More than rumors

Last week was the offer from Management for me to return to being the Help Desk trainer. This week, there was an email from the Site Manager hinting that raises may be in our future:

"I do not have a date as to when this will become a reality, however, we are very close."

Ever since our bonuses were taken away in April of 2003 and the salaries were frozen a month later, we were told that the situation was only temporary. The company was bought by another. The top management of that company changed. There have been a string of Site Managers and all have blown the same wind about getting bonuses back and salaries increased. Now, four years later, now that my salary has slipped against inflation to the point where I'm making what I was when I started, these are encouraging, very positive statements.

But I've heard it all before and all the sound and fury signified nothing

Today we received this email:

"I am pleased to announce that you will be seeing a bonus in your next pay check."

Sure, the statement "you will be seeing a bonus in your next paycheck" sounds pretty definitive but that paycheck is two weeks from now. I've been burned so many times before that I can't truly believe it until I see the numbers direct deposited to my account. And, even then, I have room to be skeptical. Is this bonus a one time payoff for all the crap we've been putting up with or is it the merit based quarterly bonuses we once had? Will this be a return to the $500 a quarter that we were getting four years ago?

Time will tell.