Posted: 9/29/2007 1:15:55 PM EDT
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I work in IT as a systems designer, maintainer and do customer service as well. I've been with the company for a year and a half. The company is doing great (they keep saying over and over) in large part because of the systems I design. Our company is small with <10 employees. Since I've started, my current boss fired my old boss, demoted his subsequent replacement, making himself my defacto boss in addition to his other duties. Since he gained that power he has repeatedly asked me to do more and more work while removing perks (I used to telecommute, now I have to go to the office... for 12 hour work days). In exchange for all the extra work, duties, and responsibilities, I have received... nothing! The only part of my original employment offer that remains unchanged are my salary and my vacation days! Every single change has been to my detriment.  I told them I need a raise because I am far more skilled, experienced, productive, and efficient than when I started. I told them the raise should be larger because they have vastly increased my duties and responsibilities while decreasing my perks. I told them my raise should be even larger because for cost of living increases. "Oh I think we can do that," I am told.  A few days later I am told what my raise is: $50 extra per month.  $600/yr  About $0.25/hr  1.3% raise  WTF? "Well if we keep doing as great as we have been there may be a company-wide cost of living increase next year."  What the FUCK is my motivation to do my job well and do all the extra things they want? FUCK AT WILL EMPLOYMENT THAT LETS EMPLOYERS BAIT AND SWITCH TO FUCK OVER THEIR EMPLOYEES! |
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If you are in IT and as good as you claim then you can easiliy jump to another company and make 20% more. Seriously, if you can show the skills you have gained and explain the products you produced there are a ton of companies out there who will hire you and pay you what you are worth. From my personal experience in IT when a job comes down to demanding a riase, it is well past the time you need to find a nother job. I have never seen a request for a pay increase or threatening to leave to get more money ever work out in the long run...never. Touch up your resume and find a company that will appreciate you. |
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BTW, there was a contract company we were dealing with where the owner kept telling me someone with decent C# programming skills could easily make $80k per year. He had several very smart people with degrees and experience working for him. They were working 60 to 80 hours weeks and I assumed they were making $80k+. Well things got bumpy at my company and I started talking to them about jobs and salaries. It turns out one guy was only making $35k and the other $50k! Their boss knew how much they were worth but was screwing them anyway. When 2 of the 3 quit the boss freaked and told the guy making $35k they would pay him $65k, which is still $15k below what he is worth. The lesson to learn in "cheap bosses will always be cheap bosses". |
+1 This is true with all jobs, not just IT. |
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While the thread is specifically about OT, lots of IT people with similar stories to yours (bent over and used) posting about it in this thread: yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/09/25/1149205.shtml |
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I could easily skip ship and make at least another $10K/yr in a lower cost of living area... if I was willing to move, but I don't want to move. I love where I live. I'll just quit and go to paramedic or RN school and do something I am good at AND love instead of just something I am good at. I would even settle if they'd keep pay static and give me my perks back... but I feel so fucked over and used. That combined with my loss of perks makes me hate my job that I used to tolerate and sometimes enjoy. It is so that I feel it is wrong to give much more than a minimal effort. I like jobs where effort. It's a pretty strong sign I should leave. I want to be in a place where I feel good about giving my all. If a company makes an environment where you feel they are trying to get as much as they can out of you for as little as they can, they create and environment where the employees feel that they should try to give as little as they can while getting as much as they can so it will balance out. |
Oh the paper is very specific about my responsibilities... so he just writes a new paper every few weeks adding more responsibilities... because I'm "at will." |
What is it that makes people think this is OK to do except when necessary to preserve the company's solvency? |
I have another example of their irrationality that's even worse, but too complicated to explain. Basically though, they wanted to make an enormous workaround that would have been very expensive, destroyed customer service and employee morale, for no real benefit. And no matter how hard I explained why this could never work and wasn't worth it, they created more senseless workarounds to achieve their misguided goal. If you have authority, you don't have to be rational is what I discovered. I nearly lost my mind during that episode. |