Around 6 months ago I started working in a data role for a small business (atleast in terms of employees, 11 employees at over £60mn revenue). Its mainly only myself and my boomer boss who work in the office full time, everyone else is fully remote/on the road visiting clients and come in maybe once every month. Now, since I started, I’ve been given glowing performance comments and told I was doing an excellent job. Despite this, I was hired on a very poor wage (37.5h a week at £20,000 yearly) which without a company-wide revenue target based bonus’ would be below minimum wage and therefore illegal. The potential bonus at the end of the year pushes it just above minimum wage so afaik here this isn’t technically illegal so long as the bonus is paid. But you know, I’ve been trying to work hard, learn as much as possible and provide value. I was fully willing to be dedicated and work beyond my contracted hours to show this to them, and I routinely worked more than my official hours. I came into the data role with no experience and “really hit the ground running” according to my boss’s boss which was rather unexpected to them as my CV had no data analysis experience.
I could see from the outset that they didn’t handle or manage data well generally and there was lots of immediate improvements I made. I created a few formula’s/queries within excel to automate tasks that have sped these tasks up 10x.Due to my low experience when I excitedly told my boss this, she scoffed in derision and didn’t take me seriously. She also reminded me that in my ‘humble’ opinion it was better but that’s it. The actual objective truth/reality didn’t seem to really matter to her, whatever, I still took/take pride in it. I should say too that the MD is pretty cool, laid back & constantly says that he wants employees to push and then if needed the company will push back and both sides need to take that on board. I do respect that & him for his approach and he is the only reason I’ve not left already.
Now before I was hired, they have been looking to hire multiple new employees for the last 12 months & had 3 open roles they were looking to fill, all closely linked. As they have only managed to hire me (anyone else they interviewed wasn’t good enough in interview apparently – likely because they were only offering minimum wage) I’ve been doing both my own job & a lot of the responsibilities of the other 2 roles. So, I’ve been doing the work of multiple jobs for the barely legal pay of one.
My boss has also demanded I commute to the office 5 days a week which is a 1h20 commute each way for a job that can absolutely be done remotely. In fact, almost every job listing I’ve seen for this role elsewhere advertises it as remote. Despite this she has not given any reason why I cannot work remotely (this has come up in several conversations now).
Fast forward to one month ago, they finally manage to hire another worker, a part time mum who runs her own bakery business as a side job to make enough to survive. My colleague immediately raises the low wage as an issue but like me was somewhat desperate in taking the job.
This is all the context with which I come to you antiwork to vent because I’m now being punished.
In both my 1-1’s and my new colleagues 1-1 we discussed the low wage as an issue and I also raised my concern that I was taking on a lot of different responsibilities outside my job role & so wanted compensation or a direct salary raise to reflect this. My boomer boss clearly wasn’t happy, won’t validate my issue, so I kept raising it & repeating it & she refused to acknowledge it. Progression & training is discussed, and I made sure to get exactly what progression will be offered in my development plan. The salary convo gets shelved and my boss says specifically that we will discuss this again at my probation review in 3 weeks. Fine.
So the meeting ends and my boss contacts the MD to relay back how the 1-1’s with us went and they clearly discuss salaries etc. She comes back into the office visibly annoyed & upset after this call so I surmised he essentially told her to offer us more money & overruled my boss who would’ve been happy paying us the same crap wage. So the next day we have a supplier meeting in their office and my focus is there where out of the blue the MD and my boss pull first my colleague then myself into another room to offer us a pay increase. (Now at this point I did not have any arguments ready to justify a certain salary I only had ideas of what the job market was offering for my role.. I was told this would be discussed in 3 weeks, not the next day.) So I was pretty blindsided. They sat me down and offered me 1k extra a year going up 2k more at the end of the year. Which with the bonus was more in line with a fair wage, but I still felt like it was lower than what I was worth and I said as much. As well as the commute and inflexibility of remote work, I also pointed out AGAIN.. that I’d been doing basically 2 jobs for the pay of 1. Boomer boss did not like this. She was angry I’d not accepted and the meeting ended with me expressing that this offer was lower than what I had in mind and that we’d all take some time to think etc.
Well after taking some time to think, some advice from my support network & seeing that they had sent a contract to me to sign with their original offer, I went back to the MD to accept, on condition that we would build some WFH flexibility in. This was the first ever salary negotiation I’ve ever done and I was blindsided by the meeting that day, having had the expectation I’d have 3 weeks to prepare any arguments. After this, my boomer boss was off for a long weekend & I started my 1 day of remote work 4 days in the office routine the next week. Well ever since, my boss has barely spoken a word to me (bear in mind its just the two of us in the office and its now an awkward and uncomfortable environment) so I went to speak to her to try and resolve things.
Her first response “nothing is wrong I’m just busy that’s all”. So I try again the next morning. Bad move. She told me she was pissed off with me for my ungrateful response to their positive action around wage. She then said essentially that on paper my CV was weak and I was lucky they had taken a chance on me/that I was paid what I am being paid. Again I raise the issue of multiple job responsibilities which she dismissed. She then told me I left a bad taste in her mouth in my response to their wage increase & when I raised that she told me we wouldn’t discuss for 3 weeks she snapped back that “I’d clearly given it some thought”. Whatever. I apologised just to try and move on but ever since shes been giving me the silent treatment & has moved herself to one of the two separated rooms in the office. The office is now awkward, and I feel uncomfortable here. I’m debating now going straight for full time remote with the MD which is probably going to get veto’d by my boss. The only long term solution I see is to move jobs but I at least want to stick it out for the EOY bonus.
TLDR: I pushed for a higher raise at salary negotiations & am now being given the silent treatment in the office.