Is this a London thing because I've never heard of two people doing similar roles having such a gap in salary.
Also are you actually getting experience in work using your LPIC skills? If not I can't see how having these qualifications with no actual experience using the skills will help you get ahead.
Yes and no.
Current role is Linux based I.e the command line. But manager never gave me any projects etc to further my knowledge. Just the basics. All the project work he gave else where and I was just an IT 'cleaner'.
New job is also Linux based and I will be helping out the current Linux Admin in a Citrix Xen environment. Of which I have very little knowledge, but they are fine with that.
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You opened up a wound so here goes.
/rant
To be fair, I've been unhappy in this role for the past 5 years. However it has got worse over the last 18 months since my manager and my colleague I mentioned above (no degree) started going out drinking.
I started to feel like they where shoving on to me more and more of the rubbish tasks and leaving only the fun and interesting stuff for them to do. One of my work collogues is mostly absent. The other is lazy and has threatened to quit twice which is why my manager lets him get away with things.
One of my colleagues let the cat out of the back in an indirect way, that yes, they basically wanted to make my role more and more basic so that him and the other guy could do more and more of the higher level stuff.
But this is totally unfair, for someone who has been in the job for 8.5 years and is ready himself to start moving forward and learning stuff.
The problem is the nature of the company. There will always be a load of crap to do. So they schemed to not do it them selves, and thus shovelling it all on to me.
This had a double negative effect.
1. I would come in to work and have 10 emails in the morning from people that have learnt through conditioning not to email the other guys and email me directly as they dont get anything done. All these emails are boring tasks that they want done NOW.
The other two come and go as they please. Either absent or turn up what ever time they want. Me on the other hand has HR and sales execs chasing me around for stuff, and yet, more and more crap is being piled on to my plate whilst the other ones do as they please working on interesting project work.
2. The partitioning of tasks also has an effect on pay. As they are doing the more '3rd' line tasks they asked for 3rd line pay! As I am doing just the crap in the office no one wants, so my wage reflects this.
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Theres more but I'm not going to go on. I just got fed up with the laziness of my colleagues and the attitude from my manager. If I say something the automatic response is disdain and brushing it off. If either of the other two say the same thing, he talks about it with them, considers it and value their opinion.
Me leaving has actually further played in to their hands as they can reshape my job role, make it the super basic role they wanted and thus piling more of the crap on to the new guy allowing them to live the life of Riley.
In my new role, my opinion is going to be valued. It's one of the primary reasons I'm being hired. Here they see me as the same person who started 8.5 years ago. In the new role I'm going to be seen as someone with 8.5 years of experience.
My manager is being played for a fool tho. What kind of messed up scenario is this:
The guy he goes drinking with and is in effect scheming, is the same guy that has threatened to quite twice.
His logic is, if they ask him to do anything he doesn't want to do, he will quit. For some reason my manager is so scared of losing him he is bending over backwards to accommodate what ever he wants. He has basically told me, he know how to 'handle' him and is basically playing him for more and more money.
Hence the reason why more crap is on my plate, he does the interesting stuff and earns about 20k more than me.
The last 5 ish weeks he has been going out and taking drugs. Turns up anywhere from 11-1pm in the office. Has little power naps when he is here. Manager had a word with him and basically said if this carries on he would have a chat with HR. He's response? 'If you do say anything to HR, I will just quit'. So that's that. End of story and carry on as you are.
/rantover
