‘Company lied about new salary so I told everyone and left’: Worker quits after boss won’t honor discussed pay

The majority of Americans who quit their jobs ultimately do so because they don't believe that they're getting paid enough for their services. Zippia reported that 63% of employees who handed in their walking papers cited that low pay was at least one factor in their decision to leave. The outlet went on to say that 37% of workers cited low pay as the main reason why their quit their jobs.

According to the Pew Research Center, the "majority of workers who quit a job in 2021 cite[d] low pay, [along with] no opportunities for advancement" as the main impetus behind their decision to search for greener vocational pastures, adding that they felt "disrespected" at their jobs as well.

Redditor @ThatOneCloneTrooper went viral on the website's popular r/antiwork sub this week, sharing a particular salary gripe that they had with an employer that was rooted in a "gotcha" mentality pertaining to their contract that contradicted the verbal agreement they had with management prior to taking the position.

Company lied about new salary so I told everyone and left.
by u/ThatOneCloneTrooper in antiwork

In their post, the original poster (OP) explains that they're a fresh engineering grad who took a job with a salary that they weren't too thrilled about, but said that they didn't have a problem starting off at this level due to the nature of salaries in their respective line of work having great room for growth over time.

The U.K.-based employee writes that they agreed to an annual pay of around $33,000 (£26,000) and worked at the job for around six months. During that time they were onboarded with this company, which the redditor called a probationary period. It turns out that another company they had applied to offered him a gig at a higher annual salary: Around $40,600 (£32,000), which also came with a slew of nice perks, which included a company car (he says the worst one on the list was a 2020 MG3) along with on-site charging for electric vehicles and private healthcare insurance with an additional beneficiary, which the redditor said that they valued due to "the unfortunate state of the NHS," along with a pension plan and other incentives.

Wanting to show some loyalty to the company that hired them when they had no experience, however, they decided to show some professional "courtesy" and let them know that they had an offer on the table from the other business and even mentioned all of the additional advantages they would be receiving at the job, not to mention the higher pay. The redditor went on to say that they would be willing to turn all of that down and stay with this business if they would up their salary to $38,100 annually (£30,000).

While that might sound like a crazy concession to make, the redditor did point out that the company offering better pay and bonuses was a 45-50 minute drive for them, while the business he was currently working for was only a 15-minute commute.

The OP thought that this offer would be a no-brainer for the business because even though they were a fairly new hire, they apparently really, really needed people in the engineering department, so they knew that they were a valuable asset.

The boss allegedly asked if they would settle for $35,500 (£28,000) a year, to which the OP said absolutely not and that they wouldn't take less than $38,100.

The boss ultimately agreed to the raise. However, the redditor states that when they received their next paycheck, they noticed that the amount of money they received hadn't gone up at all.

When they approached their managers about this error, they were told that because they had requested the salary bump in the middle of the month that the pay wouldn't increase until the following month.

So they waited another month and, lo and behold, there was no change.

When they brought it up the company again, they were told that the revised salary wouldn't go into effect until the following year, and that's when the OP decided to quit on the spot.

However, they made sure to let all of their fellow employees on the job know every little detail about their dealings with the business, "down to [the] stink of the managers breath in [their] original meeting."

To top it all off, the OP went and told all of the engineers working for the company that the new place he was working at had plenty of open positions, listing the higher salary and slew of perks associated with it in the process.

They capped-off their post stating that they were going to begin their new job the following month and that they hoped some of their co-workers followed suit. The final line in their post? "LOYALTY DOESNT PAY BILLS"

Which was a sentiment that one commenter agreed with, writing: "Loyalty never pays. Stay at a company just long enough to get a higher title or more experience, put that on your resume, and move… another company will almost always pay more…. Stay there till you move up, and repeat."

Someone else echoed this belief, where they penned: "The only company you should ever be loyal to is your own…."

Another commenter replied that they thought it was a grimy move that the business pulled with mention of the contract: "Yeah, they kinda mugged you off with that contract stunt. You definitely should have read it front to back and queried everything you disagreed with. Take it as a lesson learned. Respect to you for quitting and not letting them get away with it."

The Daily Dot has reached out to @ThatOneCloneTrooper via Reddit DM for further information.

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