My employer does an annual 0-3% payrise. If you surpass 100% of your targets and the company hits at least 120% of their (impossibly optimistic) targets, you get 1-2%. If you somehow 200% your goals and the company only 99%’s their target, you get 0%.
I haven’t had a payrise the last 3 out of 5 years working there. This year, with how crazy inflation is going, and knowing how well the company has done from the pandemic, I asked them to consider a cost of living payrise. Prior to asking this, they were going to give me 1%.
They made me wait ‘while they talked it through with HR’ for TWO MONTHS. Today, after weeks of stressing? They let me know I haven’t ‘shown enough progress to warrant any payrise.’ They rescinded the 1%. But offered to tell me at my next review in 6 months how I could work towards a payrise next year!
I have upskilled. I have put in unpaid overtime (after all, who actually pays overtime when you’re salaried?) I have been the person who always volunteers for shitty tasks and extra work and just puts up with the stress of it all. I have stuck through it all as they change my job over and over, getting rid of the bareable tasks and the few fun things I could do, until my role is something unrecognisable that I hate.
I am done. I don’t have any fight left in me.
I am just gonna turn up and put in my 8 hours.
I wish I could afford to tell them where they can shove their shitty job and even shittier pay. But I can’t. They know I can’t. I’ve got a kid whose nursery fees are 70-80% of my salary. I’ve got a mortgage. I’ve got an electric bill that’s tripled and it’s not even winter.
I’m just so tired, y’all. I ‘did everything right’. I got my degree and my masters. I’ve got 10 freaking years in my career. I’ve got no gaps on my resume. I keep up to date with skills and certifications and all that bullshit (that comes out of my own pocket in money and time). And I still only earn two thirds of the average wage where I live.
I don’t know what else to try. I’ve been job hunting for six months, and I’m getting ghosted at best; I even had one interview panel never bother to show up. The one promising interview I had? They let slip two internal candidates already working in the team were interested in the role. I never stood a chance.
What am I missing here? What more am I meant to be doing?
How the fuck do people do this until retirement?