'I trained him': Employee uncovers that new hire makes $31k more than them

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  • Boss laughs after hiring new worker.
  • I accidentally learning my coworker's salary and now I can't stop doing math during meetings

    This happened two weeks ago and it has been eating me alive. I work in a open office.
  • My coworker Greg sits directly across from me. Our monitors face each other. I have never once looked at his screen on purpose.
  • I want to make that clear because what happened was entirely an accident and also entirely his fault.
  • Coworker can't stop thinking about how her colleague makes more money than her.
  • Greg got up to go to the bathroom and left his screen unlocked. Normal. People do this.
  • I don't care. But he left a PDF open and it was zoomed to like 400%.
  • I don't know why anyone would zoom a PDF to 400% but Greg did and because of that I could read it from four feet away without even trying.
  • It was his offer letter. From when he was hired. With his salary. In 48pt font basically.
  • A tough realization

    He makes $31,000 more than me. We have the same title. Same team. He started eight months after me.
  • I trained him. I trained the man who makes thirty one thousand dollars more than me.
  • I showed him how to use our project management tool. I walked him through the client onboarding process.
  • I sat with him for two hours explaining our filing system which honestly even I don't fully understand but I pretended I did because I was his mentor.
  • Such a shame

    And he makes 31k more than me. I cannot stop doing. math now. Every meeting we're in together I'm calculating.
  • Ok this meeting is one hour, he's making X per hour, I'm making Y per hour, the DIFFERENCE between us sitting in this same meeting listening to the same person talk about Q3 projections is $14.90.
  • I am losing $14.90 of relative value every hour I sit next to Greg. I've started a spreadsheet.
  • I know this is unhinged. The spreadsheet has columns. The worst part is Greg is good at his job.
  • He's not some failson coasting on nepotism. He's competent, he's pleasant, he brings in those little stroopwafel cookies for the office on Fridays.
  • He has never done a single thing wrong to me. This man is my friend. I went to his birthday dinner last month.
  • I bought him a gift. A GIFT. With my lesser salary. I looked up his job posting from when he was hired.
  • It listed the salary range. The range started at what I make and went up to what he makes.
  • This is a difficult realization to come by

    So technically we're both in range. I'm just at the bottom and he's at the top.
  • Same range. Same title. Different ends. Like two people on the same bus except he's in first class and I'm sitting on the wheel.
  • I know I should negotiate. I know I should talk to my manager. I know the mature thing to do is advocate for myself.
  • But instead I've been silently tracking the cumulative salary gap between me and Greg in a google sheet that I have named "Greg Data" and password protected even though nobody would ever want to look at it.
  • We're at $6,100 since I found out. Fourteen working days. I'll stop tracking it when I get a raise or when I lose my mind, and honestly at this point its a coin flip.
  • Greg just offered me a stroopwafel. I took it. It was delicious. That makes it worse somehow TL;DR: My coworker left his offer letter open at 400% zoom, I accidentally saw he makes $31k more than me for the same job, and now I've been tracking the salary gap in a password-protected spreadsheet called "Greg Data" for two weeks instead of just asking for a raise like a normal person.
  • 3 coworkers meet in office.
  • People had a hunch that good guy Greg was trying to point them in the right direction

    Lt_Muffi... Bro, he knows and is trying to tell you
  • Again, I really don't think this alone could warrant a raise? But this person is welcome to try, or they could seek another job, since they've discovered how their employer is paying newbies

    Letmepic... Greg did you a solid. He's trying to let you know you're underpaid without telling you directly.
  • If you say so... Someone try this and let us know if it still works these days. I highly doubt it.

    Shialac Kids, this is why we are talking our salary with our coworkers. Not talking about it only benefits the employers. Now get your a up and demand a raise

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