Dear Prudence,
I work in account support in the research and development department of a company that gets government contracts. I write budgets, check that funding rules are satisfied, and submit funding reports for several scientists. The work requires being responsible, paying attention to details, and knowing some basic office software, but it’s really easy for me, and between deadlines, there is a lot of boring downtime. It doesn’t pay well, so I was glad to get the job right out of college, but I wasn’t planning to stay long. Well, something happened last month: Several other support ladies went to a wedding, leaving the department understaffed, and there was an unexpected funding opportunity. Suddenly I was the only one supporting several times as many people as usual. I worked over the weekend, and everything got done at a better level and with a greater efficiency than usual, and I loved it.
Now all the scientists are saying they wish they were assigned to me, not to the other assistants who are sloppy and unwilling to work outside of restrictive office hours. I want to go to the management with a proposal that they replace three or four people with me and give me double the salary. I would get an excellent long-term job, the scientists would be much happier, and the company would save money (both on salary and on training, since there is huge turnover due to low pay). But I feel terrible basically suggesting that the other ladies should be fired, even though they are clearly underperforming (I have seen them shop online on company time, make major budget mistakes, and fail to follow up on important emails, and the scientists and the managers know all of this). Should I put forward my idea?
—Work Ethics Dilemma