(no subject)

I hate HR people. I shall bite them if I ever come across them again. I wrote to ask about how I should pay for my benefits. which I've discussed with this woman a lot over the last 2 months. Ever since I got accepted at Clarion, as a matter of fact. she wrote back and asked if I'd written a letter and had it signed by my director, and then explained something I'd already known and completely unrelated to the issue. She'd never once mentioned me needing to write a physical letter. I've mentioned the dates ever since the begining, so she should have known this was coming up, and there are only 100 of us over here, you'd think she could freaking remember things!!!! And last time we had this discussion, I had to repeat exactly the same details over and over again in an email.

(no subject)

Okay, so I have to go talk to my boss about why I didn't get the promotion I should have gotten. I have to do this. they're not going to suddenly decide that I deserve more money. And it's not like my boss is scary or anything. She can be, but she's more mom-like than anything--she'll get upset about stuff, but only when you deserve her to be upset, and really, most of the time when you think she's going to be mad, she just looks disappointed in you and helps you find another solution. So it's not that.

See, I should have been moved up. I've been at level 2 for 2 years, and everyone else who started with me or about the same time as me has been moved up (and most of them are leaving before the end of the summer.), but I'm still a level 2. My guess is that I didn't get moved up because officially I haven't been at this position for two years--my first 9 months were as an administrative assistant. But I've been doing this *work* for 2 years--the first book I worked on came out in May 2000--NCES 2000-189, Reference and Reporting Guide. So with any luck, if someone were to point this all out, I'd get moved up, ops, sorry, here's your new cards.

Because it shouldn't be anything else. I'm a good worker, I do everything I'm supposed to do, I seek out work when I run out. I have people who give me work whenever they can, because they like the job I do. one of the big dogs upstairs with our client wanted me full-time on his prokect--even if I was just sitting around doing nothing--because he likes how I work. I've never had people complain about my work that I know of, and definately not to me. I handle the QC for the whole team, and my boss-type coworker here didn't want me to go to Clarion because she doesn't have anyone to do those parts of my job, at least not as well as I do. I don't over charge projects, I don't over charge overhead, I deserve to be moved up.

It's just...I feel guilty asking this. I feel greedy. I'm making plenty of money. I don't *need* more money. But I want more money. Well, that's not quite right. I want the same amount of money as the rest of the people here with the same education and the same experience. I don't want to be penalized because I was offically admin for 9 months. It isn't fair. I did the same work I do now, only I did less, because I had to help run the whole place. Plenty of RAs do admin work as part of their general duties. Mine just had more Admin than other duties. And there's not a single one of the RAs--Research *Associates* now--doing stuff that I wouldn't be able to do if I had to, or if I'd started out in that position. So I deserve to be making an equal amount of money. Right?

(no subject)

Okay, well, that went well enough, I think.
She doesn't know. But she'll try and find out why.
And I just checked my time sheets, and I've been doing this work since before April 1st of 2000. Which is the cut off point, as that's how they measured years, basically--from review period to review period. so it means I have two years experience at this position, even if I didn't officially have this position. And I really should point out that penalizing people who come in to the company through an AA position is not a good idea. It tends to breed bitterness in their hearts and all. And it treats me as though I'm rising from a void. Which is one thing if I'm coming in off the street, but I'm not. I had 9 months experience talking to people. 9 months experience working out what the projects were, who ran them, who they reported to, what they did. This is not a void, this is a very solid basis for a good job farther down the line. I didn't love my job towards the end, but I have never denied that it was a very valuable job. And to say that I can't move up because I haven't been in this exact position for 2 years just dismisses it completely. Poof! 9 months of my life disappear. I was severly underpaid, did more than my share of work, and now I'm to be penalized because of that? It really doesn't seem fair, does it?
but it's out of my hands for the time being. I'll talk to her later, hopefully I won't have to pull out the above arguments, but if I do, at least I'll know where they all are.