Dear Underpaid Employee

A mostly true story of sweet revenge

Dear Employee,

You are the hardest worker we have, putting in the longest hours doing what no one else can do. Also, you are number two in seniority, and we greatly appreciate your dedication to our firm and to your job. Your work is exemplary. Your dedication and loyalty are admirable.

However, you will never be paid as much as the others here who do less and know less. “Why?” you ask.

Well, the other employees, and there are many of them, don’t do what you do. They all have similar positions and job titles, while you have a unique position. In our firm, you are one of a kind, which is one of the many reasons we theoretically value you so highly.

Many of the others have come and gone over the years forcing us to rehire over and over again, making us acutely aware of the market salaries for those types of positions. Often, we learned that the salaries we were paying were too low, forcing us to make adjustments to bring current and new employees to acceptable salary levels for our geographical area. We must remain competitive to get the best employees, you know!

But, you? Well, you stayed. And, how grateful we are that you did!

However, that means we haven’t searched the marketplace for your replacement and are, therefore, unaware of how much salaries for your type of position have increased over the years. Due to our ignorance, we weren’t forced to raise your salary as we did for the others.

You asked for a raise. Yes, we know you are worth more than you are paid, but how much? We don’t know and are too lazy to do the necessary research to find out.

Therefore, your raise request is denied.

But, please know how much we appreciate you. We look forward to many more years of your service. Thank you for being part of our business family.

Sincerely,

The company you will quit tomorrow

This happened to me in 1993. I was the bookkeeper for a law firm; all the other employees were legal secretaries and paralegals. After 11 years of service with only small raises, I requested a wage increase based on the figures I provided showing that salaries of the other employees more than doubled in eleven years while mine increased by only 20%.

My rejection was in person, not by letter, but was similar, minus the sarcasm, to what I wrote here. I sat before the firm’s managing partner listening to her amazingly ignorant reason for refusing my raise request and wondered why the hell I was still working there.

I gave my notice the next day. The shocked senior partner asked why I was leaving and when I told him that the managing partner, who also happened to be his wife, refused my raise request because she didn’t know how much my job was worth because she’d never had to replace me, he nodded his head sagely and said he understood and that he would miss me and the firm would have a difficult time replacing me.

The fact is, they never truly did replace me. One week after I started a new job, the senior partner begged me to come back part-time. On and off for two years, I worked evenings and weekends at twice the hourly rate I was paid as an employee. The woman who replaced me could not keep up with the workload. Eventually, a second bookkeeper was hired and my part-time services were no longer needed.

However, one year after the second bookkeeper was hired, both bookkeepers quit because the work was too stressful. By then, I was an independent contractor. They immediately hired me at an hourly rate much higher than I charged the year before.

That was 23 years ago and I still work for that law firm. I increase my hourly rate every two years and they gladly and gratefully pay me what I think I am worth and they throw in generous bonuses to make sure I don’t retire anytime soon. I call that

Sweet Revenge!

In response to this interesting Rejection Letter prompt by Ashley Evenson: