#underpaid

If you think you’re being underpaid, go test that theory in the job market. I’m serious. There’s no better way to either confirm that theory or learn you need to revise it than putting your resume out there and seeing how the market votes.

I’d recommend that everyone do this at least every couple of years. Especially since for most people, they’re going to see their largest salary increases by moving to a different employer. The days of staying at the same company for years and years while hoping you’re one of the seemingly random people selected for elevation are long over. I’d tell anyone graduating from college today, “Don’t plan on staying at the same employer more than 3 or 4 years. 5 years max. Otherwise be OK with meager annual raises that barely, if at all, keep up with inflation. If you want to keep your salary growing you either have to get promoted or leave. If those promotions aren’t regularly happening every 3 or 4 years then you’ve been indirectly notified what your employer thinks about your work and your future at that company.”

Bumped from @e6+1m3msfzc4.

Serious question for California employees only: How are you guys surviving on these McDonald’s-level wages?

With rent, mortgages, groceries, gas, insurance and everything else costing what it does in California, I genuinely don’t understand how some of these salaries are supposed to be enough.

I’m especially curious about people making around $50k–$70k a year. Are you living with family, splitting rent, working a second job, or just barely getting by?

California responses only please. I’m not interested in hearing how $60k is “great money” in Mississippi, Oklahoma, or some random low-cost state. I’m specifically asking how people make it work in California.

After working at many other companies and now working at WF I can say this bank is super cheap. They basically want you to do it all for nothing. Thoughts?

Just saying. I am angered.

To fellow coworkers, don't be so loyal you change the equation for Oracle for free. You can only pick two and not the other. Good, Fast, Cheap. Oracle very clearly picks fast and cheap and they expect you to work extra to add the Good. You get what you pay for Oracle. Coworkers don't give them extra so they don't have to slow down or pay people more.

Some will say it’s not real. How dare people work for pay.

They keep asking me to do more significant projects, while telling me how my last work output was poor.

The CEO has aged 10 years in just 18 months. Reminding us that the psychopath, is the person 2 levels up. Don’t allow them to break you.

We can do this, despite being under paid and a complete disregard for gratitude.

Why do I have to watch a recent college grad fast-track PepsiCo re-leveling all while I’ve exceeded my objectives for the twelve years I’ve worked here, yet there’s no budget for me to get the raise I was “promised” for the last five years? Make it make sense.

If you ever feel you where
a)Ill-treated
b)Under-Payed
c)Not-Promoted
d)Your salaries remained stagnant but an H1B employer received higher salary
e)You weren’t promoted while a team consists of more H1 leaders and subsequent H1B promotions
f)Abuse by H1 employers to American protected workers (Citizens, Residents and asylum seekers)
g)A company unfairly hired more H1Bs

Report this to the below link
https://tips.uscis.gov/
Include below details to the fullest:

• Managers full Name
• Managers exact title
• H1 Employees who received promotions or had their H1s filed (if you find their LCAs pin them too)
• H1 Employees who had their PERMs applied while you were discriminated in your team
• Your Directors name who initiated PERM

Include all these details and submit the petition.
Never limit your details. Fellow Patriots if you feel you faced the abuse and discrimination report immediately. Investigation awaiting !

They are paying new hires 6-7 dollars more per hour with zero electronics experience compared to current Honeywell techs that have been there 20-30 years . Sad new hires with zero electronics background are starting out a tech 4 pay. Terrible for morale and leadership is always demanding more revenue and they still need more revenue.

This is messed up if true.

A senior well respected technical engineer who I look up to recently told me he hasn’t had a meaningful raise in more than 10 years. He is late career but not beyond normal retirement age. Is this normal!

I've started thinking my below market salary might actually be protecting my job. That's a pretty depressing thing to feel grateful for.

I've been looking around, and I realized should be paid more for the work I'm doing with my experience. I thought this place was one of the better payers. Was I wrong?

Nothing else to add. Extract everything from the worker. Shame.

Helped us realized the amount of underpaying is criminal. Talk about your wages, everybody. You'll be shocked how many of you are getting robbed.

Key Signs to Leave
Chronic Burnout: You feel totally exhausted even after a full weekend or a vacation.
Constant Dread: You experience deep anxiety or the "Sunday Scaries" on a regular basis.
Toxic Culture: The workplace involves bullying, gossip, or a complete lack of psychological safety.
Bad Leadership: Your boss micromanages, demeans you, or blocks your basic needs.
No Growth: There are zero chances for promotions, new skills, or lateral moves.
Unfair Pay: Your salary is far below market value and requests for raises go ignored.
Value Mismatch: The company's core mission or actions conflict with your personal ethics.
Health Impacts: Work causes physical symptoms like headaches, stomach aches, or sleep loss.
Mental Check-Out: You no longer care about the quality of your work and just do the bare minimum.
Better Options Exist: You are qualified for and see realistic, healthier roles elsewhere.

I’ve never seen a CEO completely ruin a company faster than Clay has managed to. Gives up the board and exec team. Doesn’t address the massive pay discrepancy between the two companies when the better performing company is the one being underpaid, and now he lets the only Exec with brains/ba--s walk in Raines.

For decades, Edward Jones’ home office compensation and benefits have been well below average. 20% below-market salaries and bonuses; terrible health benefits; stingy PTO; a pathetic $500 401(k) match. Although there’s a heavily-trod path of young people passing through for a couple years just to get licensed before departing to greener pastures, the firm’s always managed to keep enough people aboard with stability, work/life balance, and other pleasantries. Now that the niceties have been dispensed with, and there’s creepy, grubby tinkering with partnership stakes, what’s left to attract and retain talent? Food days, balloons, accolades scrawled on construction paper with gold star stickers, and the other dog and pony show fluff don’t cut it. FAs and their clients, not to mention the rest of the world at large, are trading in money, not fairy dust. Management shouldn’t be surprised when existing and prospective home office talent turns out to be the same way.

By paying not Market rates and not giving raises or bonuses for many years reflects the
state of the company and its Management. This is not a good management and it will definitely will be working against the growth of the company.

This place, it's stress, having been on so many teams, underpaid for years & realizing my loyalty means nothing, my never make mistakes in the work means nothing. I'm a 43yo man literally at his desk in tears because I can't make ends meet.

I got a notice about student loan repayments - mine will go from previously $50/mo to $850/mo after the SAVE fiasco. I will no longer have money for food, if I pay all my other bills & rent. Forget ever buying a home, just at the cusp of being really able to save in life, now this. This place has fu---d me over financially for YEARS & I've been unable to get out from under it.

No kids, never arrested, no points on my license, excellent credit, did all the right things in life, no illicit substance use, almost never drink, only for this company to underpay, overwork, & sc--w me simply because our Indian CEO can and will ship my job abroad for a third of the cost. This arbitrage isn't what I signed-up for, I signed-up for a fair progressive career.

So here I am, crying at my desk at Hopkins, can't take a sick day because Qasim is a sociopath & I'm on 'a list' of people who use ssl (what the actual fu-k, it's disgusting). Come find me, maybe help push me off the 3rd floor parking deck later, I'm not that heavy.

You read that right. This place is the root of all of my life problems. I'm a loser & deserve what's coming.

About 18 months ago WF laid me off after a long 15-year run. Now, I get solicited for contractor roles about once or twice per month.

Wells Fargo: You can take your contract role and shove it up your a-s. I'm gainfully employed and have no desire to go back to your cesspit of despair.

It’s absolutely ridiculous that the phone queues have had a red alert almost daily for months now. Send another email about how we are the best place to work based off bogus surveys and more emails about record breaking profits while merit increase you’re lucky to see 2%. He-l they used to give us Amazon and door dash cards. Now it’s nothing .

It’s been a long month, how is everyone doing in their new role, with no extra pay? Or did you get extra pay?

There are more than 20 of us working together on a major project. Many of us are either away on business trips at the weekends conducting client testing or staying overnight at the factory for trial runs. The project manager has been promoted twice in the space of three years, whilst many other staff members have not even received a 3 per cent pay rise.

This is more or less just to vent, but I’m tired of the “do more with less” attitude here. I know I’m not the only one whose team has been expected to take on more work with less resources, make sense of vague information from leadership, all with no title changes or pay increases.
I’m categorized as a “high performer”, but I’m burning out and losing my will to care. I’m actively looking for a new job, but it’s a struggle to look for something on top of my workload. I don’t know if anyone else feels the same.

Next week is Culture Week, everyone! Get ready for the toxic leaders of one of the world's most contemptible, companies to gaslight their employees into thinking we have a culture that goes beyond mistreating people, devaluing them and underpaying them. You really can't make this sh-t up.

Help me understand how Saving that 1K, over a year will help Nike!!! , (Savings - over not giving that 2 percent average increment).

The cost of living is skyrocketing, and people can't afford to make ends meet on the penny-pinching wages you pay. You can do better.

Heard that teams are being limited on their AI spend due to extreme costs by some dev groups. Like $100 per month limit is what we were told, but don't know that for sure. Anybody else have more details on this shiz show?

Hahahahaha...AI is so great; let's get rid of people! Oh no, it costs too much; let's limit it but not hire anyone back! Eddie Jones should have just stuck with treating it's underpaid people nicely and letting everybody be happy the way things were before all this reimagined cr@p!

After eight years with the company, consistently good performance reviews, and earning my Series 7, I never expected to be living paycheck to paycheck. But with the pay scale failing to keep up with the rising cost of living, I have reached the point where I am putting my electric bill on a credit card.

I am seriously considering taking on a second job, and I am wondering how many other employees are already doing the same. What kind of side work have you found that fits around your Edward Jones schedule? Has management raised any concerns about outside employment?

It is frustrating to have the licenses, experience, and positive reviews, yet still struggle to cover basic household expenses. At what point does the company acknowledge that the current pay structure is not sustainable?

New name . Same horrible neglected products. The once proud data protection division is a shell of what it was and is mostly made up of the hangers on being replaced with the ngsa graduates who don't know any better and just want to get out to the field to them half your pay is the dream job and a massive raise. Many of the leaders are protected . Bainenl should go sniffing around there lots of dead wood and useless dead weight that if you fired the Monday hardly anyone one notice. Sad but true.

Push out the older, more expensive workers and bring in younger people at lower salaries might sound like a great idea, but there's a problem with that plan. The new hires are all about protecting their personal time and sticking to exactly what their job description says. They're not going to fill the gaps or do the extras that the veterans used to handle. And they'll leave as soon as something better comes along - as they should. When the experienced people are all gone, there won't be anyone left who knows how to keep things running.

I don't understand how they think they can pay bottom dollar and expect top performance. It makes no sense. But it seems to be logical to the id--ts in charge.

I've been job hunting for a while now, and I've gotten some offers, but nothing that matches what I make here. That's pretty concerning because Exxon hasn't been known for top-tier pay for years, yet the offers I'm getting are still noticeably lower. I knew the market had softened, but I didn't realize it was this bad.

to maintain the towers. The general contractor then hires cheap, underpaid, unsafe, and sometimes undocumented labor to maintain the towers. VZ knows this, but can claim ignorance (we hired E/// to maintain it, not our problem....). Willful ignorance on the part of VZ. Happening across the country.

https://wirelessestimator.com/articles/2026/verizons-move-on-carolina-west-wireless-gives-fcc-chairman-carr-a-clear-leverage-point-on-contractor-commitments/

Directly from the article:
Ericsson, which Verizon selected as a preferred supplier despite that company having eliminated its entire U.S. field services operation in October 2023 — laying off approximately 750 employees — has no self-performing crews and will subcontract the work it has been awarded. That subcontract market is where undocumented workers, misclassified 1099 labor, and suppressed safety standards are most concentrated.

Last year I was told the pension plan was underfunded by $1.5B. Will AT&T make an honorable effort to close that gap now that the employment is terminated for so many, or does the shortfall continue to be swept under the rug?

I think the number one thing that bothers me more than their delivery are their low a-s salaries

Tennessee is among the lowest-earning states for hourly pay in the U.S. The state ranks 44th out of 50 states and Washington, D.C. for average hourly earnings. Workers in Tennessee earn an average of $31.79 per hour. They work an average of 34.7 hours each week. The state's unemployment rate is 3.6%, which is below the national rate.

https://www.wsmv.com/2026/06/09/tennessee-among-lowest-earning-states-hourly-pay-us-federal-statistics-show/

Perfect timing for an employee survey

https://www.crn.com.au/news/2026/partners/dxc-technology-worker-speaks-out-against-underpayment

I wanted to share my experience working within the Belk IT department. I have been out of this position for some time, but from what I’ve learned, it hasn't changed and it has somehow gotten even worse. While store employees face their own set of challenges, the backend IT support structure is completely dysfunctional and treats its tech workers with an absolute lack of respect.

To start, the geographical territory assigned to a single IT field worker is massive and brutal, often matching the exact same coverage area as a Regional Vice President (RVP). Despite this massive responsibility, the compensation is insulting. The pay is so far below industry standards that it rivals fast-food wages. Because of the vast territory, you are forced to travel anywhere from 30 minutes to over 3 hours just to get to a location. This makes the role completely unsustainable for anyone with a family or anyone who values a healthy work-life balance.

Once you actually arrive at a store, the execution is a joke. Nine times out of ten, a field tech is forced to escalate an issue because our on-site capabilities are severely restricted. You are then left waiting for hours just to get a response from a clearly apathetic corporate support team or an offshore team that is incredibly difficult and tedious to communicate with. Furthermore, Belk’s Point of Sale (POS) systems are completely unreliable, and actual application support is virtually non-existent. As a result, the standard "fix" is to completely re-image the machine, forcing the tech to sit around waiting hours for the process to complete just so the store can finally use the register again. And don't even try to complain or share what you've noticed with your manager. They know what's up and will never care. Ever.

There is so much more dysfunction I could detail, but I want the store employees to know this. When you see an IT person walk into your building, understand that we are miserable too. The only motivation corporate provides is an empty "thank you" from someone who never even shows up to the Teams meetings. The managers shares it with us as if we are impressed by that, and as if verbal appreciation pays the bills during a time of massive inflation and a harsh economy. The only real thanks I needed was the final good riddance to this joke of a workplace.