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![\"susan](\"\/images\/butler.jpg\")
<\/p>\nDear Just Rewards,<\/p>\n
Good luck on your job search. In your preparation, I would suggest that you adequately demonstrate on your resume the roles and responsibilities you have had in your current company–and that you will be able to get a recommendation letter that will support these talents and responsibilities. If they are unable to provide a letter, I would suggest that you understand why this is a problem.<\/p>\n
In preparing for you new career, I would suggest you determine what your goals are, what positions best reflect your abilities and potential, the career opportunities you are looking for, and what industry will be able to use your skills and interests the best, before you start sending out resumes. This will help you to focus your resume and your cover letter. And who do you know that will help you get the position of your dreams? I could look for someone who will be able to open doors for you and provide you feedback on your documents.<\/p>\n
Additionally, I would suggest that you discuss these career related items in your interview. One of my secrets is: Ask for what you want. And then, once you have your position, I would begin conversations with your supervisor about career opportunities (i.e., length of time, positions\/roles necessary to demonstrate your capabilities).<\/p>\n
Regards,<\/p>\n
Susan Bulkeley Butler Dear Office-Politics (Susan),<\/p>\n I thought your tips on job searching were very helpful and always good to hear. However, I am still not quite sure how to navigate the delicate situation of bosses\/companies that pile more and more on me with no extra compensation. <\/p>\n I am uncertain as to how I could address\/investigate this issue with a company in an interview without sounding like a complainer or a slacker, or a bad apple…none of which I actually am. <\/p>\n I am guessing that this is the kind of thing no company representative in their right mind would talk about with a potential new employee, even if they do it to their employees regularly. And I don’t think I could ask current employees at the company I am applying for without either receiving misrepresentation or putting my opportunity for a position there in jeopardy. Companies always want to give the impression that they are a wonderful organization and a great place to work, even when they are not. I discovered that my employer vastly misrepresented several things in the interview. With all of that in mind, I am now in a place where my hard work-ethic has been greatly abused. I don’t ever want to have this happen again. <\/p>\n So, with the idea in mind that no company will probably let on that excessive work-dumping without compensation occurs, even if it is a common practice there, I guess my question comes down to this: How do I protect myself in my next job, or the job after that, to keep this from happening again? I am sure it must be related to the fact that I was WILLING to do 150% and 200% when other people were doing 30% (I was trying to get ahead and thought that proving myself valuable would do it). But it is not that I didn’t request compensation…I did many times. They are always crying poor (which is actually another issue — poor management of the business and gross mismanagement of money — they have a few high level executive types on staff who don’t actually come in to the office more than for a few hours every few months. They don’t telecommute or produce anything at all. They have been there for a long time though… so other people are now doing their actual jobs\/work, but they are still being paid for it anyway. Very hard on company morale. A lot of angry people here). <\/p>\n Also, I honestly think my boss is intimidated by me. When I tried to give her estimates of how operations would progress in a project she had assigned me, she yelled at me and said I needed to “get some perspective” and told me “Out of all the places I have ever worked, you are the most DIFFICULT person I have EVER worked with” because she didn’t like the fact that work takes time and I couldn’t magically create 60 hours of work in 40 hours… even though I was already doing what used to take 4 other people (who, granted, didn’t work to potential) 160 hours of work before she tacked on this project. She did LOVE, however, the girl before me who acted like her best buddy and talked about shoes and purses and fashion with her all day. That girl got EVERYTHING she wanted, but never really did much actual work at all. <\/p>\n My boss constantly hands all the new labor to me, and has redistributed labor from 4 employees that were “downsized” all to me, while letting another co-worker, who isn’t working up to potential, take on nothing new. When I have suggested distributions of labor that would allow us to be more productive, she always blows me off and dumps it all on me anyway. There is no real upper management above her… just the president, who is of retirement age and mostly absentee now. <\/p>\n So I recognize that I am intelligent and hyper-productive, but there has to be a line drawn somewhere. If they won’t give me a raise, what power do I have to protect myself? Is there some way I can refuse to take on all this extra stuff unless they pay me? Some nice “political” way of dealing with that and getting what I want? If I won’t be paid, I don’t want to take on any more responsibilities. Especially if they have made it clear they won’t pay me (ever) no matter how far I “advance” or how much I take on. I am afraid that if I try to say “no” to their dumping, they will claim that I refused to do my work — when I was actually already doing the work of four people! EEEK! <\/p>\n If there is no safe way to refuse, how do I need to change my behavior to discourage dumping while still showing them how valuable I am. This is what I am really afraid of and confused by. I don’t know how to work with that\/around that. I find it quite baffling. Thanks!! And thanks for keeping my anonymity… it would be very embarrassing for my company (and thus bad for me) if people found out how they ran their ship. <\/p>\n Look forward to your advice.<\/p>\n Just Rewards<\/p>\n OFFICE-POLITICS REPLY BY SUSAN BULKELEY BUTLER<\/strong> Dear Just Rewards,<\/p>\n This is such an interesting situation and here are my thoughts.<\/p>\n I know some of this is repetitive from before, but I think logically and you are asking how NOT to get in the same position again.<\/p>\n When you are interviewing for a new career at another company, I would suggest the following:<\/p>\n 1. Create your resume in a way that will support the position that you want (the one that you think you are doing but not getting paid for). We all have to be professional in how we handle these types of experiences. My mentor told me that we need to be able to get along with all types of people. If this is an untenable situation, perhaps it is time to \u201cget off of this train\u201d and get on to another one. And it\u2019s important to not impair getting a positive letter of reference if you decide to leave. <\/p>\n I am interested in your feedback.<\/p>\n Regards,<\/p>\n Susan<\/p>\n Susan Bulkeley Butler Dear Office Politics, What is your opinion of how best to handle this situation: A company I have been working for offers me a “promotion” in work duties with no job title change and no salary change. For example, I went from being an admin. assistant to managing an entire department that is critical to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climbing-the-ladder","category-office-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAuthor, Become the CEO of You, Inc.<\/a>
\nYour Virtual Mentor<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
\n 2. Identify the types of organizations that you believe you want to work for and has such a position. You need to do research before the interview
\n 3. During the interview, you should ask questions about the roles and responsibilities for the position; the career paths, salary increases, etc. within the organization.. (Note: we all have to work hard, and we need to take on new responsibilities in order to demonstrate that we can handle the responsibilities of the position that we want. If these are additional responsibilities, then you need to find someone to delegate your current responsibilities to or ask for help in prioritizing what is already on your plate. The new responsibilities are hopefully getting you ready for a new position which would perhaps mean more money, but in your current situation there was no money and only more responsibilities.)
\n 4. Talk to others in the organization about their roles\/responsibilities, etc., but not necessarily bring up the issue that you have experienced. There are ways to ask questions that might provide insights about the culture of the organization and how they treat their people. <\/p>\n
\nAuthor, Become the CEO of You, Inc.<\/a>
\nYour Virtual Mentor<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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