I'm a software engineer at a relatively small company. Originally when I was working there the dev team only consisted of me and my manager, who we'll call Tim. Well, Tim left the company in the beginning of May, and I took on all of his responsibilities. The scope of my work expanded far beyond my job description and my workload effectively doubled, but I was still being paid an entry level salary. I thought that this was okay for the time being, because surely I would be rewarded for it later.
Time passed, and I ended up really meeting the moment. Revenue from web development soared under my leadership, and I implemented numerous desperately needed process reforms. On top of that, I consistently got great feedback from clients and coworkers. We ended up hiring a dev intern, who I then managed. He needed a lot of training early on, so that strained my capacity even more. Eventually he got up to speed and performed well enough that we kept him on as a contractor.
So at this point I'd been managing a team member and performing all of the duties of my former manager for about four months with great success, and I thought it was time to get some recognition. For whatever reason, my company had never given me a performance review, so I went to ask for one. In my performance review, I was verbally recognized for going above and beyond, and they mentioned how I'd done really well taking on Tim's responsibilities and managing the new team member.
I used this as an opportunity to ask for a promotion. If I was doing so well and the company recognized that, surely they would be open to adequately compensating me, right? I couldn't have been more wrong. The meeting to discuss my request for a promotion came a couple weeks after I asked. In the room was just me and the three highest ranking administrators in the company, clearly as some form of intimidation tactic. The meeting started and they broke the news.
They wouldn't be giving me anything. No new title, no raise, no bonus, no nothing. I stood up for myself, and they agreed that I was performing better than Tim had in that position across the board, but they said it didn't matter. When I was in the performance review, my performance was exceptional. Now that I was asking for proper recognition, they said it was “adequate.” One of the administrators actually accused me of being greedy for asking for additional compensation. The salary I asked for was on the low end of normal for the role. But in their minds, this was alright. They were “meeting me halfway” by providing professional development opportunities. I told them I could get advice from anywhere.
This whole incident felt like a huge slap in the face. I really went above and beyond for this company to tremendous success, and when I asked to be properly recognized for it all I got were insults. Now I'm in the process of applying for other jobs, since I know I won't get any recognition here. It's been really hard to keep working for them in the meantime feeling so disrespected, but it wouldn't be financially responsible to let my employment lapse.
Anyways, let this be a lesson. It doesn't matter how big or small the company is or how much they claim to care about their team. When it comes down to it, they don't care about you. They never cared about you. They just want to squeeze every dollar they can out of you. Don't feel any obligation to do anything outside of your stated responsibilities. Doing anything extra is a waste of your time.