Woman Decides To Leave Her Job While Training A Newbie Who Doesn’t Know How To Do His Job Because He Is Being Paid More
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People working the same job in the same company might get different pay depending on their experience, skills and how long they have been there. It’s logical to assume that the one that has remained at the company longer and has more experience and skills is getting paid more.
Turns out, that is not always the case. Redditor Equallyraisin realized she was getting paid less than a newbie that she had to train and came to the internet to vent. People online were really supportive and in less than 12 hours, the post had already been upvoted over 36k times by those as exasperated at the unfairness as the OP herself.
More info: Reddit
Female machinist just found out that a new employee she was supposed to train was earning more at the job, having just entered the company, than her
Image credits: bandita (not the actual photo)
The Original Poster (OP) is a machinist who happens to be a woman and it is known that they are the minority in the profession. According to Zippia, there are over 330k machinists currently employed in the US and only 7.4 percent of them are women.
She recently found out that she was being paid less than a new person coming in that she had to train, which sounds bizarre, because first of all, the OP is the one training the new employee; she is higher in hierarchy, she has experience and knowledge about the job, but her work somehow is valued less.
When Bored Panda got in touch with Equallyraisin she told us that the trainee told her how much he made and that is how she found out. Understandably, she was shocked and infuriated.
She went to her supervisor and he promised to look into it but it has been a few days and the OP decided not to wait any longer
Image credits: Equallyraisin
Equallyraisin wasn’t going to stay silent and confronted her supervisor in a “respectful and objective way,” as she described it. The supervisor promised her to look into it, but after three days, the OP had heard no word about it.
She was not wasting time and after realizing the company didn’t want her to stay enough to give her a raise, the machinist found another job where they offered $5 more per hour. The woman is planning on putting in her two weeks’ notice after July 4th.
She has already found a new job with higher pay and is planning to give her two weeks’ notice on July 4th
She would have been fine with having the same wage as the trainee, but what bothered her was the company’s lack of initiative to solve the issue
That means they will have to find another person to train the new employee who, according to Equallyraisin, can’t tell an Allen wrench and a pipe wrench apart, which is essential knowledge to the job, and is scared of operating a forklift or a crane.
The thing is that if the supervisor had made sure she got her salary increased, she would have stayed. She wouldn’t have even minded getting the same pay as the newbie, which would have been 75 cents more than she gets now.
On top of that, the OP doesn’t think the new employee will last long, as he seems quite intimidated by the machines he should operate and lacks knowledge
Image source: Visitor7 (not the actual photo)
The machinist believes that the company won’t stand long without her and will be struggling greatly. In the comments, she said, “They’re going to lose an insane amount of money when I leave. I have kept us ahead of schedule since I’ve been there.”
She is also concerned about the new employee as he doesn’t look like the right person for the job, “Newbie watched me rotate a gearbox yesterday using a 10 ton crane and a jib crane and acted like I was Jesus Christ, said to me, ‘I don’t believe I’ll ever be able to do that, glad I have you here.’”
People in the comments were sharing their own experiences of not getting a fair wage and were happy that the OP quickly found something new
They also considered giving a notice generous and suggested taking those two weeks off before starting a new job
People in the comments were quite appalled that this woman was underpaid and that the company wasn’t doing anything to fix the situation, although quite a few of them related to her. They were happy that she managed to get a job with a significantly higher salary and were suggesting she not stay in the company any longer.
Redditors considered the OP giving two weeks’ notice and staying there for so long as being too generous. Many of them pointed out that she should take care of herself and take some rest before starting a new job.
However, the comments didn’t convince Equallyraisin to do it because she needs the money but otherwise she would have taken those two weeks off. Although, the OP isn’t convinced that the company will allow to work the full two weeks anyway because when someone handed in their two weeks notices previously, they were told to leave right away.
It’s hard to say why the OP was getting paid less, but seeing as she introduced herself as a female machinist, it may have something to do with her gender
It seems the OP is quite an important employee and it’s hard to find an explanation for why a new person coming in would be paid more than her. One of the things that comes to mind is the gender pay gap and women not being recognized in male-dominant professions, as the story starts with the OP introducing herself as a female machinist.
The OP confirmed that she absolutely thinks that she is paid less only because she is a woman. She told us, “Because I am a very hard worker, and I can think of no reason why.”
According to Payscale, when a man and a woman have the same job and qualifications, for every dollar that a man earns, a woman is paid 99 cents. In general, women earn 82 cents for every dollar a man does because female-dominated professions are paid less.
It is quite possible as the gender pay gap is still an issue and it is harder for women to acquire recognition in male-dominated industries
The OP and her trainee are in the same industry and she has more qualifications and responsibilities at the job, but is paid less, which contributes to the gender pay gap, but fortunately she was able to find a solution.
Do you think the female machinist was paid less because of her gender? Have you ever realized you were being paid less than your colleagues at the same job or when you had a higher position? Let us know your thoughts and tell us about your experiences in the comments.
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Who can argue with this move? Paying incoming people more than established people is 100% recipe for disaster. I've been through this and there is no faster way to lose experienced personnel than to pull BS like this.
There's nothing wrong per se with paying new people the going rate but have the decency to revisit and readjust your existing employees' pay from time to time. More so, when an employee comes to you pointing out that some newbie is making more... fix it!
Load More Replies...
I'm a woman that's been working in IT fields for 20+ years, and worked in Application Support for the past 5 years, got my first raise at the job just last year. Recently they started hiring people on for more than I was getting paid evem after the raise I received last year. I know you gotta get people in, but pay your current people what they're worth. I ended up engaging in conversation with a tech recruiter on LinkedIn for a job about 40 minutes from my house. Ended up getting the job and being paid nearly $20k more than I was at the other job, plus great benefits and a yearly bonus. I'm back doing all kinds of IT work but super happy about it. It's nice to be paid what you're actually worth, especially as a woman in a mostly male dominated field.
I've been in this position before. Garbage like this is why employers don't want people talking about their pay. I've literally been stuck training people who were making 20-30% more.
This does happen a lot. Wages of employees stagnate, or don't increase by much over time. New people get hired on at the same pay or more than the current employees. I've seen the "well they have experience" excuse as a reason, and quite often my employer has corrected disparities somewhat when it gets around to adjusting everyone's wages.
Load More Replies...
I know somehow the feeling, even not exactly from the perspective of payment, but that of being a woman-in-the-men'-world. Living in a western-european country, there are strict hourly payments laws for different professions, levels of experience and so on. There is a legal minimum, which usually covers a person's necessities with letting him/her even spare. Companies never can go below, but depending of how wanted is your profession, they can "sky-rocketing" with wages. Even there are minimum-maximum stats for single cities calculated in different professions, so everybody can know, how much his/her workforce worth. Is not the issue of being paid less, because you are a woman, because your male colleague with the very same education/experience/position is paid the same. More is to really enter the men' world. I'm a chef. It took me years to get rid of gardemanger position, and to convince my actual kitchen-chef, that although I'm a woman, I have 0 talent in patisserie. Give me meat! :D
While I agree that she should be paid more than a person she is training, it's not his fault. Also, it usually takes more than 2 days to secure a pay raise to someone. Finally, she asked for too little: 0,75c increase. Much better for her to go to another job.
Her boss should have gotten back to her and let her know the status of her inquiry, either we're working on getting you a raise or no, we can't. Let's all act like adults and be professional.
Load More Replies...
Also someone which a college degree that taught them nothing about the job they are hired for will be paid more than someone who knows more than everyone else added together but who learned it all on the job. It's insulting.
As a now-retired ASE Automotive Master Tech, I have dealt with this my entire career. It all boils down to them being willing to pay whatever it takes to get a new body onboard but never considering the skilled people they already have. In every instance, this occurred I had a new job lined up within hours at higher pay. If they did not meet my demand to raise me above the new guy's pay immediately at that point, I quit ON THE SPOT, even leaving unfinished repairs. I have ZERO tolerance for that nonsense.
Didn't go to work/phoned in (to the company) saying they won't be there. "Calling out" is a U.S. term for phoning the place of work to say you won't be there (for whatever reason).
Load More Replies...
Who can argue with this move? Paying incoming people more than established people is 100% recipe for disaster. I've been through this and there is no faster way to lose experienced personnel than to pull BS like this.
There's nothing wrong per se with paying new people the going rate but have the decency to revisit and readjust your existing employees' pay from time to time. More so, when an employee comes to you pointing out that some newbie is making more... fix it!
Load More Replies... I'm a woman that's been working in IT fields for 20+ years, and worked in Application Support for the past 5 years, got my first raise at the job just last year. Recently they started hiring people on for more than I was getting paid evem after the raise I received last year. I know you gotta get people in, but pay your current people what they're worth. I ended up engaging in conversation with a tech recruiter on LinkedIn for a job about 40 minutes from my house. Ended up getting the job and being paid nearly $20k more than I was at the other job, plus great benefits and a yearly bonus. I'm back doing all kinds of IT work but super happy about it. It's nice to be paid what you're actually worth, especially as a woman in a mostly male dominated field.
I've been in this position before. Garbage like this is why employers don't want people talking about their pay. I've literally been stuck training people who were making 20-30% more.
This does happen a lot. Wages of employees stagnate, or don't increase by much over time. New people get hired on at the same pay or more than the current employees. I've seen the "well they have experience" excuse as a reason, and quite often my employer has corrected disparities somewhat when it gets around to adjusting everyone's wages.
Load More Replies... I know somehow the feeling, even not exactly from the perspective of payment, but that of being a woman-in-the-men'-world. Living in a western-european country, there are strict hourly payments laws for different professions, levels of experience and so on. There is a legal minimum, which usually covers a person's necessities with letting him/her even spare. Companies never can go below, but depending of how wanted is your profession, they can "sky-rocketing" with wages. Even there are minimum-maximum stats for single cities calculated in different professions, so everybody can know, how much his/her workforce worth. Is not the issue of being paid less, because you are a woman, because your male colleague with the very same education/experience/position is paid the same. More is to really enter the men' world. I'm a chef. It took me years to get rid of gardemanger position, and to convince my actual kitchen-chef, that although I'm a woman, I have 0 talent in patisserie. Give me meat! :D
While I agree that she should be paid more than a person she is training, it's not his fault. Also, it usually takes more than 2 days to secure a pay raise to someone. Finally, she asked for too little: 0,75c increase. Much better for her to go to another job.
Her boss should have gotten back to her and let her know the status of her inquiry, either we're working on getting you a raise or no, we can't. Let's all act like adults and be professional.
Load More Replies... Also someone which a college degree that taught them nothing about the job they are hired for will be paid more than someone who knows more than everyone else added together but who learned it all on the job. It's insulting.
As a now-retired ASE Automotive Master Tech, I have dealt with this my entire career. It all boils down to them being willing to pay whatever it takes to get a new body onboard but never considering the skilled people they already have. In every instance, this occurred I had a new job lined up within hours at higher pay. If they did not meet my demand to raise me above the new guy's pay immediately at that point, I quit ON THE SPOT, even leaving unfinished repairs. I have ZERO tolerance for that nonsense.
Didn't go to work/phoned in (to the company) saying they won't be there. "Calling out" is a U.S. term for phoning the place of work to say you won't be there (for whatever reason).
Load More Replies... 
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