Opportunity -- or should I just go? [View all]

Sorry I whine a lot here, but this is my latest dilemma.

My coworker is getting laid off because business is a little slow, but mainly because my boss despises him and he never was very flexible or knowledgeable.

I've been there going on 7 years in July, and my coworker has been there 5 years. I am usually very ethical, but my coworker made reference to his new salary, then how much more it was than his current salary, so then I found out his salary. I verified this info against the records.

Now I'm upset. Obviously I deserve that salary since I taught him everything he does, I've been doing half his job the whole time in addition to my own, and now I'm going to need to do both our jobs at once.

My boss asked me if I could do his job, I said 'yes', without saying "geesh I walked his hand through everything so of course I do."

But he so far he has not mentioned a word of any pay increase. Much less raising my pay to my coworkers' pay -- I'll just say it, $20k more per year!!!! That would be enough for me to save for retirement. I trusted these people for 7 years of my life, my hair has gone grey working there, while thinking they were good decent people only to (possibly) find out they might just continue treating me like I don't matter until I just keel over on the job.

There is a lot more complexity to this. I'm a programmer and believed they could not afford to pay more, and now I know they can. Nobody understand the work I do, they can't talk to me about it, so I have nobody I can talk to anymore now that my coworker is gone. They do not seem to understand that my job is an actual profession. I could stay there if they simply understood I'm a real person with a real job and pay me the same as they pay others who they respect.

But it seems they might just not respect me, maybe they think I'm a naive idiot -- they might be right.

I'm tired of waiting. I'm not sure how to talk to about it. I've tried my boss before and he keeps making empty promises.