The same happend to me in my job. The Dept. decided to cut down on labor costs so eniminated a position in our division. The exrta work came to me because I was so fast doing my regular job they figured I had the time. No pay raise. Then they told me that I would have to start helping my co-worker because she was so far behind in her work. No pay raise offered. Finally, they called me down to the main office and told me they were going to cut my pay by one third! (Unforseen business expenses, they said)
I walked out of there and never returned. The first time in my life I didn’t give two-weeks notice. :dubious:
Fuck’em.
Since I work for the government, I have to say yes, we are punished for a job well done. If I do more work, I get more work. There is no way to get more pay. There are occasional “awards” which I tend to win every year or so, with a nice certificate and a big $200 before tax. Woohoo!
I have worked 12 years in the same cube. I am still doing the job I was hired for (section secretary). When our data manager left, I got to become the data manager. Then our public involvement coordinator left and we had to re-allocate the position to hire an engineer. Guess who got to take on the public involvement duties? So now I am doing the work of three people and I’m still the lowest paid person in our section. I’m sure if I had admitted that I’ve passed the engineering aide tests, I would have had to pick up some of those duties as well.
Admittedly, I was over-qualified for my original position and personally have no problem completing all of my work (and still have time to Dope on occasion). But why were the people previoulsy doing the work I’ve taken on getting paid so much fucking money? Why haven’t I been re-allocated up to those pay levels?
Those are rhetorical questions. I know the reason. It’s because I allow them to take advantage of me. I don’t want to go find another job, because this one gives me the flexibility to deal with the various things I need to outside of work. I get through by remembering the intanglibles. It’s still annoying to be valued but underpaid. And if I go, I know they will have to hire three people to do what I did, because no one else is stupid enough to put themselves in my position.
This has happend everywhere I worked. I have a letter of recommendation noting that a previous employer had to hire 2 people to do the job I did part-time. Two other employers have tried to hire me back because they couldn’t get the same quality and quantity of work from my replacements. I have people who leave the section that I work in now come back and tell me how much they miss having someone they can depend on.
After typing this all up, I realize I really should be getting more money and I really should do something about it.
ETA: The slackers and losers are not fired where I work…they are just moved into positions where they can’t cause any trouble or permanent damage.
This reminds me of the time I used to work for a big delivery company that decided to switch its drivers over to a GPS computer navigation system. Unfortunately the system was not very intelligent – it was pretty much unaware of traffic patterns for instance, and it didn’t handle roadwork very well. The drivers hated it because most of them had been running their routes for years, so they knew all the little shortcuts and tricks to get from point A to B in as little time as possible. The new system ended up costing some drivers an extra hour or two a day.
So the drivers basically had two choices: follow the computer route and be content to waste time, or ignore the computer, do a good, job and get reprimanded for their effort. I’m still amazed at how stubbornly management defended this system, even though it was obviously crippling the company. I think they were addicted to all the little charts and graphs the system produced. As you can imagine, the company lost a lot of good, seasoned drivers. Of course this may have been the plan all along – driver turnover skyrocketed, which means they were able spend less on salaries and benefits. Yay!