Wednesday, February 01, 2006

I have a situation and I need some advice on how to handle it. Several months ago I was given a promotion which came with a raise and an incentive program for signing up new members. Jast after getting both of these I became ill and was out of work for two weeks. When I went back to work Erin became ill. I only missed two days of work the entire time she was sick and I always had someone to cover for me.
On my thrid day back to work my boss called to inform me that she would not be giving me the raise that went along with the promotion. Her reasoning was that I am a mother and have a family to take care of and can not devote myself fully to the club. This took me by surprise because the day she told me that I had chosen not to stay in the hospital over night with Erin (David stayed with her) so that I could be at work because there was no one to cover. (This is a decision I completely regret now.) Needless to say I was more than upset by her decision and the fact that she had only taken the raise away and not the promotion. She still expected me to do the same ammount of work and be paid at a lower rate. She did give me an increase but it was not what we had agreed upon. Unfortunantly none of this is in writing. We smoothed things out and I came to a place where I was satisfied by the amount of work compared to the amount of pay. The pro's of the job and the fact that I love the members was enough for me to get over all that had happened. I also cut my boss some slack because she had just started a new job and I knew she was under a lot of preasure.
Fast forward to today. Our incentive agreement was that I would recieve a bonus for every 25 members that were signed up. When we talked about it, I made sure to clarify if the members needed to be signed up by me or any employee and she said that they could be signed up by any employee as long as there were 25 sign ups. Yesterday we reached the magic number and I e-mailed her to let her know. The following is a copy of the e-mails btween us.

From Me: "Also, I wanted to let you know that we have now signed up 25 members! We were at 26 new sign ups as of yesterday."

Her Responce: "That's great news about the new members, I saw that the other day. the only problem is that the amount of cancellations and month to month non renewals
is keeping us from increasing...we are still at the same total.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks for everything"

My Responce: ".....Is the bonus still in effect?"

Her Responce: "Yes,
But we have to retain our members or the bonus doesn't make sense."



I have not responded to her last e-mail yet. I'm a little upset. She never mentioned anything about increasing the membership number by 25. She said we had to sign up 25 people. I understand that giving me a bonus when the revenue has not increased is probably not a wise business move for her, but she is the one who made the deal. Also, if those 25 members had not been signed up her membership would be even lower resulting in less income for her.
I am not a pushy person, but I do feel that when an agreement between to people is made (especially between an employer and an employee) the agreement should be kept.
I want to go forward in manner that lets her know I understand and even agree with her position and would be happy to have that as our agreement in the future but I feel like the agreement we made several months ago should be in effect for these 25 sign ups. What do you think? How would you handle it?

5 comments:

Kristen said...

Believe it or not, I hear about this kind of stuff happening where you work (the company you work for) all the time. (I've got several friends working there...)

Unfortunately, if she's the boss and there is nothing in writing, you're pretty much going to have to deal with whatever she'll give you. It's not right at all, and you have every reason to be frustrated and angry. I got really screwed by some Christians, and even though I REALLY, REALLY trust the people where I work now (all Christians there, too), I get EVERY STINKING THING in writing there. I save everything.

Sorry you're dealing with this. It's crappy.

Sandra said...

I'm sure part of the reason this happens often with this company is that they are franchises and you don't have to be all that business savy to open a franchise. You just have to have the money. That means that people with little or no experience managing people are left to run a business. I know I have no legar recourse, but I think I am going to e-mail her and state my case. In the end it will be her choice, but at least I will feel like I stood up for myself.

Kristen said...

That is definitely a good idea. I always feel better when I have taken a stand for what is right. You're not only standing up for yourself; you are also standing up for your coworkers.

aola said...

Levi said he would call her up and give her a good "talking to" if you wanted him to :)

Sandra said...

LOL Yes, I think a call from Levi would do the trick! I acctually e-mailed her one last time to confirm what our agreement had been. She replied saying that she was sorry there was confusion over the agreement and stated what she had meant. I said "okay now that I know what the agreement is I can work from there." In the end it wasn't worth getting into an arugment when it's my word against hers. It does mean no trip to Oklahoma which I'm pretty sad about, but I'll get over it.