Let me preface this by saying that I know life is not fair. If life isn’t fair, we can assume by the transitive property of work being part of life that work is also not fair. Logically, I know this. It doesn’t make it any easier to swallow, but I know this. What follows is an emotional rant based on things I have learned at Initech over the last few months.
For those who do not know, my former boss at Initech was promoted/stolen for the “new” product Initech has built over the last few years. This is a sexy product, at least it would have been three years ago when everything web based was “sexy”. As it turns out, in typical Initech fashion, we have overcommitted and understaffed. My former boss was recruited to “fix” an integral part of the “sexy new product” that had been floundering for the last year+ and was causing issues everywhere. He was given more responsibility, more direct reports, and…wait for it…no increase in salary to compensate for the additional stress and burden of said new responsibility.
When my former boss left, I was given his responsibility. Now, given what you just learned about my former boss, I know you aren’t surprised to learn that I also was given more responsibility, (more) direct reports and no increase in salary or promotion even in title only (ie give you the title/level now so that when yearly raises come around you can expect to be “bumped” to the next pay grade).
If all of this weren’t irritating enough for me and my Initech cohort, I’ve learned more. I have come into possession of the proof I had always suspected, but secretly hoped against. There are people at Initech at the same “level” as I am who are making significantly more per year. I would imagine if I were to ask, I would be told these individuals are working on the “new stuff” whereas I am working on the “legacy” stuff. The funny thing is I was on the team that created the tools the “new stuff” uses to get their jobs done. I used to work in the programming language and tools of the “new stuff”. When I was on the “new stuff” there were a thousand excuses why there were no increase in pay. If I were to ask an Initech official today, I’m sure there would still be a thousand excuses.
So I am once again at a cross-roads. I am staring down 12 years at Initech. This is not what I wanted for my life. This job is not fulfilling, and the responsibilities of the non-promotion are nothing I’d want to do even if there would have been a bump in salary to correspond with the bump in responsibility.
The truly crappy bit is that I couldn’t have hit a worse time in American History to decide to job hunt. Seriously, a large part of me says “Sit down. Shut up. Punch the clock. Enjoy getting paid.”
This is the *SAME* part of me that is willing to let me be a zombie 40+ hours a week at a job I can’t stand. I need help. I need advice. I need sane people to read this and give me words of encouragement. Are any of you still out there? All I seem to get any more are pr0n spam comments. If you’re still out there, please drop me a comment.
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