I just need to blow off some steam.

It really irritates me and sometimes even aggrivates me when my boss says things to me about tiny little mistakes. Such as… there’s all these extra steps when it comes to the dispatch board. You can’t just drag a service order onto the dispatch board and assign it to the technician and expect the service order to mark itself as "scheduled"… even though on the board it shows as scheduled TP still wanted you to go inside the order, mark it as scheduled and mark the date. It really is a stupid process. I think its more of something that wasn’t throught through when they compiled the software. Anywho, so with all the different aspects of my job, she wants to whine about something. So she picked that!? There are so many times when she or Marcelo forget to even make the service order for a customer! She schedules all ass backwards sometimes, having the guys run from one area of LA to another and then back. There are times she forgets A LOT of things. She’s always taking off time too.

The last few weeks I have been sick. Going to the doctors and the ER for it. And I feel shes upset with me for being sick. Just by the way she talks to me now. And to me it’s like… I’m here at 7:30 AM, which is an hour before I officially start, and I start working then. I never ask to be paid for that extra hour. Because it’s my personal choice. They don’t ask it of me… there was a point where it became "expected" of me though. They took it for granted. They didn’t even appreciate it. So I started coming in at 8:30 on the dot. Man, she didn’t like that. But what was she going to say to me? "Oh, I want you in here 15 minutes early!" – then she would have to legally pay me for it…

My point is: I’ve been here over a year. I make next to nothing. The job I do is a$ 15+ an hour job. I get paid $11. I bearly pass my bills! I can’t even afford a car on my salary. But they rub their vacations in my face and tell me I should take one and I’m sitting there wanting to say "with what money? I don’t make enough to take a bloody vacation!". Yet I am so worried about asking for a raise. I don’t really know why. For some reason I don’t feel I am entitled to it. I think this economic depression has sent people, like me, into this state of fear. We depend on our jobs. No matter how bad they are. We need them to survive. So we take the crap from employers… otherwise we’re on the streets.

I have this list on my desk. Of everything I did when I first started here, to everything I do now. My list has about doubled. I’ve taken on much more responsibility.

Since I have no savings, I can’t afford to be ok with loosing my job. I just want one that will treat me decently. A job that will pay me for the work I do. Not one thats just out to screw someone. I used to love my job. I thought I was being treated fairly. But as the months go on, it doesn’t seem that way.

I think my fear of asking for the raise is because my bosses will throw a few tiny reasons at me as to WHY they don’t feel I am eligible for one. The same reason my boss gave me when she gave me my meager raise. When I was hired, I asked for WAY less than what the job entailed, because I didn’t know everything they needed me to know when I first came on. When they gave me my $1 raise my boss said "We really feel the position deserves more but you’re not working up to the full standard yet. And I understand that’s because your job has grown. We just want to make sure you have mastered it all". What ticks me off is… on all paperwork I am referred to as "receptionist" – Administaff paperwork and Insurance paperwork. But I do all the functions of an Executive Assistant. In house they refer to me as "the heart of the company" or "The Executive Assistant". Then why lie on the paperwork? It’s all very uncomfortable. Sometimes I want to move home. So I can find a new job and not worry about things like rent and the electric bill.

I really need to just grow a pair and ask for that raise. The worst they can say is "No"