I was promoted, but told I will be paid 17% less than the average for my new position. Instead they gave me a bunch of stock options, which I don’t care about. They said this was because of the current economic market and didn’t have the budget for it.
I am pissed. I am supposed to sit in meetings and lead projects with all these other dudes (I am a woman) and be paid less for it. On top of that my company is rubbing salt in the wound by making us all sigh a diversity and inclusion pledge. I am all for diversity and inclusion, but maybe … ACTUALLY DO IT instead of just pledging it.
I immediately sent out my resume and applied to several jobs because fuck this. But the more I think about it the more I think about how cushy this job is and how chill my manager and team is. I get unlimited PTO that is actually unlimited, we almost never get called when on call, I get to work on whatever I want and work whatever hours I feel like, plus it’s fully remote. My team has good rapport and I like working with them.
So here’s what I’m thinking, if I work for 83% of the pay I work 83% of the hours. So I am thinking of bringing this up with my manager and requesting that I am given 1 day off a week since that would be 80% of my current schedule. I value time off and getting to work on what I want over money, even if they are being sexist trash. I will accept their sexism at the rate of 3 day weekends every week lmao. I don’t want to fuck up things before I find another position though, so I’m not sure when to bring this up or if it’s even worth trying.
What’s average across similar positions in your metro area is less important than how your salary compares with other people in your company, with similar positions and experience. This can be extremely hard to compare, since many positions are slightly different, and people come with all kinds of different experience levels. But what you can do is talk to other comparable people about your and their compensation. In the US, this is not only protected by law, but if your company instructs you not to discuss compensation, they can be in trouble. Point being here, unless you are comparing your compensation to the compensation or similar positions in the same company, sexism cannot be shown to be the reason for your salary.
Care about those, they are part of your total compensation. In case you don’t know how stock options work, it means that you are allowed to buy a specified number of shares at the “strike price,” which is the price of the stock when the options were issued. Depending on how many of these you received, and how the company stock price performs in the future, stock options can be extremely valuable … or completely worthless. However, the fact that we’re talking about a publicly traded company means that you’re far less likely to run into trouble with my previous suggestion about discussing compensation.
Lmao, allowed to buy something as compensation
If you receive 100 options at a strike price of $10, and you exercise those options when the strike price is $20, you now have $2000 worth of stock. And such transactions are often handled all at once - exercise the options, and sell the acquired stock in the same trade. In the above example, those 100 options are then worth $1000 cash to you.
Of course, if the stock price declines below the strike price of the options, you wouldn’t exercise them. I believe you could sell the options themselves, maybe? But you would not get very much money for them in that case.
It’s 17% less than people in my company in the exact same role and position. I can see it on the pay scale they published themselves. Everyone agrees I deserve the average salary including my manager and our VP, I got fucked over. Thanks for showing up to tell me sexism isn’t real though and I just made it up.
I don’t care about them because it’s a start up and who knows when they will actually be worth anything, plus I have to vest them forever . They are worth $0