So six months ago I began working for an air taxi service in Alaska, USA. I’d been out of work for three months at that point, and was just happy to have a job again. The owners flew me out to their home base, I went through all the paperwork and training, and then BOOM, starting working crazy hours (height of tourist season in Alaska). I genuinely enjoy the job, but one thing that always rubbed me the wrong way was there was no mention of pay amount (at the time I was hired I honestly didn’t care, you do what you got to do to avoid starving and becoming homeless), I just started getting my paychecks and could see the pay amount. It wasn’t terrible pay, but it bothered me that I hadn’t gotten to give any input on it.
Fast forward to today. I received an email out of the blue from my boss, basically saying “hey rednedivad10, I just realized we never discussed your pay rate when we hired you, and for that I’m deeply sorry. I’m sure you know your pay rate is $x/hr, but I really do not like that you never got to have a say in this or any chance at pay negotiation. Please take time to think about this if necessary but I would like you to give feedback on your pay and since you did not get to have the conversation prior, please consider us still being in the negotiation phase, with your current pay as the absolute minimum. “
There’s no law requiring negotiation or any legit reason why she’d be doing this as any sort CYA move – she did it simply because it hadn’t happened and she felt like her company had done me dirty. The pay I get isn’t even bad, it’s the average pay for someone in my position and more than enough to live off of.
All this to say, for those of you starting to feel like there’s no hope and every business sucks – there are jobs out there that will treat you right. Don’t lose hope. Obviously a lot of work reform needs to happen, but there are good people still out there who want to treat their employees right. 🙂
TLDR: I never got to negotiate pay for my current employment, and my boss out of the blue emailed me apologizing and asking me to have a conversation with her to negotiate better pay if I felt it necessary.