WWYD: The Non-Salary Adjustment

Today in “WWYD,” a pay adjustment that didn’t happen:

I have awesome bosses who have been awesome enough to allow me to stay on part-time in my current job while going to University (I was full-time for two years before starting University three weeks ago).

During the decision-making process, I figured I would wait for them to bring up the issue of re-adjusting of my pay, according with the fewer hours I would be working (which — totally fine, can’t expect them to pay me the same for less work). It never came up.

Three weeks into my less-hours schedule, I am still being paid my full-time salary. I don’t know whether to say something to my boss or not — I’m afraid of getting someone at payroll in trouble. But at the same time, I don’t want to take advantage — they’re already being so great about everything! — L.

The thing that I did not read in this question is: “I’m afraid that if I bring this up, I’ll end up with a smaller paycheck, and I don’t want that!”

The thing that I did read is: “I don’t want to take advantage.”

So the answer is clear to me: Bring up the issue! It may be that your awesome, so-great-about-everything bosses want to continue to keep you at your full-time pay rate. Or they may decide they need to readjust your pay at another time depending on how they see things go. Or it might be a payroll mistake. Whatever it is, it sounds like you’d be okay with the outcome either way, so it won’t hurt to bring it up. It seems strange to not have talked about this during the discussion about cycling back your hours to part-time (because if you were going to get a pay cut, you should probably know what that number is going to be). If you don’t bring it up now, it might become an issue later, and if it is because someone in payroll made a mistake, that person is going to get found out anyway. So I’d say something now. It’s what you should do for people who have been so good to you.

Email me your WWYD experiences to me with “WWYD” in the subject line. See previous installments.

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