“Junior” graphic designer here. 2.5 years experience in the industry, 1 year of which has been in the agency I'm currently with. These people pride themselves on being worker-forward and fair and all that jazz. To be blunt, I do a vast majority of the design work for this company's clientele, and I do a damn good job of it. You can see the overall aesthetic improvement from before I was hired vs now. I'm quick and can handle a LOT at once. I've proved myself and then some.
It's just me and my supervisor on our internal design team (will refer to this person as they/them). The dynamic: they quite lazily “oversee” me and then take most if not all of the credit for my work when presenting to clients. For the sake of fairness, I'll concede that they likely do some administrative stuff behind the scenes that I'm not privy to. But I often have to explain to them what's going on project-wise, I organize 'our' task spreadsheet regularly, and I practically have to bug them for half-assed stamps of approval to keep things rolling. Sometimes they'll jump into my design files and make small tweaks, but their edits lately have made things worse more often than better these days. Almost like they're out of practice…I digress.
Seeing as I am now essentially acting as a mid-level designer (with my above-average output and vast job responsibilities), I recently asked for a pay jump of about +12k. Supervisor tried to humble me by saying they got way less than I'm now making when they started out (over a decade ago…irrelevant) and that I need to spend 5 more years with the company at least to get that amount. The whole “I paid my dues so you need to pay yours no matter what.”
They also said that pay level requires “less hand holding,” and truly, I am not sure how they could hold my hand any less and remain a supervisor… Sometimes it really feels like I'm the one holding their hand. But they'll also insist I send them every little thing I make before send-off (even internally), so how can I even progress to not needing that if they're keeping me in this micro-managed box?
Side note: I am also pretty convinced that their bosses have no idea how little they contribute to the design projects we put out. And it's not like I can go above their head to air that out without compromising my job security.
Anyway, I asked supervisor what exactly is incentivizing me to continue going above and beyond if I'm being paid the rate of a newbie (especially when they have told me directly I outperform all newbies they've ever worked with, by far), and they didn't have a straight answer. They awkwardly brought up love languages in a working context, and that “money” and “status” seem to be my most prominent ones. ??? I just want to be compensated fairly for the value I bring! Beyond frustrating. Our work relationship has gotten more & more passive-aggressive since the conversation. Getting close to my limit.
Just came here to rant, but if you have any advice, I'm happy to hear it. Current plan is to try and stick it out with these people for another 6 months or so (we have a huge client retainer deal coming in the next few months that would add a lot of substantial, big name work to my portfolio) while polishing my website & resume, and job hunting lowkey in the meantime. Hopefully bring in another job offer and tell them to match it or I leave.
Looking to the future, are there any solid ways to get the respect you've earned & deserve from your superiors? And to set the tone for new employers that you're not to be f*cked with?