When
I was in my early twenties I worked for a large company. It began as a summer college program (I
started when I was eighteen) and turned into not only my summer job but my any
time I had a break during school job, and basically whenever I wanted or needed
to make some extra cash job. There was
an understanding with the Human Resources director that, if I wanted, I would
be hired on after graduation and at the time, that is what I thought I wanted. Over the years I worked for all of the
departments and in various facets learning about the company from every
aspect.
When
I was a year away from graduation I began working closely with a lady who was
the head of the communications department.
She was an older lady (Jane) who had worked for the company for many
years and was the one who had originally hired me. She had recently remarried and felt that it
was time to retire soon and she wanted to train me so that I would take over
her position when I graduated. For months
I helped with internal and external communications, press releases, etc. (This was in addition to working my normal
job with the company.)
Jane
officially announced her retirement date and the next day I was called into a
meeting with her and the head of HR (Teri).
During this meeting we discussed my being hired officially for the
position once Jane retired and I graduated (Jane would retire about two weeks
after I graduated). At this time money
and employee benefits were not discussed but I didn’t think anything of it I
was just happy to have a job waiting for me when I finished school.
I
continued to work, as I had the past few months, doing my regular job and now
being officially trained for the new one.
My days and nights were filled with studying and writing papers for
classes, working the two jobs and studying and learning what I could for the
new position.
Finally
I had graduated and Jane was set to retire in a matter of days. I went to work early one day to discuss the
transition and my compensation. Teri got
a very frazzled look on her face as she told me that a lot of things had
changed since we last spoke about this (although she had not said a word to
Jane or me) and that, well, I was still going to be placed in that position but
I wouldn’t get an increase in pay nor additional benefits. By this point I had enough sense and wherewithal
to know that it was a bad situation that would never change. And with that I gave my notice and began
looking for another job.
I
heard from people that continued to work there that the management was shocked
that I had stood up for myself and that they never were able to get someone to
fill that position. I was proud for several
reasons… the first being that I had stood up for myself and have never taken on
a job where I have accepted less that what I was worth and then less than a
year later the parent corporation closed that branch of the company down. They absorbed most of the management
positions, moving them all over the country, but everyone else was simply downsized.