Last year I was making good money as an individual contributor at a staffing firm. Our commission plan is vague at best, but it appeared that anything I had booked would be mine to be paid out for for the duration of the contract.
I was offered a promotion to a leadership role in September of last year. The on target earnings would have had me taking a $60,000 pay drop for the year. I was not going to be paid out for any of the bookings I had done. It would all be transferred out to those who would become my subordinates. So I was sacrificing $60,000 in 2022 for the title had I accepted.
I declined the position. Leadership couldn’t understand why I wasn’t open to taking such a huge hit to my pay. I had just bought a house, gotten married, and was pregnant.
Eight months later they adjusted the pay structure for individual contributors. I am now making half of what I was making last year. My opportunity has been split in half. We’re capped when we weren’t capped prior and have very very little control over our actual commissions anymore.
I have some pretty serious regrets about not accepting the promotion since that position would now have me making more than I’m making now (but still less than I made last year).
Someone on my team this week told me I should just be grateful I have a job. I should be grateful my company pays more than our competitors. I should just accept that the adjustment is better than what other companies have done.
I hate it here.