This IT staffer is hoping his pay will go up after his annual review, but that depends on his manager actually doing the review, reports a pilot fish in a position to watch the story unfold.

"He finally got his review -- with the pay increase -- six weeks after the official deadline," fish says. "He received four weeks of retroactive pay at the higher level.

"When he went to question Payroll and HR about the missing two weeks, the mistake was identified and he received an additional week of retroactive pay at the higher level. That final missing week of additional pay was not received."

IT guy keeps pushing, and eventually the cause is tracked down. According to Payroll and HR, the review forms incorrectly list his anniversary date as a week later than it actually is, and his manager will have to push through the correction to the form.

So IT guy goes to his manager, who promises to correct the problem.

A month goes by, and that last week of retroactive pay is still missing. IT guy contacts HR again, which contacts the manager for the correction.

It's not until yet another month goes by -- and after repeated requests by both the employee and HR -- that the paperwork is finally completed, Payroll processes the paperwork, and the employee finally gets his missing retroactive pay.

"The employee never received an apology from his manager for the delay," says fish. "Full retroactive pay -- and for that matter, a timely annual review -- is company policy, so he wasn't asking for anything special.

"Sometime later, after the employee left the company, the manager commented to me that the delay was intentional -- he didn't like the employee's attitude or that he contacted HR to resolve the issue."

Sharky won't call HR, but I'd really like to see that true tale of IT life you haven't sent me. Email your story to me at sharky@computerworld.com. You can also comment on today's tale at Sharky's Google+ community, and read thousands of great old tales in the Sharkives.

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