Today is a special day.
Two weeks ago my coworker put in his two weeks notice which would leave our already busy team down to two busier people after Fri this week. Little did anyone know, but I too received an offer that same time and was trying to figure out the details for childcare etc before I left for it. This left me in a prime strategic place.
I learned that the guy leaving was making 15k less than me so I got a little mad. We had a running “joke” that he wasn't moving out of his apartment because everything was too expensive. Assuming he made close to what I did, I assumed he was just dragging his feet. Nope, my company preyed on this fresh out of college bachelor. Still, this dude worked hard and made a lot of our workload easier by automating processes and such. He was an amazing guy to work with.
The other guy on the team is not great. We would have to cover for him a lot and he always looked super depressed on our team calls. Never saying anything, no smiling etc. I never really liked him to be honest. But I can understand that he is probably feeling shitty because the job is monotonous and boring and he may likely be earning around that same amount that dude made, but he has two kids.
Being the absolute dick I am, I called management to a meeting to discuss my wages. I informed them that I got an offer, but also told them they were “like family” and I didnt want to leave them without giving them a chance to counter the offer. I specified that I needed to make the 9k more a year for me to consider it, and pointed out that if i accept the offer they would be hobbled for months until new hires were trained to take over. Im assuming they will lowball. Either way Im not accepting. im going to get whatever they offer in writing and them I'm forwarding it to my last coworker to help him negotiate a raise.
But more about today.. in about 1 min I have the meeting to dicuss terms…
I will update right after this call.
Update 1: Had a quick discussion with my team's manager, who I want you to know is an absolute angel. Whole team is really great, but i digress… She told me she knew what I was going to say when she received the determination from the higher ups. They refused to negotiate ANY wage increases. I found it strange at first that they didn't even make a shitty offer since the CEO's town hall said it lost 6% revenue, but also drop 33% in operational costs… I assume wages are part of that cost and a 10% across the board wage increase would have been pretty negligible in the grand scheme. But alas, corporate wants to fuck around, so now they can find out.
I call my remaining teammate who is going to be alone and underpaid, and he is hitting 51k. I was honestly surprised it wasn't lower. Still, he will be doing the workload of 3 overworked people, and given the fact that corporate isnt entertaining raises I sent him a recruiter's email that was asking for my interest on 7 different jobs in this field, all paying at least 20k+ more than what he has now. I also told him exactly where I found my new place's post and suggested he send in a bunch of applications and see where they fall in addition to how he should negotiate a raise for a wage closer to what I made.
I'm sending in my resignation letter today and Ill be gone in two weeks. Best part about it is I have jury duty next week and wont be in. They can see how much harder it is with just one person and then I can relish the chaos on my last days.
Im not going to be a rich man, but I told my wife a few years ago when I was just skirting 50k that I was going to make a lot more and buy her a house. I closed on our house last Nov and now I be making enough to pay all our debt down and have this house paid off in half the time. I have become a success story in my own eyes and I worked really hard through many years to get where I am despite never obtaining a degree. I'm finally truly proud of myself after almost 18 years. To be completely frank, I owe most of this newfound confidence to this sub and r/workreform. We don't have to sit here and hope these companies will do anything right. We need to stand up and make demands and say enough is enough. We can have each others backs even without a union (still, lets make unions) and make our demands met so we can each have better lives. You all are more valuable that what you have been knowingly taught and you should be getting more than they offer.
They need you more than you need them. Make your voice heard. Don't settle. You are more powerful than you even know.