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NOTE: I know some of you will TL;DR and tell me to leave the job. I am applying for other jobs, however my extenuating health situation makes that difficult. It also makes it difficult to seek out a second job due to long-term side effects of cancer. I am really looking for advice in how to manipulate the politics of my current situation.
At my review last May, I was promised a raise and a promotion due to my exemplary performance, my increased (and unique for my office) technical skills, and the length of time I have been working. I was told it would not happen until the end of the summer. The end of the summer became "HR has the paperwork". That became at the first of the year. When I last spoke with my boss, it was March.
I was hired to be essentially a glorified secretary for my first job out of college and am still paid the same (or less in the case of those who have been working longer) as the people whose only job is to answer phones, set appointments, and make travel plans. Meanwhile, my job includes being the social media manager, in charge of marketing strategy for a quarter of our clients, screening interviews for new hires, writing web and print copy, making editorial decisions, interviewing people to write stories for our magazine, troubleshooting/help desk, have created analytics tracking for our big event as well as our email blasts and social media, and basic web design and maintenance. I work at a university and so I have been able to take classes that help me be more productive - even going so far as to either take classes or study several programming languages on my own because my promotion is supposed to be a more technical role. We are down several staff members and are understaffed in our tech department, so I have picked up a whole lot of other peoples' roles.
And because of the end of the Bush tax cuts and a few other factors, I will be taking home $80 less a month in the new year than I did when I started working 2 1/2 years ago expecting half of the workload and responsibility I have now. That might not sound like much, but I only make $36K in Boston and am already barely able to afford to eat or go to the doctor.
Now, I know what you're all thinking - don't like it, find another job. Unfortunately, I am only a little more than a year out of cancer treatment and am at a high risk for relapse which would require around 6 months out of work for the next round of treatment. My current job offers flexibility to work from home if needed (which would be possible if I relapsed), the protection of FMLA, and the relative security of working in higher ed. If I leave now, I would be ineligible for FMLA for at least a year. I was diagnosed with Stage IV lymphoma 4 months into my first job, so what little savings I had were completely zapped. I am absolutely buried under my debt from having cancer and increased expenses (now need a car and that's a huge chunk of my budget, ongoing medical bills, etc). I have no safety net - no family who can help, no savings, currently living little more than paycheck to paycheck trying to chip away at credit card debt and keep on top of continually mounting medical bills from follow ups. I have some major dental work that I need done as a result of chemo's effect on my mouth, but I have been putting it off until I got the raise. There's no way I can afford that now.
Now, I AM applying for other jobs, but would need the assurance that I would not lose my job if I was to relapse. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to be a possibility at my level. And I would love to move out of Boston to somewhere with a lower COL, but the best doctors in the world are here and I have already cut out everything that is unnecessary in my budget. I have no way of saving up money for the move or even to travel to interviews (and again, at my level, it would be unlikely to find someone to fly me in or pay for relocation).
Any advice on how to try to push this raise? I believe the hold up is above my supervisor's head, but I also know that she has a lot on her plate and advocating for my raise is about the last thing on her mind. She has the courtesy of not allowing me to take on the new project that I am being promoted to take over until I get more money, and there is a deadline coming up that can't be missed so I will absolutely need to start. On the other hand, I needed to start to learn the software for the new project a month ago and should be starting on the project NOW for the March deadline. It doesn't seem to be pressuring anyone to give me my raise.
Should I tell my boss that I am looking for other work? We are down several staff members with a few new people on board with double the workload that we had this time last year - if I left, there is no way to stretch the current staff to even hire my replacement, much less do what I do. Should I stop doing everything beyond my job description? We're not talking big money - the raise will be $6000, if I'm lucky, but that's enough to give me breathing room for now, pay off my credit card debt (all medical or incidental to the diagnosis), and allow me to build up my emergency fund.
I am feeling incredibly frustrated and depressed about the situation. Last week was my 25th birthday and I never expected to be struggling so much despite clearly doing a wonderful job and consciously increasing my skills. I wish the cancer spectre didn't hang over me like a cloud, but given my luck, the second I leave my job I will relapse. I need to be very careful about taking that risk and with no emergency fund, I just can't risk it right now. Help!
I made a similar transition from clerical work to technical work. Unfortunately, it's much harder to get a significant internal raise.
If you do want to push it, you need to back it up with a business case. I would create a business case and email it. The business case should be focused on profit, savings and risk. In those terms, the business case should answer : What did you accomplish in this job that someone else wouldn't have?
The business case is not only for your manager, but their boss and up the chain. Your boss will use the business case in their formal paperwork for their own boss. A good business case will require minimal change by your boss to include in the paperwork.
I started taking a weekly career skills class, about 5 years ago. The program lasted about 9 months. Generic career skills articles provided little help. With the class, it was helpful to have critique from successful career climbers. It helped me moved from a decade as shipping/file clerk, where I made only $11-12/hr. The lessons have helped me weather 2 layoffs in the recession. Now, I make over $80k. It's not too bad for 5 years after the class.
If I were you, I would take weekly job classes. I would look at taking more than 1 class. Do not limit yourself to only classes provided by the university career services dept. It's particularly helpful, if the volunteers have done well in their careers. I have met career ladder climbers at some free classes, including a few people at Fortune 500 companies. Their insight on my resume has been a blessing.
I hope you benefit as much as I have.
Last edited by move4ward; 01-03-2013 at 08:28 PM..
Thanks, move4ward! It's nice hearing from someone who made a similar shift. My goal is to make it into consultative sales of software products to universities and nonprofits, and so my shift now is with long term goals attached. I don't want to be the "tech" person, but at the moment I am the most technically inclined person outside of our 3 person tech team in an office of 50. It's really fortuitous that it happened that way - that's what bluffing your way through conversations with the web guy gets you!
Do you mind sharing what sorts of career skills classes you are talking about? When I referred to classes, I mean general classes offered by the university. I am 2 classes into a highly ranked MBA in nonprofit management, but I need to apply formally in order to take more classes. The GRE is required and is a bit too pricy right now if I'm not sure I will complete the full degree program (will take around 6 years of part time study to get the degree for free, and at $6000 a course it is unlikely that I would complete the degree if I left my current employer). I have also taken a graduate level XML course through our masters of software engineering program and am enrolled in computer science 101 next semester on recommendation of a professor I have worked with who is trying to convince me to enroll in the CS post-bach program (no GRE required, only 3 years of part-time study, and also free). I'm typically the only staff member in these classes - they're filled with run of the mill graduate or undergrads otherwise! These courses and the potential for more degrees on my resume for free are a huge draw to the industry. Higher ed is notoriously underpaid, but if I can get a free degree from a highly ranked university then it's worth it. Just not at the pay I am at now for the work I do.
Our HR does not offer many classes for career development. In fact, I was even approached to teach a workshop, but turned it down because I was not going to be compensated for the time it took to plan. Up the chain regularly asks me to train my fellow staff members on HTML, Excel, email blasts, etc. When it's my own department head, it's harder to say no. :P
At my review, I did write a business case. The promotion was already planned and discussed before this review, but the case just supported it. It does not appear to have worked.
You are more educated than me. I have no degrees. While I have seen XML files, I do not know how to make them. Your odds are higher than me, when I started the transition.
You can use google and meetup.com. Most of the classes will be held by charities or churches.
Search for:
"career skills" class cityname
"job hunting" class cityname
"resume review" cityname
Pick 3 free regular weekly classes, so you can compare quality. If they are all bad, then you can drop them and find new ones. Give it a few weeks. In my class, most people had new jobs within 3 months. They averaged a 40% raise. It's not bad for a bunch of 30-60 year olds with no degrees.
Don't tell ANYONE at your current job that you are looking at other jobs, or that you might consider looking elsewhere, etc. NEVER. Don't tell anyone at work. It will never helop you get a raise or promotion or treated better, even though you might think it will.
If you are looking elsewhere, you keep it to yourself until you give your formal notice (resignation.)
In your case, you probably need have a talk with your boss's boss. Give a mention about the promotion/raise that has been planned. Ask the procedure for you getting submitted for this promotion and ask when it will take place. Then be quiet and listen for the answer.
They should have a plan in place. Some companies there is an annual process for this.
Find out the details of when/how. Maybe your manager doesn't know how to push for it.
Just ask. Give no threats of halting other work. No threats or mention of leaving. Your goal is for the manager to know that you are ready to be promoted, that your manager has promised it and that you are already doing work above/beyond your duties.
Focus on the promotion. If it doesn't occur in a year, then you can start job hunting. In 1 year, Obamacare kicks in. This means if you lose your job in 1 year, you can still qualify for health insurance even with your preexisting condition. the 1 year FEMA rule would still disqualify you from keeping your new job IF your health caused you to need some time off. So save money between now and then if you decide to hop jobs in 12 months.
FYI...the Bush tax cuts have been made perm as of a few days ago if you make less then $400/k year and single. I assume your $80/mo reduction in pay is from the 2 percent payroll tax cut that was one-time, tempy only for 2012. This was not related to Bush tax cuts and was just for 1 year (2012) because of the recession. Now that it's 2013 you will pay that 2 percent into Social Security rather (like all other years) rather than get it on your paycheck. Regardless of the details, it's less take home money for you. More reason to focus on the promotion/raise. Be the good employee that you have been and focus on tooting your own horn and asking about the promo/raise.
I have nothing to say, except that I hope you don't relapse and stay healthy.
Have you been sick or taken off from your current job due to your illness? Has it been since the last performance review?
I wouldn't tell them you are looking for another job nor to beg for the raise. They KNOW about it. I hope they're not trying to let you go or make you quit because of your illness, so as to save on medical costs.
First off very sorry to hear about your health situation and at such a young age.
I agree with sware2cod, say NOTHING to your boss about looking for another job.
They would love for you to leave because of your cancer treatment. I wouldn't even mention to anyone(not even coworkers that you are friendly with) about any chance of relapses, as far as they go you have a clean bill of health from your doctors.
Can you speak with your doctors and advise them of your work situation? I know they don't have a crystal ball but maybe they can give you a time frame of when you're less likely to relapse and then start looking for work.
Insurance is very important to you right now as is the ability to be able to take a leave if another one is needed, you want to keep that in mind.
NOTE: I know some of you will TL;DR and tell me to leave the job. I am applying for other jobs, however my extenuating health situation makes that difficult. It also makes it difficult to seek out a second job due to long-term side effects of cancer. I am really looking for advice in how to manipulate the politics of my current situation.
At my review last May, I was promised a raise and a promotion due to my exemplary performance, my increased (and unique for my office) technical skills, and the length of time I have been working. I was told it would not happen until the end of the summer. The end of the summer became "HR has the paperwork". That became at the first of the year. When I last spoke with my boss, it was March.
I was hired to be essentially a glorified secretary for my first job out of college and am still paid the same (or less in the case of those who have been working longer) as the people whose only job is to answer phones, set appointments, and make travel plans. Meanwhile, my job includes being the social media manager, in charge of marketing strategy for a quarter of our clients, screening interviews for new hires, writing web and print copy, making editorial decisions, interviewing people to write stories for our magazine, troubleshooting/help desk, have created analytics tracking for our big event as well as our email blasts and social media, and basic web design and maintenance. I work at a university and so I have been able to take classes that help me be more productive - even going so far as to either take classes or study several programming languages on my own because my promotion is supposed to be a more technical role. We are down several staff members and are understaffed in our tech department, so I have picked up a whole lot of other peoples' roles.
And because of the end of the Bush tax cuts and a few other factors, I will be taking home $80 less a month in the new year than I did when I started working 2 1/2 years ago expecting half of the workload and responsibility I have now. That might not sound like much, but I only make $36K in Boston and am already barely able to afford to eat or go to the doctor.
Now, I know what you're all thinking - don't like it, find another job. Unfortunately, I am only a little more than a year out of cancer treatment and am at a high risk for relapse which would require around 6 months out of work for the next round of treatment. My current job offers flexibility to work from home if needed (which would be possible if I relapsed), the protection of FMLA, and the relative security of working in higher ed. If I leave now, I would be ineligible for FMLA for at least a year. I was diagnosed with Stage IV lymphoma 4 months into my first job, so what little savings I had were completely zapped. I am absolutely buried under my debt from having cancer and increased expenses (now need a car and that's a huge chunk of my budget, ongoing medical bills, etc). I have no safety net - no family who can help, no savings, currently living little more than paycheck to paycheck trying to chip away at credit card debt and keep on top of continually mounting medical bills from follow ups. I have some major dental work that I need done as a result of chemo's effect on my mouth, but I have been putting it off until I got the raise. There's no way I can afford that now.
Now, I AM applying for other jobs, but would need the assurance that I would not lose my job if I was to relapse. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to be a possibility at my level. And I would love to move out of Boston to somewhere with a lower COL, but the best doctors in the world are here and I have already cut out everything that is unnecessary in my budget. I have no way of saving up money for the move or even to travel to interviews (and again, at my level, it would be unlikely to find someone to fly me in or pay for relocation).
Any advice on how to try to push this raise? I believe the hold up is above my supervisor's head, but I also know that she has a lot on her plate and advocating for my raise is about the last thing on her mind. She has the courtesy of not allowing me to take on the new project that I am being promoted to take over until I get more money, and there is a deadline coming up that can't be missed so I will absolutely need to start. On the other hand, I needed to start to learn the software for the new project a month ago and should be starting on the project NOW for the March deadline. It doesn't seem to be pressuring anyone to give me my raise.
Should I tell my boss that I am looking for other work? We are down several staff members with a few new people on board with double the workload that we had this time last year - if I left, there is no way to stretch the current staff to even hire my replacement, much less do what I do. Should I stop doing everything beyond my job description? We're not talking big money - the raise will be $6000, if I'm lucky, but that's enough to give me breathing room for now, pay off my credit card debt (all medical or incidental to the diagnosis), and allow me to build up my emergency fund.
I am feeling incredibly frustrated and depressed about the situation. Last week was my 25th birthday and I never expected to be struggling so much despite clearly doing a wonderful job and consciously increasing my skills. I wish the cancer spectre didn't hang over me like a cloud, but given my luck, the second I leave my job I will relapse. I need to be very careful about taking that risk and with no emergency fund, I just can't risk it right now. Help!
I'm really so sorry about your health situation. I'm a little confused, though. Universities usually pay very little but they usually have fantastic benefits. Wasn't your healthcare covered by your insurance? I'm just concerned about you being buried in debt.
I think that you should stay where you are at least through your next round of treatment.
Thanks for all of the input! I should clarify a few things. I only mentioned my illness in the OP to make clear my very tenuous financial and medical situation. I began working in September of 2010 after graduating in May (and had previously been a student worker in the same department for a year). I went through the 2 week diagnosis process in late January/early Feb 2011, started chemo in March, and ended chemo in August of 2011. I was given a good review in June of 2011 (on the tails of working an 80 hour week for an event the week after chemo because things needed to be done) in the middle of treatments. The review where I was promised a raise was in May 2012.
During chemo, I had to take every other Friday "off" in order to go to my 5 hour infusions. There was wifi in the hospital so I brought my laptop to work with me and took part in conference calls using my phone or even Skyping into the conference room. Because I was so afraid of losing my job, I worked an average of 50 hours a week (and only paid for 35 of them - I'm an hourly worker). That's part of how I got so many responsibilities in the first place - if I could take on something that could be done remotely, I would. I didn't want any of my coworkers picking up my slack. I only missed a few Mondays because I was too weak to get out of bed, and there were many Mondays and Tuesdays after chemo where I had to crawl on my hands and knees up to my 3rd floor building because the stairs were too hard. I was a workhorse.
I work in a university with more than 900 faculty and staff on our insurance plan. My illness does not cut into my department's budget. In fact, my cancer is fairly inexpensive compared to some of the cancers my coworkers have faced both in my own department and others. 6 months of chemo is nothing compared to 2 rounds of breast cancer treatment, including a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. Given the number of people who have taken a full 3 months off in order to have a child or who have had to take time off to take care of sick children (my office seems to produce VERY sickly kids - my boss misses an average of one day a week due to her child), my planned day out of the office every other Friday is nothing. I scheduled appointments during lunch and even now with followup scans, I plan them well in advance and let me supervisors know when I will be unavailable. I've only taken one vacation (on a free cancer retreat for a week) in the 2 1/2 years I have been working - I have given no opportunities to cite my illness as a reason why I am not a productive employee.
Quote:
Originally Posted by move4ward
You are more educated than me. I have no degrees. While I have seen XML files, I do not know how to make them. Your odds are higher than me, when I started the transition.
You can use google and meetup.com. Most of the classes will be held by charities or churches.
Search for:
"career skills" class cityname
"job hunting" class cityname
"resume review" cityname
Pick 3 free regular weekly classes, so you can compare quality. If they are all bad, then you can drop them and find new ones. Give it a few weeks. In my class, most people had new jobs within 3 months. They averaged a 40% raise. It's not bad for a bunch of 30-60 year olds with no degrees.
I actually teach these sort of classes, so attending them is not particularly useful to me for just the reason you listed - they tend to be geared toward less educated 30-60 year olds, not super-career-focused 25 year olds. I am incredibly confident in my resume and job hunting skills, especially now that I have taken on more of an HR role of screening resumes. I also have access to all of our career services events because I am both an alum myself and I use the events as a way to feed content into our social media campaigns. I never send a resume or cover letter without having a group of people review the template first.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sware2cod
In your case, you probably need have a talk with your boss's boss. Give a mention about the promotion/raise that has been planned. Ask the procedure for you getting submitted for this promotion and ask when it will take place. Then be quiet and listen for the answer.
They should have a plan in place. Some companies there is an annual process for this.
Find out the details of when/how. Maybe your manager doesn't know how to push for it.
Just ask. Give no threats of halting other work. No threats or mention of leaving. Your goal is for the manager to know that you are ready to be promoted, that your manager has promised it and that you are already doing work above/beyond your duties.
Focus on the promotion. If it doesn't occur in a year, then you can start job hunting. In 1 year, Obamacare kicks in. This means if you lose your job in 1 year, you can still qualify for health insurance even with your preexisting condition. the 1 year FEMA rule would still disqualify you from keeping your new job IF your health caused you to need some time off. So save money between now and then if you decide to hop jobs in 12 months.
FYI...the Bush tax cuts have been made perm as of a few days ago if you make less then $400/k year and single. I assume your $80/mo reduction in pay is from the 2 percent payroll tax cut that was one-time, tempy only for 2012. This was not related to Bush tax cuts and was just for 1 year (2012) because of the recession. Now that it's 2013 you will pay that 2 percent into Social Security rather (like all other years) rather than get it on your paycheck. Regardless of the details, it's less take home money for you. More reason to focus on the promotion/raise. Be the good employee that you have been and focus on tooting your own horn and asking about the promo/raise.
My boss's boss is where the holdup is. He is aware of the promotion and aware of what I do (and generally the person directing me to do things far beyond my paygrade, like take 8 hours away from my own work to teach another staff member HTML because in the 6 months that she has known she needed to know it, she did nothing to learn on her own). It is INCREDIBLY inappropriate in my work environment to go above my boss's head to her boss (who is the head of the department - the one person above him has absolutely nothing to do with promotions and raises).
Part of my fear is that I have no way to save money. I am living barely above paycheck to paycheck and I need a lot of dental work done very soon as well as need to move in July because my roommates are moving out and my rent is drastically increasing. You can't squeeze blood from a rock and I have cut absolutely everything I can. Now I need to figure out where to come up with an extra $80 a month - I've applied for fast food and restaurant jobs, but nothing is panning out since my only availability is weekends. I've done a few freelance writing and computer/career skills teaching gigs, but they're few and far between.
Quote:
Originally Posted by seain dublin
Can you speak with your doctors and advise them of your work situation? I know they don't have a crystal ball but maybe they can give you a time frame of when you're less likely to relapse and then start looking for work.
My doctors are very aware - and in fact have an eye open for opening in one of the local hospitals to work in their fundraising or patient assistance departments. Up until 3 years out of treatment is a high risk for relapse. Overall, I have a 75% 5 year survival rate and about a 50-50 chance of relapsing in those 5 years. I'm only a year and 4 months out of treatment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NewJerseyMemories
I'm really so sorry about your health situation. I'm a little confused, though. Universities usually pay very little but they usually have fantastic benefits. Wasn't your healthcare covered by your insurance? I'm just concerned about you being buried in debt.
I think that you should stay where you are at least through your next round of treatment.
Even with insurance, there are tons of out of pocket expenses and incidental expenses. I do have excellent insurance, and I'm lucky, but I was paying over $400 in copays and a further $300 in medications during chemo. My insurance covered scans while going through treatment, but charges high copays for the 4 scans I need a year now that I am out of treatment.
And the biggest issue was having no support system. While others had friends and family to cook, clean, do laundry, give rides, etc... I was on my own. I moved the same week I was diagnosed to a place where I would need to take public transportation to work. That was nixed by my doctor (and even now, I have lung damage so I can't be outside for any extended period of time when the weather goes below 50 - which is basically October - April here in Boston) and I had to rely on a coworker for a ride. I was spending hundreds of dollars a month on taxis between work and my doctor's office or home and my doctor's office because the American Cancer Society kept falling through with rides. I also lived with a roommate who felt more put out by my illness than anything, so I had to hire a maid because he wouldn't do anything to keep the house safe for me. I also ordered grocery and food delivery and sent my clothes out to be laundered because I had no way of doing them on my own. That all adds up, especially when you are only a few months out of college with very little in savings. Thank goodness I had an almost-full tuition scholarship so I had no student loans to pay - but at the same time, I took most of my earnings in college to go straight toward living expenses so my savings were paltry compared to where they should have been.
Charities are quite overstretched and I generally was considered too high income to benefit from any financial help. My hospital did end up covering some of my taxi rides, but I ended up needing to get a car which has been my biggest expense. I planned to walk or use public transportation for a year or two until I could save up to pay cash - or at least mostly cash. A car is now absolutely necessary because of my lung damage, but also my biggest expense after rent and one that I had never planned to have.
If you think insurance, even good insurance, covers everything, then I wish you good luck in your continued health. My mother's entire $20,000 a year salary right now goes to my dad's medical expenses - and that's WITH insurance. That's a huge source of my anxiety as well - my parents can't serve as a safety net and I was actually sending them money to pay for the mortgage before I got sick.
Thanks for all of the input! I should clarify a few things. I only mentioned my illness in the OP to make clear my very tenuous financial and medical situation. I began working in September of 2010 after graduating in May (and had previously been a student worker in the same department for a year). I went through the 2 week diagnosis process in late January/early Feb 2011, started chemo in March, and ended chemo in August of 2011. I was given a good review in June of 2011 (on the tails of working an 80 hour week for an event the week after chemo because things needed to be done) in the middle of treatments. The review where I was promised a raise was in May 2012.
During chemo, I had to take every other Friday "off" in order to go to my 5 hour infusions. There was wifi in the hospital so I brought my laptop to work with me and took part in conference calls using my phone or even Skyping into the conference room. Because I was so afraid of losing my job, I worked an average of 50 hours a week (and only paid for 35 of them - I'm an hourly worker). That's part of how I got so many responsibilities in the first place - if I could take on something that could be done remotely, I would. I didn't want any of my coworkers picking up my slack. I only missed a few Mondays because I was too weak to get out of bed, and there were many Mondays and Tuesdays after chemo where I had to crawl on my hands and knees up to my 3rd floor building because the stairs were too hard. I was a workhorse.
The highlighted stood out to me the most. IF (and only "if") the university fires you, you need to recoup all this extra money for the hours you were NOT paid. The IRS is very, very strict about this sort of thing and so is the Labor Board.
Again, I really hope it's just a delayed hold up with the promotion and that all goes well for you.
I'm sorry, but I have a very strong distrust of employers these days.
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