I work in a tech start up with constant changes and tons of turnover. For additional context, I am one of the longest standing employees and I’ve been with the company for about a year.
A major benefit to troopin’ it in the start up trenches is that I have already been promoted — which is awesome.
However, due to the turnover and also because I’m a top performer I was somehow sucked into dueling between my old role and my new one — aka more work for less money.
I am a team player and don’t always mind the opportunity for extra commissions but I also care very much about maintaining my exemplary performance which has already began to suffer.
As many know, start up culture does come with its own set of challenges. In this case, on top of staying on top of my leads and maintaining the same sales cycle that I’ve already been doing, I have been getting a ton of assignments in my new role without any form of training what so ever.
I am super self sufficient so I don’t mind doing a bit of my own leg work, the problem is that between both roles, all my tasks are already taking up my personal time outside business hours, so there is really no time for self development.
To follow up with more downfalls, there is a general lack of communication between departments, my direct team has not been supplying sufficient support for me to make a full transition if I wanted to, and they did give me a 10% pay increase but it’s still $10k short of the average base for my position.
I had asked for more money before starting the position but was turned down because they claimed I lacked experience. In reality I have done this exact role before— only in a different industry than Saas.
I like my job and agree that I have a lot to learn still, so my boss and I negotiated that my bonus structure would make up for the salary gap (corny, I know) & they asked me to just let them crunch some numbers. Full disclosure, it has been over a month and I am still waiting on those numbers.
I understand that with the good comes the bad and my boss has been incredibly busy, and also had some time off recently so they weren’t even in the office, but I pretty much got to my boiling point today and unloaded it all on my boss & let’s just say it got a little heated.
I was definitely assertive when making my points, and there were a few points we touched on that aren’t mentioned in the post for the sake of time and space.
However, I kept getting more fired up as the conversation continued because at some of the points I made, my boss would came back at me almost equally as charged with a defense & ended up making a few comments that provoked me to be more reactive than I had planned. (Meaning his delivery wasn’t all that great either)
By the end of the conversation we came to an understanding and some of my main concerns are being immediately addressed with a road map to resolute the other issues mentioned. I also want to make a note that I really do like my job, my role(s), and don’t care to leave at this point if it’s not absolutely necessary.
Everything I addressed was completely valid but my female colleague told me that I was rude and should apologize for my delivery. On the contrary, a male colleague told me I have nothing to be sorry for and that men dhave similar conversations all the time and get rewarded or labeled as “assertive”, whereas women get labeled as “bitchy” or “rude”.
Now I am unsure if I should be sorry or not. Of course I don’t want to be overtly rude to my boss, and definitely don’t want bad blood, but my arguments were all valid and in the end it seems like I am getting what I want which is more money, more training, and more support from my team.
Should I apologize?
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