Boss Tells Employee He Is Expected To Work At The Company Until Retirement After He's Denied A Raise
There's no way he expected his employee to stay at the same job forever without a raise.
fizkes / Shutterstock A man on Reddit’s favorite job/work-related struggle subreddit, “r/antiwork,” shared the story of how his boss had apparently expected him to work for him…forever.
After asking for a raise with a lengthy email, his boss refused and forced his hand to start applying for new jobs. When he finally landed one, his boss was shocked to hear the news that his employee would be leaving the company.
His boss expected him to work at the same job until he retired or the company went under.
“In March I sent my boss/the co-owner of the company an email asking for a little more money,” he stated in his post to the page. “It was like a 5 paragraph email, which ended with me saying I understood if he couldn't do it, but if not then I would start looking for a new job.”
Transparency seemed to be key for this employee, but his honesty was overlooked by his boss who decided to react in a completely unprofessional manner.
Photo: Reddit
“Did he think about it? Did he discuss the matter with his wife, who is the other co-owner? Nope,” he explains. “Less than a minute after I sent the email, he called me and screamed at me for asking for a raise.”
Well, since his boss gave him a less-than-favorable reply, he decided to begin his job hunt in April and “eventually got hired by a company that wanted me so bad that they bent over backwards to get me to come work for them and I have a start date of June 12.”
Now, all he has to do is deal with relaying that information to his boss. Once again, however, his boss’s response didn’t quite hit the mark. He said, “I told my boss on May 12 that I had a job offer, but hadn't made up my mind, expecting that he'd at least make me an offer to stay or ask what it would take for me to stay.”
“He just never brought it up, so I told him on May 19 that I was finishing up and my last day is June 9,” and that’s when he claims that he and his wife started their “massive hissy fit” about him leaving.
Photo: Red Fox Studio/Shutterstock
Strangely enough, his boss’s punishment for his leaving was to give him more money.
“Part of my punishment for leaving for more money is that he has since given me more money,” he claims. So he’s leaving because he wants to be paid more, so your punishment for him is to… pay him more? It doesn’t quite make so much sense when you think about it, but his boss probably didn’t go far enough to put some thought into it.
“Then to top it off, he tells me that when they hired me a year ago they expected me to work there until either retirement or the company went out of business,” he finished. “I just kinda stared at him when he said that.”
Expecting an employee to stay at the same job in this economy is outlandish just to start off, but expecting him to work until retirement without a pay increase is even worse.
According to Investopedia, “Most employers give their employees an average increase of 3% per year.” This is probably fruitful to a healthy work environment and employee morale as well, but when you expect someone to work at your company for the rest of their life without that raise, you shouldn’t be surprised when they decide to pack their things up and go.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.