I TOLD THE BOSS

WELL AFTER ALL THESE YEARS OF WORKING AT THE SAME PLACE AND GETTING NO WHERE, I told the boss that I was starting the search for another job. He certainly acted as if he could have cared less about it. He just looked up over his desk at me and said " Well ok then." And he went back to what he was doing without a second thought. Just the other week I told the wife that they were trying to get me to quit. The way I have been treated by the owner and the boss has been down right offensive.

I have been at the same place now for eleven years. My last raise was back in September of 1998. Every year or two, the company gets another Health Insurance carrier and the cost keeps going up. They just did it again and I just can not afford the $386 and some change every two weeks for family coverage. My bring home pay is now half of what I earn and I can't make ends meet at all anymore. We don't get cost of living increases ever. I make $500 a week and we are paid every two weeks. The check before deductions is $1,000. My take home pay has dropped mostly because of insurance to $515 for two weeks work. That means that I only bring home around $255 and some change for each week. I can not survive off of that.

Four years ago I went job searching. For two days in a sense, I had three full time jobs. Two companies told me that I had the job. I told one of the companies that I had to decline as I had gotten a better offer from the other one. The next day they called me back and offered me more money to come with them. I again said thank you, but I had already taken the other job.

I went to work and told my boss that I had been offered another job. Much to my dismay, his jaw dropped as he stood there dumb founded. He pulled me aside and asked if I was happy there and if not, why not. I told him the reasons and he said to let him try to at least get me a pay raise. I reminded him that I had taken on extra load at work that was not in my job description over the years. They had even given me much more responsibility over the years after canning one of the bosses and actually, I was doing that bosses old job. But without the pay and my boss even admitted that I was the only employee that he had ever had that always went the extra mile for the company. He could not think of the last time that I had called in sick to work. He went as far to mention that I never seemed to use all of my vacation days in a year. If he was out on vacation for a week or gone on business for a day or two, I was expected to handle things. And I did.

Anyway, he went to talk to the big man to get me a raise to get me to stay. He came back and told me (I have it written down in my daily minder) that I was at the top of my pay scale for my position. I said. " That may be true however, I have been doing the same job as well as mine all of this time. I took it upon myself to learn the other job to make myself more valuable to this company and have not been compensated for it."
He agreed and said that at the moment things were tight but that if I stayed, they would get me a raise in a few months. He even told me that he wanted me to stay on and that they would take care of me. So I told him what the other company had offered me pay wise. I was told that they couldn't go that high but could within a dollar or so.
He made me a promise if I would stay on.

So, I stayed and did all that I had been and even more. Several months went by and still no raise. So I reminded the boss in a neutral way about it. I was told I'd have to wait a little longer. So I did. A year as a matter of fact. Then I asked again a couple of more times. Each time I asked he would get angrier. Finally one day he just blew up in my face about it telling me that I wasn't getting a raise until he did and he wouldn't discuss it any further. I mean he got spit spewing mad. Being that the economy is not the best he felt, as did I with a family to support, that he had me.

As time went by, one of the other employees and I noticed that the pay freeze had been lifted this spring as all of the truck drivers at our small company received raises. Many of them went out and finally got new vehicles. We even noticed that some new positions came open and they hired some additional employees to boot. Then the boss and his brother in-law and the owners wife all got new vehicles within weeks of each other. The boss and I had been getting along fine for awhile now and I just knew that I was going to be finally getting , these four years later, a raise.

All of a sudden this new guy starts coming each day and having meetings with the boss near closing time. The other employee and I began to get suspicious. The boss started acting like an ass to us but more to me. The following week, the new guy comes to work there. He has no time card so that means that he is salaried. We still have not been told this third month, officially by anyone that he is now our boss. But, we do find out from others.

Customers bypass him and come to me when the boss man isn't there. They don't like dealing with him because he won't make a decision and does not know the job. I have had to teach him how to do things in his job and it makes me angry as these are things he should already know how to do. I always act like I'm willing to help him as its not his fault for me being passed over again and getting screwed. But I don't have the desire to do all of the extra things that I had been doing all these last years. That's his job and he is the one getting paid to do it. So let him do it.

Customers ask me why didn't they give me that position as they have been dealing with me for years. Other employees ask the same question and I just shake my head. The company took on another warehouse and wanted me to work it as I have done in years past. And I have been doing it. Its a one man operation there, as the others that I did for them. But I still can't get a raise because I am at the top of my pay scale. Well that pay scale was in 1998 and its now 2005, seven years and some months later.

Other employees and customers as well,they tell me I've been screwed and I know it myself now. My boss used me and lied to me and he knows he did me dirty. That's the reason he started acting like an ass to me because he knows what he did. Besides, this place is a family owned business and all the top top positions are family. There is no one to go to like a regular business. They will protect their own and not give a hoot about us, the employees. I bought into the lies and untruths time and time again. Now I feel like a puppet and violated. I put to much worth and faith into their words and empty promises. I've seen how they screwed others and should have seen it coming.

This whole ordeal has made me feel like a big loser. I always gave 110% and never bawked at what I was asked to do. I just smiled and did it wanting to be the company man and what has it gotten me. It takes most of my two paychecks now just to pay my house note. My transmission has gone out on my truck and I'm having to borrow a vehicle when I can't get the wife's car. I can't afford to fix the truck.

To put it in a nut shell, I'm so depressed and the wife is riding my butt about the money all the time. Its all that I can do to get out of bed everyday and her yelling at me every time I turn around does not help. She makes snide comments about the smallest things and has no time for me and won't have a simple conversation with out yelling and putting me down. Most often right in front of our son. And it hurts me so bad that she said she has no respect for me after what all we have been through together all of these years. And believe me when I say, its been more than most couples have to go through. Most couples would have never made it through the first two years of marriage having to deal with what we have had to deal with. She just wants to badger and argue about anything and somehow she turns the conversation to be about her. If I say the sky is blue she'll say its cloudy. The dead grass is brown she'll say its green.
We are just room mates now and nothing else for many reasons. Sometimes now I just wish that I'd not wake up at all. But I brush myself off and try to get through another day.

Not to mention that when we got married in 1992, from the very start I was doing odd jobs on the side to try and get ahead, and I quit being at every ones beck and call in 2003. Now everyone says that I'm lazy and what's wrong with me. Of course, these people have never worked like that for that long a time day in day out. I was expected to go along with what everyone wanted me to do regardless of what I wanted to do. It was very hot and tiring work and after sweating in summer heat and freezing in the winter it finally has taken its toll on me. My job is very physically demanding and now at my age I'm just worn out from the heat and heavy labor.


So to end this post, I'll say that I am looking for a better job now. Its time for me to move on as it just keeps getting worse each day.