourself? Right? Ask them for those things because there are so many companies where it's kind of a like, oh, they didn't ask. They don't get, you might be missing out on money that can help you and not only just in terms of lining your pockets, but improving your work-life balance and quality of work. Of course, don't ask, don't get. That's the best. Don't ask. Don't get. Yes. Such an amazing chat. Thank you so much.
Kim Rittberg (29:31):
And you can get more of Cinneah's amazing tips at flynanced.com and you can check her out on Instagram at flyd. I love getting feedback from all of you. I love your ideas for shows. I love your feedback and I especially love when you say you like the show for real too. I love hearing from you. So please keep the messages coming. This one is from Rachel. She says, hi, I love your podcast. I've listened to every episode. It's so authentic and helpful. Oh, guess who's here? We have a surprise visitor. My son. No, what's happening?
Nate (30:02):
I need my mouse and I go tonight.
Kim Rittberg (30:06):
You need your little mouse, the little toy mousey. He's on the bench over there. Okay. On the bench by the front door. Okay.
Nate (30:13):
He's on the bench by the front.
Kim Rittberg (30:16):
That's how it works when you work from home. Rachel is the owner of Gold Signature Writers, LLC and academic and enrichment tutoring service company for students and grades K to 12. Here is when we feature a real mom life in its happiest, funniest, or most embarrassing moments. Today's is from vda who has a pretty cool side hustle called Gray Brush Vintage Market, which is based in Ohio. Here's Vonda.
Vonda Rogers (30:53):
I'll set the stage. This was many years ago. My daughter now is 31 years old. We're going to dinner fast food type restaurant. We're going to eat in. It's myself, my husband, my parents, my aunt, uncle, and my very headstrong and stubborn, chunky five-year-old daughter. We go in, we pick a table, we sit down, she decides she wants to sit in a highchair. These are the wooden high chairs that all restaurants have. She doesn't fit in a high chair. She's too big for a highchair. I look over, I tell her, no, you're a big girl, you don't need a highchair. Next thing I know, my mother is squeezing her in this wooden highchair. We eat the meal, time to leave. I notice she's trying to squeeze out of the highchair. We're trying to get her out of the highchair. At this point, she's stuck. Imagine that the more we try to pull on her, the more she fights us.
She is becoming agitated. Probably a little scared at this point. She is stuck in this wooden highchair. So we are now making quite the scene in the restaurant. People are starting to notice this little girl is stuck in a high chair. I'm sure they're wondering why she was in it in the first place. At this point, my husband is trying everything he can to get her out. She is fighting. She is just not coming out of the highchair mom to the rescue, right? No. What do I do? I get my bag and I walk to the car. I was so embarrassed at this point. The managers at the restaurant, I passed them headed back to our table. No worries. My daughter got out fine. My husband was able to turn the highchair upside down and I do believe he used a little bit of butter on her legs to finally get her out of this highchair. Am I proud of what I did? Absolutely not. Would I probably do it again? Yes, I would. <laugh>. No worries though. She is a grownup three kids of her own. And I certainly hope that someday they embarrass her like she did me that day.
Kim Rittberg (33:24):
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