Hi everyone.
Sorry in advance as this will be somewhat of a rant followed by me asking for some career advice.
To give you guys some background about me and my situation; I work for company of roughly ~500-600 people on the east coast. My office consists of roughly 20 people of which I’m one of the few w/ an engineering background. This is my first job out of college and I’ve been here about 4 years. I’ve passed the FE and I’ll be taking my PE exam in April 2012. My office manager is someone who attempts to lowball his employees for the most part, has his favorites and it not shy about people knowing it.
The office dynamic is an easy going one where people fall into one of two categories. The first category is made up of roughly 60% of my office. These people do little to no work each day, show up late and will throw anyone under the bus to make themselves look better. One person in particular is my office manager’s favorite employee. He shows up roughly an hour late daily, wanders the office like a lost child, and does at most 1 hr of work a day. I’ll call this person SlowJoe. The other group of people is hardworking individuals with good work ethic. I fall into this group myself and we are left to carry some of the burden and fix the mistakes of SlowJoe and the others.
As of a few weeks ago we had some turnover and changes in my office. One of our best employees in my office left for another position that came with a 30% raise. Another person of similar work ethic is on his way out the door shortly as well. On top of all this, a few weeks ago I stumbled upon a paper in our copier that shows exactly how much everyone makes and their multiplier for every year from 2007-2011. What I learned from this is that although I may be making more than many of my peers, this is attributed to my degree (Civil/Env Engineering) and refusing to accept a lowball offer out of college. Not my raises. SlowJoe for example, received on average a 9% raise during this 4 year period. Another 2 people, who don’t carry their weight, received an 8% average raise each over the 4 year period. I was promoted once during these 4 years and only received an average of 5.2%.
Needless to say finding out this info and others leaving has left me very dissatisfied with a job I was pretty happy with a year ago. I’m taking on more and more responsibility daily (since people are leaving) and I want to be compensated for such. Would I be out of line asking for ~10% raise given the current economic times? And should I shop myself around to see how much I’m realistically worth before doing so? I think if I do this my boss will tell me to wait till I pass the PE and then he can give me a raise (w/ a promotion). This doesn't work for me though. What he's doing here in my opinion is combining 3 raises into one. A raise for getting my PE, a raise because I'm a disgruntled employee he wants to keep, and a raise for a promotion. Then when it comes review time I'll get no raise (normally a 3% cost of living raise) because I just recieved one for passing my PE. Am I just being greedy here?
Also, I feel I shouldn’t switch jobs for at least another year to year and a half with my PE exam looming, but I've seriously considered it just for piece of mind.
Any opinions or thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.
Sorry in advance as this will be somewhat of a rant followed by me asking for some career advice.
To give you guys some background about me and my situation; I work for company of roughly ~500-600 people on the east coast. My office consists of roughly 20 people of which I’m one of the few w/ an engineering background. This is my first job out of college and I’ve been here about 4 years. I’ve passed the FE and I’ll be taking my PE exam in April 2012. My office manager is someone who attempts to lowball his employees for the most part, has his favorites and it not shy about people knowing it.
The office dynamic is an easy going one where people fall into one of two categories. The first category is made up of roughly 60% of my office. These people do little to no work each day, show up late and will throw anyone under the bus to make themselves look better. One person in particular is my office manager’s favorite employee. He shows up roughly an hour late daily, wanders the office like a lost child, and does at most 1 hr of work a day. I’ll call this person SlowJoe. The other group of people is hardworking individuals with good work ethic. I fall into this group myself and we are left to carry some of the burden and fix the mistakes of SlowJoe and the others.
As of a few weeks ago we had some turnover and changes in my office. One of our best employees in my office left for another position that came with a 30% raise. Another person of similar work ethic is on his way out the door shortly as well. On top of all this, a few weeks ago I stumbled upon a paper in our copier that shows exactly how much everyone makes and their multiplier for every year from 2007-2011. What I learned from this is that although I may be making more than many of my peers, this is attributed to my degree (Civil/Env Engineering) and refusing to accept a lowball offer out of college. Not my raises. SlowJoe for example, received on average a 9% raise during this 4 year period. Another 2 people, who don’t carry their weight, received an 8% average raise each over the 4 year period. I was promoted once during these 4 years and only received an average of 5.2%.
Needless to say finding out this info and others leaving has left me very dissatisfied with a job I was pretty happy with a year ago. I’m taking on more and more responsibility daily (since people are leaving) and I want to be compensated for such. Would I be out of line asking for ~10% raise given the current economic times? And should I shop myself around to see how much I’m realistically worth before doing so? I think if I do this my boss will tell me to wait till I pass the PE and then he can give me a raise (w/ a promotion). This doesn't work for me though. What he's doing here in my opinion is combining 3 raises into one. A raise for getting my PE, a raise because I'm a disgruntled employee he wants to keep, and a raise for a promotion. Then when it comes review time I'll get no raise (normally a 3% cost of living raise) because I just recieved one for passing my PE. Am I just being greedy here?
Also, I feel I shouldn’t switch jobs for at least another year to year and a half with my PE exam looming, but I've seriously considered it just for piece of mind.
Any opinions or thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.
