I’ve already touched upon my recent promotion at work in a previous blog, but thought I would give the issue it’s own space as it sooo warrants is….
So, back in September 2008 (so long ago now) myself and 2 other Advanced engineers were asked if we would be interested in performing a secondment which, if passed, would mean a Backline role within our support team. So, Backline is the highest level of support within our internal structure – beyond this is Engineering and Development, so a fairly responsible and acknowledged role.
Prior to this secondment being setup, 3 of the “then” Backline engineers all moved internally to different areas, thus effectively halving the Backline team. This obviously put the overall delivery of support in a slight predicament – hence the secondment being setup and put forward.
Initially, the sell of this was a 3 month period, of which there would be objectives set that would need to be passed, but we would also be expected to perform our Advanced role to a certain level, effectively doing 2 jobs at the cheap rate. The promotion would be a grade increase, which had additional benefits (like a car allowance, fuel card etc) and all in all would equate to an approximate 25% pay rise. To be honest I was not totally overwhelmed to move into Backline mainly because I didn’t think I had the relevant experience of the product bearing in mind I had only been supporting it for 2 years (and it’s not an easy product to learn).
So, after the discussion, and me speaking to a few peers at work about my 50/50 “shall I, shalln’t I”, and looking at the future etc, I decided to take the secondment on – hmmmm the power of hindsight!
December 2008 comes….and goes….no feedback or anything…hmmmm. So I instigate a meeting with myself, 2 colleagues and the managers to find out what is going on. Lo and behold we are informed that “the secondment was originally a 6 month deal, but they thought they could get it to 3 months, but they couldn’t”. So, everything geared toward December being the cutoff point, and hopefully if all objectives passed, promotion in January. Well, to say we were not best pleased would be a bit of an understatement. We again had a long meeting and were then informed it would definitely be April, and backpay etc would be put forward.
In Feb this year, shockingly one of my brothers passed away very suddenly. This really skewed my thoughts about life and work etc, and I just thought to myself “why am I going through all this sh*t and doing extra work when this can happen”. I then informed my line manager that I didn’t want to continue, with this news being a catalyst to my decision but not being the main part. I sent an email and 1 week later I was asked to goto a meeting. I was then asked to re-consider as it would be good for me to do (you know the usual). Foolishly I said OK (as tbh it is an interesting role).
So, end of March comes…ok we are going to get the official yes…erm no…nothing again. This really was the last straw and I again spoke with my manager, for a good hour, and basically said they were taking the pis* and I am walking away..we spoke more…and my manager was almost pleading with me..so I made some requests (one of them being assurance of backpay from April 1st irrelevant of when the system was updated to reflect the new role) and then left it at that….
April comes and goes….hmmmm…..then mid-May and we are ushered into another meeting room..”At long last the promotion has been approved” – “yay” – “but they’ve removed the car allowance (£500 a month), fuel card and no back pay” – I was totally fed up at this point, to the point I nearly walked out…
So, after almost 9 months of performing the role, we don’t get the full package, no chance to say at the end of the secondment we didn’t want it, and this is supposed to be good for us?!? Well I basically informed them that I was not best pleased and would stop doing any additional projects (that I really liked doing so nose/spiting the face)…
Latest news on this is after my email to HR etc asking for questions I now have a meeting with them and managers. What really annoys me is how the whole thing was so shambolically managed and ultimately we never got a choice in the matter. It was fairly simple – they needed 3 people to plug 3 holes, and they got us at a reduced rate for doing the same work…watch this space!
