At what point in your life do you learn to negotiate? As a child in a military family, I think they skipped over that lesson. No one who went to Boot Camp negotiated with a three-year-old afterwards. That’s just not how we handled tiny terrorists in the military. My childhood was non-negotiable.

In all fairness, negotiation was not the more important career skill to have – as a child or for my parents as soldiers. In the military, you get what you get. Based on a formula consisting of location, time, education, and a few other variables, pay is calculated. There’s a compensation plan. READ MORE