At the end of 2021 I was planning on moving out of state after living in Los Angeles/Southern California for 20 years since I was 8. I was in the process of being laid off from my previous role, and was thinking about the next steps.
As I was finalizing my plans to move, I was contacted by one of my old coworkers at a huge multi-media conglomerate that one of our print vendors I had worked with pre-pandemic was looking for an account manager.
This is a huge print vendor, known nationwide and has international offices, and I guarantee you that as long as you're not a hermit, you've seen stuff we've done in your mail, at the store, at Trade Shows, Comic Con, Las Vegas, you name it.
I told them a salary that would keep me in California and allow me to keep up with the cost of living, and they agreed on the spot, so I moved to the Orange County area and started working for them. Even this salary had a small margin of error, but it was enough to get a cheap apartment and save some money plus I needed a job and figured I could count on a bonus or raise at the end of the year.
One of the reasons I was recommended for this role was my aptitude with technology and software and integrating it within my workflow to automate certain tasks and improve processes. At this huge client this meant upgrading the way they track their printed graphics to be proactive to potential issues instead of reactive.
As an Account Manager I was able to integrate some experimental software to aid in project automation, as well as doing all pre-press for my clients myself due to my experience in pre-press and design. The amount of work I put through helped us surpass last year's sales and production numbers and several clients said they were glad we were finally able to start taking on more work for them.
In in around November of 2022, I was told of a reorganization and that my position would be changing come January 2023. I would be in a more focused and specialized role as opposed to an Account Manager and would be working with internal clients as opposed to external clients. This position used very valuable software skills, coding skills, API understanding, and various automation workflows. I would also be tripping the amount of work I was doing. I gladly accepted, I felt this was a good progression of my role and I enjoyed what I did.
The Friday before my official transfer, I was told that the new position would be hourly, and based on an 8 hour day the salary was $20k less than my previous role. When I tried negotiating they basically said “Nobody else in the pre-press department makes that much, and it wouldn't be fair to them if we paid you that much. Either you take this or you're let go.” They wouldn't even let me stay an account manager.
I could not believe that these people I worked with and respected would do this to me. The VP of the company who I'd told that I was moving here because of their Salary sat there with a smug face as this was happening. They told me that I could try to make it up in overtime, so I did the math and that's over 2 hours a day of overtime no missing to barely reach my previous salary.
Since the transfer, my new boss has been awful. He's never around, doesn't make it to the daily meetings we have to update progress and realign goals, and will get upset for not getting something done that he never told me needed to get done in the first place.
Since I moved here based on the previous salary and took out an auto loan based on the previous salary on a new car after getting into an accident, this pay reduction has put me squarely in the red. I have lost around $5k+ of savings so far this year just keeping afloat on the bare minimum, and my mental health has taken a nosedive.
In addition despite having a dirt cheap(for the area) 1br/1ba apartment, as it stands now if I were to need to move or get evicted for any reason, I would be unable to meet the salary/pay requirements to rent another apartment in this area. If I lose my apartment for any reason I'd basically be living out of my car.
Yes, I've brushed off my resume and put feelers out, but it's tough out here so far, especially when looking for work out of state. Seems that the expectation is that you need to get a job before you move to an area, but you need to move to an area before you can get a job there.