47 Shocking Confessions From Employees Who Uncovered Their Bosses’ Darkest Secrets
100% Raise At Another Company” title=”My Boss Refused To Promote Me Or Give Me Reasonable Raises So I Developed Skills On The Company Dime That Got Me A >100% Raise At Another Company”> Early in my career I worked as an engineer for a defense contractor for about 4 years getting my typical 2-4% raises and standard promotions that take years and years to qualify for. I realized that in my current role I was pretty much maxed out for the foreseeable future, and would be scraping by for years more, so I tried to get on the management track and got given a project engineer position to prove myself.
I managed a team of 4 engineers, a designer, and 2 admins and we designed and manufactured a system that made $1.6M in sales in our first year of work. We got the company a patent, and were nominated by the USAF and became finalists as DoD Contractor Technical team of the year (I don’t recall the exact wording) and were flown to DC for a big awards ceremony. I spent 100 days away from my family that year, traveling to test locations, customers, vendors, etc. It was brutal but we were wildly successful.
When annual performance reviews came in mine was 10/10. I was thrilled, then I found out one of MY team members (who had a different manager) was promoted early to a senior position and that I did not and I just got the standard 3% raise again. I was livid.
I had a meeting with my boss and his response was that he didn’t think my team member deserved a promotion or a big raise but he wasn’t their boss so basically I should try real hard again and we’ll see next year.
Screw that. I basically quite quit and just barely worked my 40hrs and went home. I never traveled unless I really wanted to, I never stayed late, I took almost every Friday off to burn through my leave. I took all my sick days, etc. My mental health was much better. The only thing I really did extra was take advantage of the education budget our group had but rarely got used.
My previously promoted co-worker (who I really liked personally) started taking MBA evening classes, that the company reimbursed him for, but they came with obligations to stay there for x amount of years. They also had a nice budget for software training (without such stipulations) so we both signed up for FEA and 3D modelling classes. We traveled around together taking these classes and building our resumes.
About a month after the classes were finished I secretly started applying for jobs that required those specific skills and quickly got hired for a position with a base annual income that was 200% my existing rate plus it paid overtime. I put in my notice and my boss was really upset.
“We just paid for you to travel all over to learn these new skills that we need!”
“Don’t you have any loyalty or guilt!”
“How much are they paying you, lets see if we can match it”
“That’s more than I make!”
It was and with OT I made about 3X the following year for a competitor. Life changing good times.
I’ve been pulling double duty for 6 months since our senior dev quit. i’m fixing legacy code, training the two new interns, and generating the weekly client reports, none of which is actually in my job description.
last week i finally asked for a market adjustment. my boss gave me a 10-minute lecture on “budgets” and ended it by telling me to “focus on the core responsibilities outlined in your contract” instead of worrying about money.
bet.
i immediately stopped fixing the nightly build errors (not in my contract). i stopped answering the interns constant slack messages (not in my contract). and i definitely didn’t run the client report this morning.
i just got a slack message marked “URGENT” asking where the data is for his 9am meeting.
i’m about to reply with a screenshot of the “core responsibilities” section of my contract. wish me luck.
“These 10%, when put in manager roles, naturally engage team members and customers, retain top performers, and sustain a culture of high productivity,” an excerpt from the report reads.
I work as a purchasing manager for a mid-sized home goods retailer. We have used the same domestic importer for our seasonal decor for five years. They charge a markup, but they handle the customs, the quality checks, and the shipping. It is hassle-free.
My new Director of Operations is convinced that he is a business genius. He called a meeting last month and lectured me about how we are hemorrhaging money by using a local distributor. He told me to cancel our contract for the holiday shipment and go direct to the source.
I warned him. I told him that dealing with freight forwarders, tariffs, and port delays is a full-time job. He told me I was just being lazy. He actually said, “Just get me the contacts, I’ll close the deal myself.”
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