A few years back, I was alid off from a fairly well-paying job, making something like $75,000/yr. I was then unemployed for over a year, and when I finally found a new job, it was for much less than I'd been making. Namely, $18/hr. But the contract was for six months and I figured I could tough it out for that long (despite the fact that it was about the same money I was getting from the state in unemployment insurance). My six months came up and my contracting agency told me that it was actually for a year, so I wouldn't be getting a raise then, since their contract was for a year. I kicked up a stink and managed to finagle $20/hr out of them. But that's okay, as when that additional six months was up, I'd get a bigger raise. It's still better than being unemployed, after all.

So now that six months is up and they told me that I'd be getting $26.50 an hour. Which is not very much for an experienced Unix admin. I was not happy about it, but it was something. Really, it was a 30% raise, so it was hard to complain.

But then they called me back yesterday and told me that they'd made a mistake, that the company contracting me gave them a sum of money and she'd based my salary on that, but that the company wanted to give me a 15% raise, so she had to take back some of that raise, and now I'd be making $25/hr.

Now, I'm not expecting that I'll be able to make $75k after such an economic downturn, but now they're obviously screwing me -- they were okay with giving me $26.50/hr, but they changed their minds, meaning that they're now getting the same money but giving me less of it. In addition, a guy that they hired six weeks ago that's also a Unix admin, and one not nearly as experienced as I am, is making $35/hr. Keep in mind that until they hired him, I was their only Unix admin, and if I left, they'd be out in the cold. No one here even understood Unix at all, so it was nearly impossible to document things.

What do you guys think I should do? My at-work manager seems to be friendly and has told me stuff before that, at least, implies that he'd like to help me with this stuff.

I'm not even sure what I'm asking. I may just be venting, as, right now, I'm on the verge of furious.

So, anyway, any advice?