tell us more, please ... is the other fellow also on a "grad school" track or is it assumed he will remain with the firm for some time ? ... did your employer know you were headed for grad school when you were placed in this job originally ? ... does the other fellow bring a more advanced degree than yours to the table ? ... or a degree from a (supposedly) better school ? ... how does the other fellow's portfolio compare to your own ? ... are you due for a review and a raise ? ... would that raise take you above the other fellow's compensation ?

there're a ton of reasons this disparity might exist ... some are reasonable ... some may not be reasonable.

my advice -- don't wait until you're asked to work some extra hours. in a very professional manner, ask for an appointment with your supervisor (or whoever sets compensation) and simply request a clarification ... explain what you know (or think you know) and let them know you're a little bothered by that knowledge ... don't be pushy or angry ... be inquisitive and tactful.

if the people you work for are even remotely sensible, they'll give you straight answers ... maybe even an adjustment.

In general, employers don't react well to things done in a competitive/comparative way, "Well, so-and-so's making this much and that's not fair". It makes them defensive.

Also, the grad school thing. To be honest, I'd probably just suck it up, because bosses don't like investing more money in people who aren't planning to stick around. But if you really can't hold it in, I think you should approach it in a "I'm not really getting paid enough to be working these sorts of hours" way, not in a, "He/She's getting paid more" way.

My fellow employee is not even an architect, this person is our receptionist, with a bachelors (which I have as well). My employer has known for 8 months that I will be attending grad school and I have been at this firm for about two years. This person has been here for four months and has very little experience at what they do (and it shows)

babs, your advice is good, although it always hard to bring things like this up tactfully. But thus is life.

personally, i would let it ride....

if you are going to be leaving in three months and you come knocking on the door for a raise, that will leave a bad taste in your former employers mouth once you are gone.

if you have worked there for 2+ years then you most likely have a good contact person and/or reference for the future. that right there is more valueable than a couple hundred or even a couple thousand dollars.

dont burn your bridges.

Personally, I wouldn't use a comparison between yourself and this other person. Each employee's condition of employment is distinct.

If you are extremely profitable for them right now they will remember it in the future for references/job/whatever. However if they really want you to come back they could give you a fat raise… over 3 months it works out to peanuts so it would only be a token of appreciation. I had my salary increased 40% a month before going back to school – “here have some money, don’t go back to school, we like you”.

Remember too, that receptionists are a different profession, and are paid to deal with a lot of shite that we (or at least I) would never even think of putting up with.

gravitas, i think it would not be worth it to make issue of this given you are leaving in three months. three months is not a very long time to an employer or in an employees work history. it could be seen as petty if you start complaining about something like this. leave gracefully.

I agree with the others - it's too short of a time period and you'd be SO MUCH better off leaving with a very strong reference than making waves 3 months before you leave. That reference is potentially worth thousands (and tens of thousands down the road) while getting, say, a 10% raise over the course of the next 12 weeks would amount to a grand total of perhaps $800 to $1150 depending on your current salary.

It's not clear exactly how much experience you have, but if you look at salary surveys - for example from the AIA or from your state's department of labor - you'll see that average salaries for professional staff (i.e. experienced interns and licensed architects) don't start to equal average salaries for clerical staff until the architect has 4 or 5 years or more of experience.

Interesting, thanks for the advice. I think I agree that it will most likely not be worth the monetary value in exchange for possibly disrupting a good reference before I leave. Still it's hard though, if you knew this person and the tasks they perform(or attempt to perform), it is a clear insult to be getting paid less, no matter the averages for clerical workers vs. intern architects.

Anyway, you guys are probably right, way better to keep the good reference than to risk it over a paltry sum. I'm probably better riding it out.

You could always quit and find a temp receptionist job for 3 months.

That's not too farfetched. There was a CAD guy in a large firm where I worked who quit in a huff one day and decided to go temp for awhile in order to get out of architecture. The firm was paying him $14 per hour as a CAD tech, but the temp place paid $20 per hour and one of the first places they wanted to send him was to a large architecture firm that was hiring people to archive (i.e. pack up, label, move to storage pod) years of old projects. He packed boxes for a couple weeks, making more than the interns and CAD people around him.

how did you find out anyways?

The guy is a loudmouth who is constantly talking. For an entire week he complained about salary and blabbed about his own.

i'll posit a decidedly different opinion. although 3 months is not a long period of time, you clearly feel that you deserve a raise, and you're leaving for grad school, not to a firm across the street.

anyone who would decide not to give you a good reference because you asked for a fair adjustment in compensation is taking advantage of you. plain as that.

if you like them, and they like you, nothing would be as petty as denying you your due, unless of course you've recently had a raise, which it doesn't sound like.

the additional compensation they would be paying you (what, maybe 10-15%?) probably won't make a difference to their bottom line if they're a medium-sized firm, especially for only three months. but that extra $1000-$1500 might just make the difference between ramen and super-ramen come grad school time.

i can't stand the idea that you should be scared of asking them because it might make *waves.* that's preposterous.

but what was said earlier about NOT comparing yourself to others is true. ask for it on your own merits, and your own merits alone.

$.02 delivered.

good luck.