donna723
Well-Known Member
As some of you know, I retired a few months ago after spending more than 24 years working for the State. I intended to work another year and a half but I just couldn't put up with the neverending BS and the frustration any more!
There were three of us there with the same civil service job title, all hired within weeks of each other, all with approximately the same background and experience (although my resume was probably a little more 'stellar' because of where I worked before), all of us in those same jobs for the entire 24 years we've been there. But that's where the similarities end. And for all these years we (or at least two of us) have been led to believe that we made the same thing!
Two of us, "S" and I, have worked our hind ends off, way beyond the specifications of our job titles. We took on huge responsibilities, did all those extra things that were asked of us. My job title was "Secretary" in the business office even though I ended up doing the same thing as the accounting people because that's the way it is when you work for the State. Job title has very little to do with what you really do. I had the same training as the accounting staff and was in charge of the entire inventory system and getting the new computer system up and working. "S" pretty much ran her whole department while having the lowly job title of Secretary. She had that place organized and running like clockwork, came in early, stayed late, sometimes even came in on weekends without pay to get it all done, and actually trained her own boss who has a Doctorate degree!
The third one, "D", has always been regarded as "special". She probably had a quarter of the work load of "S" and I, complained constantly, did only what she wanted to and passed the rest off to someone else, and spent at least half of her day chatting on her cell phone! She's a bit of a joke - just mention her name and the eye-rolling and the head shaking starts! She's the one who was put in my job when I left. She immediately whined her way out of several of the things that I had always done, looked for shortcuts to everything (there weren't any!) and generally bunged everything up royally! She complained about having to do all those extra things that she had never had to do before like doing inventories and making bank runs. My poor, sweet former boss is probably tearing what's left of his hair out by now!
So ... now that I'm retired, my social security and my pension are both small and money will be tight, but it's worth it. And now that I have all this time on my hands I finally got around to browsing through this data base of all state employees salaries that the newspaper has a link published in the newspaper. And just guess what I found!
All this time, ol' lazy pampered "D" (the cell phone queen) has been making $150 a MONTH more than me! WTH!!! And poor little old "S", the energizer bunny of secretaries, makes $180 a month less than "D" and $30 a month less than I was! How "D" managed this I will never know because State employees raises (when we got one) are across the board - everybody gets the same percentage. It's probably gone on for years and somewhere along the line someone did her a favor! Had I been making what she's been making, both my social security and my pension would have been a lot higher and now I will have to settle for this smaller amount FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!!! And poor little "S", a recent widow, the under paid energizer bunny, she WILL know about this as soon as I can get a hold of her on the phone! It's too late for me but I sincerely hope that she takes this information and files complaints and raises holy hades until they give her the raise she deserves and back pay for what she should have been getting all along!
There were three of us there with the same civil service job title, all hired within weeks of each other, all with approximately the same background and experience (although my resume was probably a little more 'stellar' because of where I worked before), all of us in those same jobs for the entire 24 years we've been there. But that's where the similarities end. And for all these years we (or at least two of us) have been led to believe that we made the same thing!
Two of us, "S" and I, have worked our hind ends off, way beyond the specifications of our job titles. We took on huge responsibilities, did all those extra things that were asked of us. My job title was "Secretary" in the business office even though I ended up doing the same thing as the accounting people because that's the way it is when you work for the State. Job title has very little to do with what you really do. I had the same training as the accounting staff and was in charge of the entire inventory system and getting the new computer system up and working. "S" pretty much ran her whole department while having the lowly job title of Secretary. She had that place organized and running like clockwork, came in early, stayed late, sometimes even came in on weekends without pay to get it all done, and actually trained her own boss who has a Doctorate degree!
The third one, "D", has always been regarded as "special". She probably had a quarter of the work load of "S" and I, complained constantly, did only what she wanted to and passed the rest off to someone else, and spent at least half of her day chatting on her cell phone! She's a bit of a joke - just mention her name and the eye-rolling and the head shaking starts! She's the one who was put in my job when I left. She immediately whined her way out of several of the things that I had always done, looked for shortcuts to everything (there weren't any!) and generally bunged everything up royally! She complained about having to do all those extra things that she had never had to do before like doing inventories and making bank runs. My poor, sweet former boss is probably tearing what's left of his hair out by now!
So ... now that I'm retired, my social security and my pension are both small and money will be tight, but it's worth it. And now that I have all this time on my hands I finally got around to browsing through this data base of all state employees salaries that the newspaper has a link published in the newspaper. And just guess what I found!
All this time, ol' lazy pampered "D" (the cell phone queen) has been making $150 a MONTH more than me! WTH!!! And poor little old "S", the energizer bunny of secretaries, makes $180 a month less than "D" and $30 a month less than I was! How "D" managed this I will never know because State employees raises (when we got one) are across the board - everybody gets the same percentage. It's probably gone on for years and somewhere along the line someone did her a favor! Had I been making what she's been making, both my social security and my pension would have been a lot higher and now I will have to settle for this smaller amount FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!!! And poor little "S", a recent widow, the under paid energizer bunny, she WILL know about this as soon as I can get a hold of her on the phone! It's too late for me but I sincerely hope that she takes this information and files complaints and raises holy hades until they give her the raise she deserves and back pay for what she should have been getting all along!
