Bad Work Situation

[Guest guest]

I hope this won't be too long. I work 9:00am to 4:00 pm every

day at a company I have worked for for 22 years. I make lousy

wages, but have our health insurance, as my husband's place of

work does not offer benefits, so I'm kind of stuck there.

I recently asked for an upgrade

of my salary at my annual review, because I feel making only

a dollar an hour more than entry level is unfair. Also, our

cost of health insurance keeps going up, so every year I actually

bring home less. My boss (who dislikes me and treats me with no

respect, by the way) informed me that I do not warrant an upgrade

in pay because I don't work full time. (35 hours instead of 40).

First of all, that is untrue, since I know of part time people

there who have had very high increases in pay. Second of all, he

knows I cannot work full time because of my son. I have to get

him up and off to school in the morning. And also, we have a lot

of appointments at 5:00 pm for him. I even have to take a

family leave day off without pay every month for his psychiatrist

appt. I was forced into doing this because my boss did not like

me coming in later on those days. I know I need to go to human

resources to talk to them about this. Question - can they keep

my pay low because I have to work part time due to my son with

PDD and ASD. My greatest wish is that I could just walk out of

there and never go back, but I can't. We HAVE to have health

insurance and the extra money for groceries and Rx. I'm just

feeling kind of worhtless because I don't bring in enough money

to our household, and then I also feel bad leaving my son alone

each afternoon (he is 17 and used to it, but sometimes he gets

bored. Why aren't there any perfect jobs for parents like us?

Well, thanks for letting me vent.........got to go help clean

legos now.