The Person Who Screams the Loudest, Wins

Erica Jong wrote a great blog today on Huffington Post about how when you're arguing with someone who's insane and you try to argue logically, you're still going to lose (after all, an insane person does not understand logic).  She also espouses the "person who screams loudest, wins" theory of winning.  She is relating this to the healthcare bill but, honestly, her arguments relate to any issue, including women's desire to climb the corporate ladder:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erica-jong/dont-let-the-crazy-people_b_272337.html

From studies and anecdotal evidence, women are afraid to speak up and ask for what they want. We all used to think that people would recognize our brilliance and our worth. Well, they don't. They recognize the worth of the person who puts facts and figures in front of their faces and then asks to be acknowledged and rewarded.
I recently read an article where a female law partner said that when associates do their yearly self-reviews, the male associates talk about how, "I did this," and "I accomplished that".  She said that the female associates wrote about the success of the team.  She said that for female associates to get ahead, they will need to start boasting about their individual accomplishments.

Last week, I called the head of the company I work for and asked for a raise. I make the company a lot of money and I made some good arguments, backed by figures, about why they should give me a raise. I've also forwarded about 5 unsolicited email raves from clients in the past month to the folks at the top of the company chain, so they can see how the clients value me (even if my bosses don't).  At the end of the day, if I get the raise it will be because I'm a pain in the butt (or the person who "screamed" the loudest) about my "worth" and they want me to "shut up" not because I deserve it and it's the right thing to do.

Tell us about the last time you were the squeaky wheel.  Were you successful in getting what you wanted?