I got promoted last year from a supervisor to a department manager during a time when all the other managers were quitting. I used the shitty store manager's desperation to keep me into getting a pretty large raise with my promotion, and let me tell you, I freaking earned it with blood, sweat, and tears. Dealing with his aggression towards customers and employees, protecting employees, trying to get him fired and out of the store, until he finally was. Now myself and the operations manager have been running the store ourselves for several months while corporate fails to find us a new manager and doing a kick ass job of it.
Fast forward to now, merit reviews/raises come. For running the store, I get pennies for my raise, and my co-manager gets nothing. She's been here almost a decade to boot. I look at the manager from another store giving me my review, crumple the paper, and throw it in the trash. It felt like such an insult. I started applying elsewhere immediately. My co-manager tells me not to bother, other places won't touch what we're making. I call bullshit though so far she's right and I've been told by two interviews they can't match what I'm looking for. Talked to my mother, she says I make the same amount she does and she makes it work. I explained I live in a more expensive state so no that's not how it works. Besides, doesn't holding things together mean something? She says not to do anything rash. Today, I talk to a different store manager that I'm close to about it that came to cover a shift. She said I already make the high end for my position and that there's people who have been with the company ten years that don't make what I do. I told her that's disgusting and makes me want to leave more. That she's just giving me a glimpse at my future saying stuff like that. She says to transfer to a bigger store then. I said for what? A few more pennies for triple the work? That keeping the store afloat should mean something. She says it doesn't to corporate. I said then I'll keep looking.
It's making me want to bang my head against the wall that people I'm close to are telling me to just accept it. I don't want to after everything I've been through. But it's proving difficult to move on and forward so maybe they're right. Right now I make 24/hr.