My performance review went well. I’m doing great at my job and was surprised to hear some compliments on my work quality. I’m glad some people notice the extras that I do. I put a lot of effort into my job. I get a long very well with my coworkers and we work together to get things done, even if it is not in our job description.

We reviewed my strengths and weaknesses, discussed my goals and how I plan to achieve them, and my likes and dislikes about my position specifically.

The manager was wrapping up it up and she asked me if there was anything I wanted to discuss.

I did.

I got some things off my chest that I didn’t necessarily like about the company, including:

• Lack of transparency
• Communication issues on client meetings
• A misstep that about my login for the main program (3 months to find out I already had one set up specifically for me)

I had said something on these issue to different managers, but I wasn’t happy with how they were settled. I wanted it on my record that these were a concern for me. After some clarification on what I wanted, they agreed to discuss it at next week’s meeting and thanked me for the input. She then tried to wrap it up, but then I asked what was the time frame for a review that would include consideration of a pay raise.

Basically in 2009 will be when they will discuss it. I was silent for a moment before I acknowledged this. My problem wasn’t that it would be my 1st anniversary before that was considered necessarily, but that I was told something else at my interview. (Which is a bit weird since she was the one who interviewed me).

As I was silent, the managers then mentioned that they wanted to bring an account onto my plate that had been switched from me and replaced with other assignments. This isn’t a small account with occasional orders; this is an account that would easily add 2-3 hours to my day. I know this because I’ve done back up for the woman handling it now, who is overwhelmed with a huge amount of clients.

They asked me if I could handle this workload and after thinking for a moment, I honestly told them it would take some work to fit into my schedule, but I could try to fit it in. I then asked about what raise would go with the job.

They said no raise. (They looked surprised I asked.)

I looked at them and I told them I wasn’t comfortable with that and I would have to think about it.

Talk about a temperature drop. We went from a happy meeting to a cool tone in a second. She asked what was the problem, since my predecessor did this account. I reminded her that:

1. My job description did not include this account when I was hired.
2. I have a slightly different assignment my predecessor couldn’t do.
3. This account isn’t small enough to just tack on, it was a full blown job. (I wasn’t sure they knew that. They did. )

So the managers looked at each other and tried to explain to my that my assignments are easier than what my predecessor had. (There’s a reason she left: underpaid and overworked. I checked.)

I tried my best to calmly tell them that I would think about this and that I was leaving. (At that point I was really upset.)

I’ve really thought about it and I came to my conclusion. I’m not going to do this assignment. When I was hired for the job, I was told that 80% was handling replenishment for one very large client and the rest were a few small clients and handling their customer service, which by the way I don’t really care for. I figured since most of my job was something I did enjoy, I’d take the job.

In actuality, besides my main assignment, one other account takes a good bit of time and I do more customer service than discussed (I’m dealing with about a couple of hundred buyers). If I accept this assignment (even with a raise), then approximately 50% of my time would be doing customer service responsibilities and I don’t want to do that. Customer service at my current job is very time consuming. The specific account they want added is very time consuming, as it would give me a few hundred more buyers to service.

We’ll see how it goes when I tell them that today. 

Any ideas on how I should handle this? Has anybody else had this experience?

Photo Credit:tm_lv