I had an employee recently come to me and say that he wanted his title changed to "VMware Administrator" and that he deserved a 35% increase in pay. We are a small shop and his job is about 60% PC technician, 20% network admin and 20% server admin. We have 2 ESX servers and about 10 VMs. VMware administration is about 10% of his job. He looked at me like I was crazy when I told him that if he wanted to be a VMware specialist, he probably needed to find a job at a larger company that could afford to let him be a specialist, and that at *this* company, the role I needed was the role he holds, and that he is fairly compensated for this role. I then showed him the competitive salary information for our area for his role and that he is above the midpoint for similar jobs.
He did not understand the sad truth of corporate salaries today: It no longer matters how long you have been with the company, or how long it has been since you last had a raise - the only thing that matters is what is on your job description and what other companies are willing to pay for that role in your area. If you want a raise, then you have to get your job description changed to represent a larger scope of responsibility and a role that is worth more money. My employee was on the right track - he wanted to change his job title - but he failed to understand that it isn't the title - it is the job description and the scope of the role that matters.
Corporate life sucks. We are all replaceable, and we are only worth whatever it would take to replace us with some poor, unemployed worker that would take anything as long as it provides benefits and pay better than COBRA and unemployment.
