In the beginning of last year i started working at a groceries’ delivery compagny and it was my first time working full time, i only had student jobs on the weekend before. Overall everything was going fine, there were sometimes some issues with the managers but i’ve always been able to tell them about it and find a solution. But then, one day, the company decided to open another place, to cover another part of the city, and it happened to be near where i live, so when they asked if i wanted to work there, i said yes. I met my new boss a few weeks before the opening, and he asked me if i had an opinion on how he should run the thing, compared to the place i was at the time. I told him what i wanted, thinking to myself that maybe i had found a good boss, that would treat us fairly. And then it was time for the opening, and i was the only one from the delivery team to go there, along with some new guys they had just hired. At first, it was okay, i mean, i had to train them, but they all had done the job someplace else before, so it wasn’t hard nor long. But still, i had the best numbers of the team(i was faster, more efficient, and clients liked me better) and my boss had to be away for a few days, so he asked me to be in charge of the team during that time. I said yes without thinking and that’s when the trouble started. He started asking me more and more, telling everyone i was the team leader, and giving me more responsibility because i was afraid to say no. But all of that was unofficial, no change in title or in pay, when i had to work harder and the job was more stressful. One day, i decided to ask for a raise and a change in title to make it official, and got shut down with shitty arguments like “no but your work isn’t that different from the other guys” or “we don’t have the money to do that”, “i’ll talk about it but it’s not my decision”, and all this kind of bullshit. Angry, i talked about it with my colleagues and i stopped acting like a team leader. Less than a week after that my boss came to asking what was wrong, so i told him, i was just doing my job, nothing more, nothing less, and that if he wanted me to do more, he should give me that promotion, with all the delivery team backing me. I got promoted a few days after that, and the following day, I quit my job another because another opportunity had presented itself.
Don’t be afraid to ask for a raise, or a promotion, your boss needs you more than you need them, and solidarity is the best way to show it !