So I've been working at a restaurant for coming up on 2 years now. I (f,26) worked my way from the bottom to a GM position in less than a year. I did so well that they had me open a brand new store, which was a lot of work (hiring 30 brand new employees, training them, building equipment for the store, ordering everything and placing those things, this all took about a month of work by myself). At this new store I was given an assistant manager to train and help me get days off.
Now this guy comes from another company where he was also an AGM. He (m,28) said he has over 8 years of experience being an AGM at his last job and had done training before. Great! Exciting! Yeah, no…. This man is so dirty and does not know anything about how we do things at our company. His ordering is all over the place, he skips over important things that he thinks I won't notice, he tells the employees to do things that are wrong, the employees complain that he doesn't do anything but sit at the desk all day and makes them leave early, he rides the clock and gets over time when hes told not to.
The reason I am upset and have a problem is he makes $19 an hour plus tips which usually equates to about $8 an hour on top of the $19. My boss gave him this amount (note the starting pay rate for his position is usually $15.50/hr or a salary position) because of his “experience”. I'm doing payroll every other week and hes making $2300+ every pay check. While I'm on salary making $1500 every 2 weeks. I can't help but get upset when I do payroll because he should've never received the pay rate he has. He doesn't pull his weight and takes tips from the other employees (they have a tip pool and split amongst each other – the more hours you work the more tips you get – he's required to work 40 hours a week).
This past month I've also been training a MIT (manager in training) who is another friend of my boss's. I'm supposed to be getting a $250 bonus on my check for this and have not been paid for that.
I guess I'm wondering if it's okay to go to HR and ask why someone below me is making more than me with less experience in the company? I feel like I've proven myself time and time again and keep getting these “promotions” with no gain. This is also not the first time that my boss has hired a man who is one of his buddies to work under me and makes more than anyone else in the store. In my mind that seems backwards.
My boss tells me “Well you get perks of the job that he does not receive.” These perks being 3 weeks of paid vacation time per year, a bonus of up to $1800 every 4 months based on store performance and a retirement fund.
Does this makes sense to anyone and seem fair? I'm not sure how to talk to my boss about it.
Edit: just wanted to add that my salary is $58,000 annually