Hi Everyone,
Here's something I would like to share that I wish someone taught me years ago. I worked as an IT guy for a big company here in the UK. I mainly managed school systems and within 6 months I was making incredible progress. I would be getting praise and recognition from the schools and both my managers would tell me I am doing great. Fast forward 1 year later, I got a raise and realised it wasn't a raise specifically for me, but a company wide raise that they do all year round. It was 2% raise… I was so frustrated and thought this must be a joke. I was working a term time contract which meant I only worked school days which had it's perks but the salary was absolutely bad. It was around 14.5K GBP. Did I mention, I have a degree in IT systems. I could have literally worked in a retail shop part time and earn the amount for the year working less days and not working 37.5 hours a week. To top it all off, I gave my notice period in, got multiple calls saying you were progressing so fast you could have gone far and I was like you're all stupid thinking that. I spoke with one guy who was working there since 2010 and his salary has only gone up from approx 25k to 30k in 10 years!
Anyways, I handed my notice period in, had some of my colleagues follow me into it and we ended up screwing the “team” over in our area. I wish I saved that email to show you all. When I handed my notice period in suddenly full time positions opened up and my manager wanted to go the extra mile of putting this forth to his manager above his manager. They offered it to me but I declined (so glad I did).
Fast forward 1 year later since I left, I have 1 friend who is still there and tells me the entire team is a shit show and they are struggling to find someone to replace the 3 of us who left and there is only 3 left in the team incl the manager. His planning to leave if they don't offer him a full time contract by the end of year. He was promised it after I left and it has been almost been 1 year since then. I had this idea of feeling bad if I left.
Know your worth. Move on and don't care about the managers hard life to manage after you have left. Remember, praises and recognition don't pay the bills and if you were living on the streets because your job didn't pay you well, you own manager would not let you stay with them in their house.