throwaway because i'm paranoid. just another /antiwork anecdote, forgive the rambling!
i'm a younger, female professional in a pretty niche, white-collar job. i've been working at my current place for a few years, and accepted the role during the height of the pandemic. as a result of this, and my youth, i failed to haggle a better starting salary. still, it was work, and i was happy to be able to pay my bills.
a year after i was hired, an opening on my team allowed me to bring on a former teammate of mine from a different company, and she integrated really well. she and i have both been highly successful on the team, but i'm her senior and am more aggressive about seeking out new responsibilities. i've made myself pretty invaluable as a result of this.
this past year, my coworker and i were discussing our yearly reviews (which happen to be fairly near to each other) and we realized she had been making almost 5% more than me for the past year. she encouraged me to take it up the ladder, and when i did, my boss agreed it was unfair and was quite upset on my behalf. after a little while, my review rolled around, and i got a 10% raise! woo! while i was really excited about this, my boss cautioned me that upper management wasn't thrilled about my request, and implied i may not see a raise next year.
i didn't think too much of this. i broached the subject of backpay with her since i had spent the last year working as a senior in my role despite getting paid less than my junior. i have the most responsibilities of any member on our team short of my boss, so i didn't think asking for backpay was unfair. i had taken on numerous additional tasks and had a spotless review. the backpay would have been a couple thousand, max.
i was told the backpay conversation would have to be without my boss, and would be between myself, the cfo, and the coo (smallish company, so these things go straight to the top brass). this should have been my warning to RUN.
the meeting itself was about 15 minutes of just… mortification. i had spent a week practicing my pitch, explaining my reasoning, trying to think of answers to expected questions. here's what i did the past year to earn this, etc etc.
instead, they responded to me with:
“i know it's a free country, but in all my experience, discussing wages is considered extremely unprofessional.”
“you know, you accepted this pay rate when you started here.”
“would you be asking for this if you and your coworker hadn't discussed your wages? not that you can't do that, it's just unprofessional in my opinion.”
“i've worked in roles where my subordinates made more than me, and that's just how it is sometimes.”
“since your salary was already corrected – well, no, that's not the right word for it, but since it was already raised…”
“did you ever sign anything that would suggest you would get a raise if a junior on your team was making more than you? no?”
“she agreed to her wage and you agreed to yours. i know, free speech and all that, you can discuss it together, but it is pretty unprofessional.”
(tell me, dear reader: do you think he thinks i'm unprofessional?)
the dressing down was horrifying, but mostly, i felt patronized and like i was just being treated disrespectfully. i tried to get off the call as quickly as possible because it was obvious they had no intention of listening to my request, they had just wanted to ham-fistedly put me in my place. i repeatedly stated that i wished we'd had the conversation a year ago, because my demand would have been the same, and i wouldn't have lost out on a few thousand dollars. could have looked for other work, too.
i'm just so disappointed in this company. catch me never going the extra mile again, talk about disincentivizing someone…