I've worked in a small seaside village shop for almost 12 years now. We do split shifts as shop is open 14 hours a day so I've always had evenings and weekend shifts - the ones no one else wants!
A few years back I asked for extra work as my son was leaving education so I needed the income to make up for not having tax credits. My boss said there was no extra work so I started doing cleaning around my shop hours to make it up to full time work.
The last 18 months or so since covid it's been such hard going. The amount of work we have to do has massively increased, especially during the summer months, we've been short staffed and all working flat out but she's not bothered to find extra staff as that would be more money. We had 2 staff members leave so they were replaced.
So out of us 3 original members of staff 2 handed their notice in so I've done the same as I can earn more and work less doing the cleaning.
My boss is abit knocked for 6 as we've all been there for years but we've all said it's too much. We've all been on minimum wage since day one so I said that my reasons for leaving was it was too much work and I can get work elsewhere for more money. So she said she understood but couldn't match what I can earn elsewhere and that workload has increased because of us being short staffed.... She hasn't actually tried to get anyone extra so I've ended up doing several shifts totally alone during our peak time of our busiest summer ever which is unacceptable. Often finishing much later than I'm paid for with no thanks.
That's not even getting into not having a break during 7.5 or 9.5 hour shifts, not being able to take annual leave as there's no one to cover... That's another thread I've already done!
So now she suddenly has 3 more positions to fill as we've all burnt ourselves out. At a time when everywhere is short staffed but the busiest time is over til next year so what does she do... Give us a pay raise.
At first I was like wow.. That's great thanks..
But now I feel angry and a bit insulted that she's done that just to get new staff in! She knows no one will work for minimum wage at the moment and there are jobs galore so she's paying more to entice them in... While meanwhile we are all hobbling and crawling out the door totally exhausted having worked ourselves to bits for years for the smallest amount she could get away with paying us.
Am I being unreasonable to be angry about this?
I mentioned the pay raise to her and she said oh it's that time of year again... No its not! We've never had a pay raise other than keeping in line with minimum wage going up. It's not a huge rise but definitely enough to make you feel a bit more appreciated.