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The original was posted on /r/antiwork by /u/Sagittariusly on 2023-08-11 18:07:18.
I have been with this company for almost a year. I recently talked to four separate people and found out they are all making on average $2,000 more a month than I am. Several are even working from home which means they make less than those in office. I would say we all do the same amount of work, if not me doing more, and they have all individually came to me for help at several different points during our employment.
My pay is not bad, it’s better than previous jobs I have had, but the fact remains if I had been paid the same amount as everyone else I would have an extra $20,000 to lean on right now. They are all talking about buying houses and how they have a years worth of expenses saved up when I am often scraping by each month with the high cost of living.
I reached out to my manager about these disparities, and also the possibility of working from home as many others are, and was essentially told he does not handle this but would try to get the contact information for who I need to speak to. He also more or less said that he would not expect there to be any change. It is contractual work, so I feel like I have less room to stand on, but they have been known to edit contracts when needed, such as when someone transitions to working from home since it comes with a pay cut.
I am not exaggerating when I say my department cannot run without me. We do specialized work for the company and our team consists of me, one coworker, and a manager. I had took two days off this week and when I came back there was work stacked up from my not being there.
I thought because if my value that it would be a no brainer to at least pay me what people doing the exact same work as me are getting paid, but my manager spouted off with something about the way the pay rate is decided depending on the office and how you were brought on. I know logically that makes sense, but I feel it’s also logical to pay people with the same experience level and doing the same work the same amount.
I have begun to look elsewhere with the help of connections I have made at this job, but I’m not sure what else to do. I enjoy the place I work and the work I do but I do not know if I can continue on knowing how large of a pay gap there is between me and people I regularly help. To my understanding, contracts are typically renegotiated when changing between sub-contracted companies and work times, so to speak, and that may be happening soon as the work is slowing down on the contact we are currently on. But I don’t know if I am willing to wait until then or if it would even matter because if they are not willing to discuss my pay now, would they even be willing to do it then?
I guess I am mostly ranting but if anyone has any insight about negotiating on pay or what they might do in this situation I would appreciate it.