Rules apply to some and not others

by Ymelda Munoz
(McAllen, Texas USA)

I had to perform the job of a vacant position for 8 months. When someone was hired she worked 1 month and took maternity leave and I had to do the job again. I approached the assistant program director regarding compensation for performing the job of 2 positions and was told that the budget and the agency have no specific monies to do this. However, 2 people had been compensated before and he stated he knew nothing about that. He approves it for them and 2 other persons that worked 1 1/2 months doing the duties of another department of 2 people that were out.

Response from Carl: Thanks Ymelda. Not knowing all the details I can only go by what you've mentioned and in general terms, certainly in this economy many companies do try to get more work done with fewer staff. Often what happens when a company lays off staff or has a large downsizing is that the remaining staff get paid the same money to do more work. That's pretty common.

In your case, perhaps they figure that the maternity leave will end, the person will come back and take the job back and they won't look at paying someone extra to do both jobs since it sets a bad precedent. I'm not sure why they would have paid other people more money to do extra work in the past since in my experience, this isn't the norm, otherwise they'd potentially be paying people for many cases where a staff member is away for an extended period ie. vacant position, maternity leave, long term disability, etc.

Carl