Wow, this is getting a lot of attention. I miss one day and I missed all kinds of stuff. I'm definately not against the turnout though.
Dug- I know that in my posts it looks like I'm the psychotic god admin that's all pissed and wants a raise. (Though I hope not that bad)
It's definately not like that when I'm here at work. Noone knows that I'm unhappy (except my wife of course, but that's from outside), I don't bitch to other people about the company or anything when we're not at the office, and I definately didn't make any demands or threats.
I did write a big e-mail to my boss concerning a lot of things. The money was a portion, of course, but that wouldn't have been an issue if they had just kicked any recognition towards me (like work every other Friday from home, or take a free day off after working all weekend). That's just the way they tend to reward anyone for whatever around here, so I felt that I wasn't being rewarded at all.
Another thing is that my boss and I have a very interesting relationship. I very rarely get in trouble, and she defends me nearly 100% if anything comes down from the higher powers. One thing that makes it interesting is that the two owners are family, and so is every person in upper management. So unless you're a part of the family, you're always fighting for recognition because they tend to throw each other rewards and kudos all the time. Also, there is WAY too much political BS for a company of this size that's all family (so as if playing politics will get you anywhere) which makes things strange. From day 1 I have played that game my own way which is by not kissing up and always being straight about what I think, I almost got fired twice by my old boss (of the family) because I refused to take the blame for a couple of things that were utterly his fault, but they wouldn't let him because they knew my potential if I wasn't micromanaged and reigned in so much. But playing it that way has got me now to where I'm respected for my opinions and knowledge, and I'm one of the few people that can get into a shouting match over something with an owner without fearing repercussions because they know that I don't do things to the company's detriment or that are too risky just to make someone happy.
The thing is, with my boss and I, we both know that there is this big game to get as much power (and then be left alone) as possible and then go do your own thing, so we go back and forth with that. I know a lot of the inner workings of the company from higher level meetings, and I also have a way to get my opinions into those meetings by talking to her beforehand. The reason that it was a letter vs. talking is that I'm just much more adept at putting my thoughts down with writing and being more specific and eloquent because I know I won't have to explain. Sometimes in just regular conversation I have to explain myself constantly and always rephrase things because I don't have the same train of thought as everyone else.
I know that was long, but basically, I'm not the pouty IT guy that runs around and grouches, (though I did do some of that before, I've straightened out since January *new boss).
I also documented all of my large accomplishments on paper and in my review and they are filed in my personnel file so they won't get overlooked if something comes to that.
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I'm also very aware of the IT problem of getting noticed when things go wrong, but I have sensed that they are afraid of it. Now that the webmaster is gone there isn't anyone that I could talk through most things on the phone (without spending way too much time) so there isn't much of a fallback. I also threatened to go on a week vacation (jokingly) the same week my boss is going (because she's good at routing stuff or sourcing someone to fix or find a way around things if I'm out), and was flat told no.
That did make me feel good.
Another thing that was brought up is that IT is not a revenue generator, but a cost center. I completely understand that. But the numbers show that IT is actually doing very good as far as budget is concerned.
Along with my salary we have a support contract with our ERP/POS vendor, and that plus work over and above the contract is about 50k/yr. The rest of the IT budget that I spend in a year is less than 100k, for all of the users here and 25+ stores.
It sounds like a lot, but it's an over 20m company, and we sell lots of gag gift type items (think Spencer's or Magic Man, etc.), and the average margin (counting ALL items, low and high margin ones) is somewhere in the neighborhood of 70-90% at any given time.
When you look at it that way, IT is really pretty cheap here, especially considering the infastructure I'm building in. Once I'm done with this year, we could probably support 400 users or so if we wanted to, and lose near any server without any big services dropping off. (A couple of exceptions, but for the most part)
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Geez, I type too much.
btw, she has read it and I'm still here, which is a good sign.
There has been a lot of stuff going on so it hasn't been discussed yet, but I don't have a bad feeling or anything, things seem pretty normal. (And when they aren't, it's obvious, this place is drama central)
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