Set the background and tone. So I work for a recreation agency for the county. It is it's own entity that receives county funds. I originally came on as desktop support and loved the job. The network was outdated, the users were spoiled. But it was manageable once I came on with the agency bringing the IT team to 3.
Before my Boss and I came on they never had, in agency words “real IT”. Literally, Community Relations ran the IT department with a “computer guy” that was pulled from maintenance. In his defense he was actually decent at A+ knowledge. The problem was they had him titled as a Sysadmin.
Ok… skip forward 4 months after my hire. The Sysadmin is made that he was passed up when the new CSO is onboarded 1 year before me coming on. So he decides to resign. During this whole time HR and Admin has put a target on my boss's head. 1 month later they let him go with a 2 day notice for me to incognito rip rights and permissions and basically do a hostile network takeover from under him. The two day mark arrives and they escort him out like a criminal. Totally uncalled for.
So I dig. Come to find out my boss made a complaint about a racial incident dealing with a joke continuously be made towards him. The defender was close to the Executive director. The next few weeks I was constantly called into HR and have to defend him against crazy accusations that supposedly they felt I would have knowledge on.
Didnt help the poor guy or me. So here I am. Day one with no IT staff after telling HR, I'm desktop support 45k and dont want this much workload while they tell me the CSO has to go. 6 tough months pass… no help.
I have begged my executives and HR to bring someone on. I am literally drowning at this point. They offer 6k more and try to sell it with my 1% raise that I'm already entitled to. Now I'm a JR Sysadmin running an entire IT department. Bumping me to 52k.
2 months pass and nothing. I turn in my resignation. Jokingly, saying did you ever put up that desktop support position up? Answer: still working on it. So I say let's list my position instead. I give a month notice due to my responsibilities and wanting my AVL. HR is like.. ok bye. I smile and leave. These guys hold grudges.
The next day I'm called in and basically told that HR reacted that way due to the way I approached them. Basically taken personal. I my approach wasnt correct but not out of the way office action. I was literally coming unhinged due to the sheer workload. Salary for 40hrs where I was having to put around 75 hrs a week. Of course they are saying dont do that.
I literally handle everything IT for 300+ users, 32 locations, with 600+ end points, 50 core systems.
I do end-user support, ticketing, IT budgets, hardware, Sysadmin, network admin. Etc. This is literally enough to keep 3 roles busy. They promise to hire above me and not change title or pay for myself in writing. So I stick it.
Hit one year. Multi quarterly awards and employee of the year. Blahs blahs we appreciate you yadayada.
Finally get the new guy and they decline my AVL for a week due to the new IT manager not being able to handle the role I have done for a year by myself. Like… wtf? Kicker.. I also have been training him and he makes 15k more than me. A recreation superintendent makes 90k to do nothing at this place. Executives make 100k to read books while the receptionist does her job.
Is this even legal? 🤷️