I have a feeling this story is very common. Details are slightly changed for privacy
I'm a high performing worker. I kill departmental targets and I'm easily outperforming others in my team. To be clear, I do the bare minimum most of the time but when I deliver my output, it's of good quality. I get praises from upper management left and right. I take pride in my work and I enjoy it.
The thing is, I've been promoted 3x now in my 4 years of tenure and I am STILL broke as hell. Each promotion came with a 3-8% raise and I understand that this is big but inflation is easily 3-5% each year (but I feel like it's higher than reported in the media?? Am I crazy?)
I can't feel my success at all because I'm still struggling financially. I can barely save money and some days I'm still living off cup noodles to get through the month. I'm not a big spender at all but one accident and I will be financially bankrupt. It feels like I'm living a joke.
I was flattered at first with all the promotions but now I'm just angry. I'd rather forego all the promotions and just earn what I'm worth. I've communicated my desire for a better raise pretty much each year but it's always some bushit excuse about how raises are also based on company performance and they suffered a lot during pandemic (despite announcing record- breaking profit during the pandemic too).
They even had the audacity to tell me that I just need to work for 3 more promotions before I can achieve the salary I want. So in the meantime, they'll be giving me these tiny raises and more responsibilities to see if I “can handle it”.
Well, I'm looking for a new job now. I don't care about titles anymore. I don't care about being complimented about how great I am. I don't care about getting promoted. What I want is to get fucking paid right. This is why people job hop.
Am I crazy or are promotions really meaningless these days? And that raises aren't keeping up with inflation at all?