I’ve worked for several big corporations both in contract (where they hang benefits and PTO over your head for up to 8 months if you do good as a promise) and direct hire (where they give you shitty starter benefits after 30 days or some bullshit.)
Anyway not the point. I grew up thinking if you worked hard and smart, you could work your way up from even a lower tiered department. I took my finance degree and very fundamental computer science background and went to work in accounts receivable because the competition was fierce 5 years ago if you can believe it.
Since then I’ve found a lot of opportunity in automating this work. Automatic cash application on checks over a million dollars spread over 400 invoices. Automatic financial reports etc. I’ve done it in broad daylight thinking it would lead to a promotion, new title, raises, anything.
Here I am at another company. 8 months contract and 13 months as salaried. Same title. I took the top 5 customers after 6 months away from the former team lead. I’ve designed templates for all their cash application. When I took over it was taking people 8 man hours to process a million dollar check. Takes me 15 minutes at the most. The other 5 team members with my title can barely do a vlookup and yet my work is minimized when I try to suggest the difference.
From basically 50k doing this work to 59k in 4 years of improving my skills and doing things these departments have never seen. Not one company has given me a single incentive to keep pushing. I’ve worked at my current job for a year and 9 months now. A 3% raise and a bunch of future promises if I fix the entire department that’s gone from 14 people to 6 in the last 3 years.
I’ll be looking for a title where people might give a shit in my next job. Because all corporations care about is preserving archaic salary ranges even if the work is infinitely more complex per person than it was 10 years ago.