"IT Assistant"

[clhamon]

I am not for sure that my questions are 100% appropriate for this Lounge, but this is the closest that I have found. I apologies if it is not.

I am in a strange situation. About 6 months ago, I acquired a position in IT at a relatively small company. There employ a couple hundred employees over 3 countries. In this, the main location, they have had two IT people for a while. One was normally the manager and the other was like a technician. The manager moved to another job, and the technician took over the IT department. However, the company wanted to save money and made a lower job title to give him. Except for a couple small tasks, it is the same job.

I was hired to replace the technician. I have a Bachelor's Degree, and am perfectly capable of doing the job. Everyone was told that I was going to take that position. For the most part, me and my coworker were equals. The president of the company even referred to us as equals several times. I started with a probationary wage and was told that I would receive my actual pay after the 90 day probationary period. During that period, i was trained to do the same job as my co-worker. Then, Five months into the position, they finally gave me my 90 day review. They gave me a raise that was virtually nothing and lowered my title to "IT Assistant". They swore it was that way all along though.

The duties for these two positions haven't changed, but they are lesser job titles and less pay.

I expressed my feelings to the president of the company, and he actually compared me to "a person that mows lawn." Why would a company even offer that position to a person with a Bachelor's Degree in the field is mind boggling to me.

My question is, what can I do in this situation? I have done the work, but they aren't paying me what they promised. I am already looking for another position. I just want what is owed to me. Do I have a chance?

Thanks.

[Narue]

>I just want what is owed to me. Do I have a chance?
If you didn't get the terms of your employment in writing, you don't have a chance. Your best option is to quit a bad job gracefully and move on. Burn bridges or not at your discretion. Two potential options:

1. You could be a jerk and claim that they mislead you into a more junior position than advertised.
2. You can say that you misunderstood the final job description at the time of hire and feel overqualified for your current position.

[jwenting]

Why would a company even offer that position to a person with a Bachelor's Degree in the field is mind boggling to me.

inflation of job requirements is nothing new. And bachelor's are now for some reason required for the most mundane of jobs.
I've seen job openings call for masters that a few years ago called for bachelers...

[clhamon]

inflation of job requirements is nothing new. And bachelor's are now for some reason required for the most mundane of jobs.
I've seen job openings call for masters that a few years ago called for bachelers...

That's true, but they are saying that this job doesn't require any education in IT. They just lied there.

I have know basic positions to require a general bachelor's degree.. It has become more of a requirement to show that you are willing to learn. However, at this rate, I will never be able to pay back my college. That is how bad it is.

[jephthah]

go get another job, right now.

then (and only then) tell the president of the first one to stick his lawn mowing job right up his ass.

[clhamon]

go get another job, right now.

then (and only then) tell the president of the first one to stick his lawn mowing job right up his ass.

Yeah, I will enjoy that day. It will just not come soon enough. I just really wanted to take away what matters most to him. Oh well. Thanks.

[jephthah]

i don't want to advise you to do anything ethically or legally wrong....

but right before you leave, you could make things.... well, difficult.

[jwenting]

i don't want to advise you to do anything ethically or legally wrong....

but right before you leave, you could make things.... well, difficult.

Maybe they've shoved him into a deadend position because of him doing just that in his previous job?

[jephthah]

or maybe they're jerking him around and lowballing him because they're used to doing that with other non-degreed personnel. they probably figure if he gets pissed and leaves, they'll just get another flunky. he probably is overqualified for the job. he should get another one. but doesnt changet the fact that (if you believe his account) that they promised one thing and then reneged on their promise.

end result: get things in writing..

[clhamon]

Maybe they've shoved him into a deadend position because of him doing just that in his previous job?

Nope. This is my first job in IT. I have already undone the work that I was starting on with VLANs. If they aren't going to pay me for it, I am not going to do it.

What they did was because of them being greedy. It is a private company, and the owners want to sell it. They are looking at numbers, and the lower my pay is, it goes into their pocket double.

[technopolis]

Do you have a chance? You always have a chance. I recommend that you step back a bit and take a long term view. Jobs are not like cars. While it is true that you can dump one and obtain another, with jobs your overall "career" remains. Your reputation and track record remain, with others and with yourself.

Sometimes it's best to look at yourself as an independent contractor. Full-time employment is, after all, just another type of contract.

Forget for a moment that you have been lied to. Forget that you even work for this particular company. Think of yourself as a professional in your industry. When you are hired and given certain responsibilities - what is the result?

Picture your career as a time line from beginning to end. Not to the present but all the way to the end. Now picture a graph line of your performance over the entire time line. Your performance is your legacy. Do you want the line to spike up and down as a direct result of the quality of the people who were employing you? Do you want to give them that kind of power over your life and career?

A job is much more than simple pay. A job gives you a lot of benefits and opportunities. This is your first job in IT. You need experience and lots of it. The experience you need goes beyond simple technical knowledge. Time management, communication skills, prioritizing, documenting, these are but a few of the things you will need to make real progress in your career.

You need to learn what is the very best that you are currently capable of - and then what strategies you will need to improve on that. Don't let someone else slow the progress of your personal development. And don't wait for some mythical "great manager" to come along and speed your development. It probably won't ever happen.

Any job can be compared to a health club. Once you walk in the door you can either push hard and improve or sit back and waste your time. This is probably not the job you will have forever. Start working out now so you can be prepared for the next one. Do you want a "better" position? You will need better credentials. Challenge yourself. See how much you can get done in this restrictive environment. Become strong. Don't let a bad manager make you become weak. And the low paycheck, think of it as your membership fee.

This is your first job in IT. Work on as many things as you can. Do as much as you can, and do it the best that you can. Nothing wakes up management like results. You may be recognized and promoted, even by these guys. On the other hand, what if this company does get sold? What do you want the new owners to see? A champion who's domain is looking great or a slacker who has "reasons" why they won't really perform? When you find another opportunity you need to be able to say "look what I did!" Nothing else will matter.

There is a lot of satisfaction to be had from doing your best that goes way beyond your paycheck. It also has the effect of pulling back on an invisible career slingshot that you never know when it is going to shoot you ahead. Sitting still is like quicksand. When the opportunity to advance comes along you can lose it because you are stuck.

This job can be your "foot in the door" to an entire industry or it can be a worthless waste of your precious time. The decision is yours, not theirs.

[jephthah]

agree. My point to the OP was to bide your time, stay with it until you got another (better) job, then tell the first guy to stick it in his ass.

however, that's coming from a person with years of experience. if i feel im getting screwed, i can tell them where to stick it. it's the concept of burning bridges. i can burn one because i have other bridges.

so you (the OP) might want to consider that this is your first job

lets' assume you do get a better job and you tell the first one off after changing all the passwords on their mailserver or whatever you feel like doing to make it rough for them. It's cool, cause you don't need them anymore because you've got the new job right? well, then suppose that something goes horribly wrong at the new job, maybe they go bankrupt, or get bought, or your manager is a psychopath... whatever, but and now you're out of a job, and you have a year's worth of work experience but you can't use any of it as a reference.

that's not a good spot to be in.

so you have to weigh your options to see if it's really worth it to have the self satisfaction on telling them off but losing that "bridge"....

i had a bad exp. with an early job right out of college, i really wanted to stick it to them (and i could have), but i didn't, because it was in the early 2000's when the jobs were scarce and i figured it best to hedge my bets. i never wound up needing them as a reference after all, and often i still (years later) wish i would have had the balls to give them the business.

but, OTOH, what would i have gained, really, in the big picture?

[clhamon]

Thanks for the posts.

In this company, I have one position that I could advance to, but it definitely wouldn't be worth my time.

As for the industry, it is a specialized manufacturing industry. There are only a few companies left in this industry, and not many of them are very good. Here, we are too frequently shipping late and damaged orders. However, I have came to find out that the other companies do the same thing.

I don't really need this job, but it would have been nice if it would have panned out. I have made a good impression by solving things that no one could figure out until then, and they still decided to screw me over.

I like working in IT, and I love working with the networking aspect. I try to learn as much as I can each day at work, but I loathe being there.

Here's a funny story. The president of the company (the one who compared me to a person who mows lawn) has a degree in electrical engineering and considers himself as part of the IT department. Ha, the guy can't even set up his home router. One time he said that a computer with two sticks of 256MB had 256MB. I don't know if he doesn't know if having two sticks of 256 doubles the memory or if he just can't do simple math. Can you tell that I don't like this guy?

[jwenting]

in fact, if you were to "stick it to them" like that you'd open yourself up for all kinds of nastiness, and rightly so.
From civilian lawsuits for damages to criminal charges for sabotage and destroying property.
Wouldn't look good on your resume to have to explain that you spent a year in prison for destroying a company mailserver because you thought you had been treated bad by them.

[clhamon]

Oh, I probably wont sabotage anything. I know the other IT guy here, and he's a good guy.

The most that I will probably do is to tell the president to shove it but definitely not in that nice of words.

[popin]

hey clhamon I haven't posted here in ages but I saw this thread and read it through and its eerily relevant to me at the moment so i though id post. technopolis's advice sounds the best to me (out of nowhere apparently with 1 post? o.o?) it kinda depends if you want a career in IT (i don't think you mention what your bachelors was in?) or if you where happy in the type of work you had before being offered this.

i just finished up reading the rules of work and though a lot of it isn't for me it has a pretty sound lump of advice, if you want to work in IT then you've a coupple of options

1 bide your time and work as brilliantly as possible, come up with as many initiative (great company changing ones) as you can suggest them to the boss in paper form (reports etc) make sure your names on every single page and that you keep copies.

2 work hard and talk to the boss again ask for the original terms of employment any fact you have evidence for (paper emails memos etc) use say that you think you should be getting more and why, but don't be forceful about it, if the boss say's no don't take it personally (i know its hard but anger will only get you fired and that'd leave you in a worse situation).

in either case you can still look for other jobs and use this position as a specialist in a company for things that will look good (different) in a interview.

hope the advice helped, a friend is going through something not dissimilar but i can't remember the details of what he plans to do about it, they wouldn't really fit your situation though apart from checking what your rights as an employee are first, my gut feeling though is that this would come down to if yo have any proof they miss lead you, a job advertisement a letter a email a memo (if you even use these?) even with these u might not get anywhere or win the battle to lose a war (think long term)

main thing tho stay positive like tech said think career. If the boss is an idiot ignore the fact, don't let him get to you.

[clhamon]

I do get what you guys are saying. I will think about my career first. They just gave me partial payment for a certification exam that I just took. I wasn't expecting that, so I'm kind of happy for now.

To answer your question popin, my degree is in Information Technology. I focused on networking whenever I could. This is my first actual job in IT, but I hope to keep adding to my education. Eventually, I want to get my CCIE.

Several months from now, I hope to have a much better position in Columbus. I am not as anxious as I was a couple months ago, but I still might say a few words to my boss about what I truly think.

[newtown]

You should leave this Job and find another Job. This Job can be be good enough for you i m sure.