Season of Goodwill (not)

Work continues to rile me up – getting me in a mood that is hardly becoming of the festive season.  Yet another lengthy team meeting scheduled for tomorrow by my manager, where we “discuss” some issues – but really, in effect, there is absolutely no discussion since my manager makes the final decision on every single little thing – classic micro-managing.  So we don’t even need to have a meeting – an e-mail would suffice.  And on the penultimate day before the company shutdown next week – what an absolute waste of time.  I know I shall be checking out during this meeting, and imagine I won’t be the only one.  Stupid to have it right before everyone is out of the office for 10 days.  And then, on top of everything else, I have discovered that I am being severely underpaid for my position.  Entirely by accident, I was checking out open positions at my company and I came across a couple of postings for positions with my job title – and I decided to take a look at them.  They weren’t really open jobs, but were both a “notice of filing an application for permanent employment certification” – essentially a token effort to advertise the job to anyone when they want to bring in someone with a work visa.  No surprises, yet another Chinese or Indian is going to join our group...  But what is interesting is that this notice has to specify both the minimum requirements and annual salary for the position.  The minimum requirement is shockingly, only 3 years of experience with a Masters degree.  I’ve got over 5 times that!  Very, very depressing how much my career hasn’t advanced.  But what was even more distressing was the annual salary range specified.  I am, very much, at the bottom end of that range.  That means that (a) I’m being very underpaid for both my experience and expertise (at least relative to other people at my company), and (b) that I’ve been lied to on multiple occasions by my manager saying that I am being paid a competitive salary.  As you can imagine, I’m not happy.  Once again, I have to question if this job is worth it.  Something has to change next year or I don’t see myself staying.