I'm a store manager for a small custom clothing company in a major US city. Right on the main luxury street in the city. I used to be the AM of a different branch of the same company and was promoted to this one. It essentially forced me to move or otherwise have a 75-90 minute commute one way. The company also wouldn't help with parking and the store doesn't have any on-site parking. They lowballed me and even after getting them to increase the starting pay it still seemed low. Like an idiot though I accepted it and was reassured by my DM that they would make it right over time etc. The increase in my expenses because of all of this ended up being more than I anticipated where now I am essentially barely making ends meet and any surprises are coming direct from my savings.
After being in the position for 4 months my DM was visiting and brought up my pay and how they wanted to put in for an increase but that there was a company policy (I doubt it) that I needed to be in the role for 6 months minimum before it could be approved. Okay sure, that has a set timeline and seemed reasonable. 2 months go by and a few weeks after my 6 month mark, I brought the topic back up to them. They were all for it and told.me they needed to speak to the Regional Manager to determine an amount.
Cut to 5 months later
Every time I have brought it up, I get an excuse. Oh the RM is on vacation for a couple weeks. He canceled our call today where I was going to ask him about it. Just one excuse after the other to push it off. It's honestly left me feeling entirely demoralized and disrespected. I informed my DM about how this was leading me to feel and that I had begun searching for a new employer since other companies on the same street doing the same role were paying around 25% more. They wanted me to send them the job postings of the places I was applying for to use in these supposed talks about my pay increase. I sent a couple but it seemed weird to have to do this. Well DM was visiting again this past week and let it slip that as the only internally promoted SM, I make less than all of my counterparts in the district. You see they went through the same situation and can relate, so I should just be complacent I guess.
During this same discussion we also talked about the moving goalposts for my monthly bonus that led me into thinking I earned it for 2 months only to find out afterwards that the goals I was told were inaccurate and they were actually higher. This was apparently my fault because I was looking where they told me to look for these goals and not where the actual other goals were listed that my bonus is based on. Why there are 2 different goals, who the hell knows, it makes absolutely 0 sense. Best part was that after this clarification about where my goals are actually located, my RM sent an email telling me the exact opposite information. The gaslighting that this was my fault for looking at the wrong goals was crazy too because on conference calls, the wrong numbers were used to celebrate the stores getting their bonuses, which included me. But yeah it was my fault. Anyways during this talk my boss said something along the lines of “Wow you seem angry and I don't understand why, do you need a day off?” I was pretty taken aback. I was absolutely angry. They keep fucking with my financial livelihood. I was still composed though and said, “No, I am an adult, I can still do my job,” and went about my day.
This all leads to yesterday where I sent an email to my boss, the RM and his boss the VP. I let some friends read it first to make sure I wasn't sounding emotional and stuck to the facts. I wrote exactly what has been going on, that I was told I'd get a raise 6+ months ago and have been essentially twiddling my thumbs ever since. That I feel like this is a big lie being used to string me along and I feel very disrespected by the company. That I need to know if this is or isn't happening so that I can plan my life and search for an employer that will pay me what I need to live my life if they won't. I also told them I expect an answer of some kind by the end of this upcoming week.
My boss sent me a text last night “shocked” at my email. “The raise was never promised, and no timeline was ever set. They are on my side and have been fighting for me. Except that they stopped a month ago because the visit wasn't great, but this last one was much better and they were going to start again but needed more time and reciepts. This email was a big mistake and I shouldn't have sent it.” Not a direct quote but pretty much the jist. Edit: Forgot to mention they also once brought up that they didn't understand why I so angry about this in this text. I responded to stop saying I am angry, I'm just very frustrated about this entire situation/process. I really don't like them characterizing me as being overly emotional/angry.
Haven't gotten a formal response yet. I had assumed that it was the RM holding things up but it really wouldn't surprise me if my DM never even passed this upside, or at least not in a serious manner. I hope the VP is happy to hear how his direct reports treat their employees.
Best part. All 3 of them were already coming for a visit first week of November.