i’ve been at my current job since November. i was out of work during the pandemic because i’m severely immunocompromised and have asthma that i take 4 daily medications for. before that, i was the general manager (then assistant manager at another location once my location was shut down by the company) at a retail store. i make $16/hour. I’m 28, and I have over 8 years of customer service experience and almost 5 years of inbound call center experience.
my department is supposed to have 5 full time people, 1-2 part time people, plus our 2 managers. currently, we have 2 managers, 4 full time employees, and 1 part time employee. over the last three months, one of my FT coworkers was out for a month between planned vacation, a colonoscopy, and calling out. she returned last month, and since then, the other full time employee has been “out until further notice” because apparently, she’s sick (even though before then she called out or left early 2-3 times per week and has only been at the company 2.5 months). the last FT employee is going on maternity leave starting September 1st, and they don’t have plans on hiring any others to the department.
when managers go on vacation, they ask me to cover their work and i do so. i do anything they ask of me. i believe they’re taking advantage of my previous work experience while paying me the same rate as the 2 21 year olds, but expecting me to take a leadership role (without a title).
i’ve never asked for a raise. i’m a very anxious person who is non confrontational. i love my job and the people i work with, but they’re asking things of me and i do the most work out of everyone else in the department (not saying anything bad, i know everyone works at their own pace and it’s not an issue i have with my coworkers). how should i do this? how much should i ask for, what is fair? i plan to ask in September, since in October i will be covering for my manager since she’ll be out for the entire month. then November is my one year.