Hey Everyone,
I am new to this sub and I come to you with a dilemma of my own. I work for a corporate software company in the UK. This company is of a global scale, and my role is basically application support, doing the setups and configurations of the software for our customers. My team is just account managers, including my actual manager of the team.
A few months ago, the lady who normally does the month end billing (5 days worth of work each month end) announced she will be going on maternity leave. Her job is to sort out month end billing, process purchase orders for software licenses, chase debt (they hired someone else part time for this) and making sure all our customers get billed correctly. I get pulled into a meeting on “Billing Transition”, as my manager tells me I will be taking over the billing. I was not asked to, I was told to. I am very easygoing, so I just went with it. She had 2 months before going on leave, which meant 2 billing cycles to learn all this shit, and blimey it was a LOT.
Anyway, she has now gone on leave, and I managed to do the billing month end all on my own. I had also caught out a lot of mistakes, such as the fact that we had 40 customers we have been underbilling for our software licenses, which equates to roughly £40,000 a year worth of revenue. I also caught out an invoice that she had claimed to have been paid, but was not, worth £5,800. I also taken over her switchboard for the phones too, have to deal with billing queries throughout the month, and processing purchase orders, all on top of my actual job. Feeling proud of myself, I spoke to some colleagues who had been there longer than i have (My time there is coming up to 1 year) about asking for a raise to see if they thought it was a reasonable ask. They all agree I should because the billing is not my job.
So I have my one-to-one, and I asked for a raise due to the extra responsibilities of billing, and my manager said no, along with bullshit excuses of how it's technically my job as it's ad-hoc work (even though the lady is in a different department, has a different boss and basically Accounting), and how our team all wear different hats at times, and even mentioned that my starting salary when they hired me is on a higher banding. I felt like he didn't even want to hear me out, as I worked out just the extra 5 days a month alone is worth an extra £9,000 a year which I'd have been happy with. I am on £39,000 currently. That's not even mentioning the sheer amount of money I am saving them for catching the underbilling customers. I am the only one who knows the billing process now that the lady has left, so they are royally fucked without me, plus the debt side part timer already quit after a month cause it was a bloody mess apparently.
Needless to say, I was not happy about it, but I also didn't contest it. I am looking for a new job, and plan to resign at the end of this month, but I believe my boss hasn't any idea because I don't complain and just go with the flow. I am honestly happy to do the billing, but only if they pay me significantly more, and at this point it'd have to be a £16,000 bump to £55,000. Given how he didn't want to hear me out, I doubt I can get that.
My question is, what should I do? Should I pretend I have a job offer for £55,000 and see if they match? Or just quit with my pride intact, and if so, what reason should I give? I want to be able to get a reference still for future jobs if possible. I feel very exploited at the company, which sucks cause I like the office space, and the perks.
Thanks Everyone!