Not that anybody really gives a flying fuck, but I've been struggling the past couple of weeks. Mainly over personal battles, but, this week I've been fighting a professional battle at work.

Seems that they have deemed my job as something doesn't require skill or anything of that type. I understand that you don't have to go college to be able to figure my job out or to be able to do the basics, but much past that you NEED some sort of training on it. If not some sort of training you need at least the desire to learn, do better than others in your department, and to basically know what you're doing on a basic level...something that only one of my bosses knows because, well, he's fucking done it while the others haven't. Which brings me to my next point...

The past year I have worked my ass off. I realize that everyone says they work their asses off at work because that's what they want everyone to believe. But, for me, it's the truth. They've made it to where it only takes two guys to basically do our job...and that's what we operate with everyday while everyone get's an extra guy. We've been bitching about this since we're ultra competitive and want it to be known that we're doing more with TWO people than the other guys are doing with three people with EASIER work...but that gets us nowhere.

We've been trying to get them to pay a "third" person and me and the guy I work with will split the money...at HELPER pay. I don't see how or why we don't deserve it because it's a constant flow of work for us and we ALWAYS out perform everyone else consistently...which brings me to my next point...

For the last three years I've been one step under our top pay (BEFORE the pay switch it was $20.41/hour...I know boohoo for me.) Understand this though, while I enjoy working with the guy I work with (mainly because out of everyone else he's the best to work with due to his quality, experience, and mechanical ability), I do by far the majority of the work on our trucks mainly because he gave up a long time ago after he topped out, all the while I'm trying to get to his level of pay because I feel that I deserve it...and he knows I do along with quite a few of people who don't even know our job!!! I HATE saying that I have more work on the trucks than him, but on this particular run of trucks...I do, well...it's pretty equal but the stuff I typically do is stuff he's "forgotten" or just doesn't want to do so, in my mind, I have the advantage for that work. And, forget the fact that I fix other people's mistakes that make more than I do so it looks like our division actually gives a shit about the work we do, and basically clean it up to make it look respectable, AND easy to figure out where all the wires are going...which is the majority of the battle in the long run.

Back on track now...

Thursday, our HR lady decided that our job wasn't a "skilled trade" like our painters and welders...that's another story for another fucking day. Basically when they did this it froze everyone in our departments pay which has started to set me off since I know the second most about our work in our department and I can back my knowledge up with my work too. So, as it stands now, I can be topped out with a $0.17 raise (I know, I know...quit your bitching about it because it's more than what a lot of people are getting paid.) The shittiest part about this is my annual review was due in May which more than likely would have given me a $0.97 raise BEFORE all this shit went down...well, it's July and I still haven't gotten it and missed out on that chance. Well our HR lady (or corporate HR) figured it would be FAIR to give people in my position a check for an extra $0.20/hour for an entire 40 hour year PLUS 166 hours of OT.

As it stands, that's $50 less than a weeks paycheck (before taxes and 401k) that I would usually take home. That seems like a pretty sweet deal until you factor in the missing $.077/hour that I WOULD be making if I had gotten that "raise" before this all went down. When I confronted my HR lady about this she tap danced around the "raise" I would have gotten, if I would have had my review on time...until I figure it out. She came to the conclusion (by reading the description of job title of course) that I wouldn't have gotten the "raise" even if I would have gotten a good review on time because it was basically the carrot dangling in front of of the donkey to keep him going.

Now with that kind of information in my back pocket, I'm really confused as what to do since I've ALREADY been our performing people that have been making more than me for the last THREE FUCKING YEARS!!!

I know this is still a really great job that has a lot of stability behind it, but at what point does a person leave a job they LOVE, but doesn't pay what they're worth? I have schematics memorized in my head that our engineering department doesn't know about and will eventually need for future trucks. It's their job to get us the information AND schematics to do our job effectively, but yet I hold a ton of valuable information that they will eventually need and will get zero credit for since they were too dumb to figure it out on their own. Does all that have any credibility since they've said that our job wasn't a skilled position and the "engineers" job's are? Pisses me off knowing that I can do a college graduates job, plus my job, plus 90% of the guys' job's in my department along with learning anything AND everything that comes my way with an extremely good memory. I don't know, I'm just really confused as to when to walk away from something that is really good for the better of myself...