We got our bonuses today. I’ve been a little disappointed with my bonuses in the past, so this year I really tried to step up... I thought for sure that would get me at least something more.
I got a LOWER bonus than I did last year.
How long did it take you to figure this out? I've only been working ten years, but it was in year three that I finally figured out that my job performance was in no way related to my pay, promotions, or reputation in the eyes of my superiors in the chain of command. By year five I was already a burned out has-been, but I was a burned out has-been who needed the money.
Every time I have taken on additional responsibilities, or stepped up to answer a challenge, or volunteered for something important, I have universally and without exception been punished for it in one way or another. I am an interchangeable cog in a vast bureaucratic machine, and the only thing that matters is how effectively I perform my cog-function. I hate it.
It doesn't help that in my ten years of working, my female boss has hired eleven female employees and no male ones, in a profession that is approximately 70% male. I'm all for gender equality, but not if you have to be blatantly discriminatory about it. 60% of our senior staff is female, too. Sometimes I wonder if the difficulties I've faced at work are shared by everyone in my organization, or if I just have a sexist work environment. Not that it really matters, because I hate it either way.
I will feel absolutely no guilt when I bail. I'm currently leading a high-pressure project on a short deadline, and I've been telling them for a month now that we need more money, more time, and more people if we're going to deliver anything resembling what was promised to the customer. If they listen to me they'll bring on enough help to ride it out when I submit my notice, but knowing how they operate they'll just dump and dump on me until I get fed up and slam the door on my way out for the last time.
Today was not a good day at work.