Having just had my yearly appraisal with le boss, I came out with a huge question mark above my head. As much as our discussions are open, I still feel that stubbornness in him as I, a fellow Leo, also possess.
Actually, this very topic had been butchered to death earlier last year when my ex-coworker was making her own path through chaos...
How should one's salary be set? What is it based on exactly?
In all fairness, I do have to agree with the explanation of 100%- that if one's work capacity is at maximum 100%, as long as it doesn't go beyond that, it is perfectly acceptable to pile more jobscope-included work.
However, can it still be measured by that ruler if it expands outside of a jobscope, requiring more of your knowledge and expertise?
Work is 2-dimensional. It is as much quality as it is quantity.
Imagine an office building..
You have the receptionist who works 8 hours day doing what she always does- meet, greet, and phone calls. On the same floor, you have an IT guy on call for fixing hardware. Despite having completely different work schedules, the IT guy receives a higher salary. He works less, but his job requires more expertise. Fair enough.
One day, the receptionist was asked to help out the IT- apparently, she used to be a software engineer- because it was no longer a hardware issue. A job well done, except, now it had become a habit of the office to approach her for program failures or system glitches. Of course, she enjoyed helping people out and liked the challenge of fixing software, but it had become a routine. Yes, she was taking a good care of her receptionist duties, but now she had unknowingly taken on software engineering. Yes, she still works the 8 hours, but now her job had clearly stepped out of her agreed jobscope and the salary for that particular jobscope. It had clearly stepped out of the pre-determined knowledge level of expertise required of a receptionist. Then, should she be compensated for the use of her non-jobscope-related knowledge/expertise?
One day, the receptionist was asked to help out the IT- apparently, she used to be a software engineer- because it was no longer a hardware issue. A job well done, except, now it had become a habit of the office to approach her for program failures or system glitches. Of course, she enjoyed helping people out and liked the challenge of fixing software, but it had become a routine. Yes, she was taking a good care of her receptionist duties, but now she had unknowingly taken on software engineering. Yes, she still works the 8 hours, but now her job had clearly stepped out of her agreed jobscope and the salary for that particular jobscope. It had clearly stepped out of the pre-determined knowledge level of expertise required of a receptionist. Then, should she be compensated for the use of her non-jobscope-related knowledge/expertise?
Does a company expect to own the person- all of the person- when they hire? I sure hope not. In any case, life is how you tend to live it. You may agree and live with it, or you don't and move on. I haven't exactly figured out what to do at this point, but I hope that in enjoying my job, I don't have to feel under-valued. At least, I have to feel it's worth it.
(Life is like enjoying jellybeans. You can be picky or you can just put whatever you grab into your mouth. I, for one, intend to see what I'm eating.)