It’s only fair to expect proper compensation for the hard work you do. It also makes sense to seek equal pay as the person who has the same responsibilities, experience, and skills. Therefore, seeing your company offer a higher salary to someone for the exact job you’ve been successfully doing might be frustrating.
A Vietnamese-American poet, author, and a professional UX writer, Kimberly Nguyen, went viral after she publicly expressed discontent with her company over such a situation. She saw a job listing for the exact position she was in but with a much bigger salary. Kimberly expressed her feelings to the company and Twitter. Not only that, she applied for the new vacancy at work.
Bored Panda got in touch with the writer and she was kind enough to answer a few of our questions. Scroll down to find her thoughts and the Tweets below.
People expect to be fairly compensated for the hard work they do, which is why they might not tolerate some of their employer’s actions
Image credits: Souvik Banerjee (not the actual photo)
This woman was not happy about the job listing her company put up, and she made sure to let them as well as people on the internet know
Image credits: knguyenpoetry
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Image credits: Artem Podrez (not the actual photo)
Statistics show that a surprising number of people don’t feel appreciated at work, not a lot of them receive raises or promotions as well
Kimberly was understandably disappointed about the situation. Everyone wants to be appreciated at their jobs, especially after working there long enough to prove their worth. That’s what made it even more irritating when the superiors claimed they couldn’t give her a raise yet were willing to offer a higher salary to someone new completely.
“I am a big believer in livable and fair wages,” she told Bored Panda. “I felt I needed to advocate for myself because no one was going to do it for me. I’ve been asking for a raise for months, and to see the range I wanted listed but not available to me made me really upset.”
Based in New York City, Kimberly works as a UX designer. She also writes poetry, which has helped her become even better at what she does for the company. “Being a poet has made me a really great UX writer. I have the instinct for the precision of language UX writing and poetry require. I’m good at distilling complex concepts into user-friendly language. And poetry thinks a lot about the human experience,” she said.
Her experience didn’t seem to be enough for the company to put her needs above those applying for the vacancy. Sadly, statistics show that roughly 40% of employed people don’t feel appreciated at work. In addition to that, according to Bankrate’s 2021 data, more than half of them (56%) haven’t received a raise or a promotion in the previous year.
Image credits: Alex Kotliarskyi (not the actual photo)
Some companies talk about certain values but fail to follow through with them
But it’s not all about the pay. In one of her Tweets, Kimberly said she doesn’t want to hear another peep of her company praising such values as diversity, equity, and inclusion. It’s important to practice what you preach, and she felt like the workplace had a chance to take a stand in the situation, which they did not use. As a matter of fact, less than a third of employees (27%) believe in their organization's values.
The writer revealed to Bored Panda that it wasn’t her first run-in with wage-related issues. “In 2019, I wrote an article for my college newspaper about how my college was using a legal loophole to avoid paying student workers the state minimum wage. My college ended up having to raise the wage.”
“I’m really hoping that something good for the collective comes out of this tweet, even if it was personally detrimental to me,” Kimberly added. Her Tweets covering the situation have created quite a buzz online; lots of people were disappointed to hear about the situation, and a number of them could sadly relate.
Kimberly provided more details about the situation
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Image credits: knguyenpoetry
Image credits: knguyenpoetry
Her actions didn’t go unnoticed as there was an emergency meeting called soon after
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Image credits: knguyenpoetry
The OP discussed the option of presenting another offer to the company with people in the comments
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She received support in her quest of applying for her own job
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Image credits: Karolina Grabowska (not the actual photo)
Lots of people shared their views and experiences in the comment section
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