The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: asrta2008 on March 12, 2019, 12:32:16 PM
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Hi all. First time poster here after finding this forum a few weeks ago. I am looking for advise on what to do about my current employment situation, as it has recently become complicated. Warning: it's also a bit of a rant. Sorry.
I have worked at Company A for 2.5 years. I've been really happy with it because, while it doesn't offer any benefits, I get an okay salary ($40k) and flexible schedule with a normally very easy going boss. I was originally hired for light bookkeeping and mainly admin type work but since it is a small company I have taken on more work and wear many hats now. I now am handling all aspects of the accounting and administration as well as estimating and sending quotes for new contracts. This is a full time workload in itself. I do get a 5% commission on certain contracts but it is small amounts (totaling $2600 pre-tax) over the 2 years. Otherwise, I have never asked for a raise in these 2.5 years.
Recently, my boss and his business partners opened Company B (restaurant), which is not even the same industry as Company A (construction) and have added bookkeeping for that company into my current workload. Now starts the time where I went many weeks staying late at least 4 days a week to keep up with the new work load. I ask for a raise. Boss begrudgingly says he'll bump my salary to $45k. I say that is not enough and negotiated up to $50k. I'm still not happy with that considering I am doing 2 jobs for the price of 1 but I left it alone because it was better than nothing. Flash forward to a few weeks later, my boss asks if he can cut my pay back down because one of his partners found out another restaurant pays their accounting person much less. I later find out that the other person only comes in once a week to do invoices and payroll, nothing else. I spend a lot of time on a daily basis in financial meetings going over sales reports, labor, supplies, and employee issues, as well as handling all taxes, invoices, receipts, payroll, and HR AND I have to drive back and forth from Company A to Company B on my own fuel. I point this out to my boss and he agrees to keep my raise as-is.
Fast forward again, a couple weeks later my boss says that since I kept my raise he wants me to help out more with Company B by handling the inventory. This will add several hours a week on to my already top heavy work load and will require me to travel between the companies much more often. The bosses are all super stressed about running 2 companies and it makes for a miserable workplace now. On top of that, neither company is doing well so some weeks I am concerned if I will even get paid at all. I live paycheck to paycheck at the moment and cannot afford to not get paid even just for one week. I'm at my breaking point. I no longer enjoy working in this high stress - low pay environment. Knowing the state accounts of both companies, I don't think he can afford to give me much more of a raise, nor do I think he would even if he could (even though he and his partner just gave themselves large raises- but that's whole other issue). Another manager let me know they cut his pay as well.
So my question is: Am I wrong for thinking I am way underpaid for this workload? Research on craigslist, monster, and indeed shows that local salaries for bookkeepers are $45-65k and estimators are $50-75k. I talked to an old accounting manager at a previous employment who managed multiple companies and she was making 6 digits doing only accounting. Going on the low end of these ranges because I am young and could use more experience, I would be at $95k for the combine roles of accounting and estimating.
Knowing this information, what would you do in my situation? My gut instinct is obviously to leave and find something better paying. I'd even be happy at the same pay and less stress but since I have no savings, I have to find another job before I can quit. This will be hard to do considering its hard to get away from the office at a decent time these days. Or should I try to ride it out to see if things will get better? Although, I seriously doubt I will get any more money out of this position, only more work.