Tldr; one of standby managers “accidentally” got extra promotion for two periods he worked as manager, company decided to pay out bonus for only those months to the rest of standby's, while we worked way more.
Hey, wanted to ask for alternative ways of solving my problem.
I'm working in logistics, I'm a junior team leader (more like an area leader) in a warehouse supporting food chain. My job is to manage people and about 1/5 of the processes. For about three years now I'm sometimes acting as a senior team leader (TL) which is in essence being responsible for everything.
Because it's a gray area, we don't get any bonus for doing senior TL job – only random small bonuses, e.g. 20% of one month salary for acting up over 400 hours in Q1&Q2 2022. Oh, other bonus we get is experience 😉
Now where it gets interesting, this year new standby TL joined our forces, and he outsmarted the system by finding an option to apply a bonus of 25% to every hour he worked as a senior TL. We have been clearly instructed to not use this option, while upper echelons will find out solution to solve our bonus problem once and for all (it was said 4months ago and we still don't know what it's going to be). This new guy didn't care much about it and still requested a bonus in the system, which was “accidentally” accepted. I made a point that it's not fair and my manager assured us that this is a mistake and his bonus will be deducted/removed.
About a month later I get to know that this incident happened again, he worked as senior TL, requested his bonus and got it accepted. After checking here and there I found out that his previous one wasn't removed nor deducted, and even this one was paid. I went to my manager again, and he said that this time it was ALSO AN ACCIDENT and they're going to fix it for good. Two days later we got an email that “because of an accident one standby TL got a bonus for months X and Y, the rest of us can also request the bonus for these months.
Now, my point is, this guy worked for two months only and got bonus for them (he is not working with us anymore) while we did shit to of job for months (some of us years) without anything (or almost anything). I feel like someone spit in my face after this.
Notes:
– it's in Netherlands
– I'm in the company for about 3 years
– I don't want to change my job for now (already moving internally in September – going to different warehouse with the same management)
– rumors say that the guy who accidentally got a bonus is a friend of my manager
– I could quit backing up TL, which I will in new warehouse
– but i fear stopping it now to lose what I can lose (or to be targeted by others for backing off)
How to proceed, what are my options? Am I the ass hole for wanting more? Is seeking fairness a dream in a corporate world?