Okay so last year my boss quit (largely because they wouldn’t give him any raise or recognition), so I volunteered to be the acting lead on a $45M project. So I asked at the time if I would receive any extra salary or bonus for taking on an entire second job’s worth of duties, no they wouldn’t do that. I would have quit then but we had just employed a new person and I was now their line manager and I couldn’t bring myself to abandon them weeks into a new job.
Fast forward and they open the project lead post for recruiting, they don’t promote me but ‘encourage me to apply’. So I do because I figure at least I can get paid for what I am already doing.
Final interview is held last week. Yesterday I get invited to talk to HR person and my line manager (also the hiring manager). Now HR is genuinely nuts, a seriously nasty piece of work. Imagine Rasputin worked in HR? You get the picture. We’ll call them R.
R tells me not only are they not hiring me but they are hiring any applicant. So I say how come I didn’t get the job I’ve been doing for the last 6 months? R says that acting lead is not the same as being the lead. I ask who R thinks has been reporting, planning, and directing every single activity of our 30+ person project team…
Then I say, so I’m now expected to do the job I’ve just been rejected for, for free, for an indefinite period…can you see why that’s not appealing?
No I can’t, R says. I just laughed at this point.
I say that I do have other options. And with no further provocation R, in an attempt to call my bluff and/or frighten me, says perhaps we should discuss your last day then.
To which I replied that yes we should, I believe it is X of Y. End of meeting.
I handed in my formal resignation letter this morning.
I’ve always gritted my teeth and done the ‘sensible’ thing but they can go to hell. You don’t pay me for all my work? Then I won’t work for you at all.