I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that people talk about salary. It's said a bunch in this subreddit and I want to toss my story into the pile.
First, a little background: I work in construction in a support role. The company I worked for put a lot of effort into messaging that their people are their most important asset, and it seemed to be the case. I was brought in completely green and they paid for classes to train me, paid for me to sit for certifications, had a really good benefits package, etc. As such, I was pretty well bought in.
But year over year I noticed that the raises I was given were pretty lacking, which at first made sense since I was inexperienced, but soon became a pretty major disappointment. I was eventually certified in two separate roles, and could cover HR responsibilities as well. Yet, at the end I calculated that due to inflation, I made only $4,000 worth of salary more than when I started 4 years previously.
So cut to this year, the project I was on wrapped up and I was sent to help the manager of my secondary department get caught up since, surprise surprise, she was the only person other than me performing her duties for all of the projects. Think a regional manager with no project level managers or staff. She talked a lot about how little support she was given from upper management and how despite her dept having several people a couple years previous, she wasn't paid nearly what her former manager was when she took over as the sole employee.
This is the case with all support departments, everyone is spread super thin and expected to just get through it. Dictionary definition of the “this is fine” meme. And of course the region is highly profitable and they say as much at annual meetings.
Anyways, having spent a lot of time on this subreddit I decided to ask her point blank what she made and we found out that despite her being higher up the ladder than I, I was paid more than her. It was pretty jaw dropping for both of us because she was worth a team of people and I already knew that I was grossly underpaid (probably more than 20% before I took on dual roles).
This triggered her to look for a job elsewhere and within a couple months she secured an offer for over 35% more, doing the same work but within an established team. Because of her success I did the same, and within a month of her leaving I secured a job that was work from home and paid 30% more. It wasn't even hard, one well chosen opening, one application, and a series of interviews.
TL;DR talk about salary. If you suspect you're underpaid look elsewhere to find out