I worked at a small startup for about a year and a half. I took the job knowing it was only temporary until I found something better. No PTO, health insurance, no future at this place.
We were doing well as a company and the CEO kept talking about giving us raises and a bonus come June of last year. He talked up these raises during the course of 6 months as if they would be significant.
As the great resignation starting, we had a town hall meeting with the entire company to discuss what the raises would be. The CEO announced that we would be getting a 0-5% raise. We were floored that anyone would get a 0% raise since we all had busted our asses off by gaining new clients and doubling our revenue.
The CEO thought we would all be excited but we all railed into him and discussed the current climate of higher wages across the state. A 5% raise was peanuts in comparison to what the market was paying. The CEO was not ready for those conversations and did not have the answers or composure to handle it. He got more pale as the meeting went on. Finally, at the end he doubled down on saying we were paid more than we should and if we were worth more we would get a new job. That statement was the straw that broke the camels back.
Within a month, 80% of the operations team left. Over the course of the month, we all helped each other find new jobs and half of us ended up at the same company. The ones that did stay were able to force a $10,000 raise out of the CEO. The ones who stayed got the lowest raise in comparison to those that left. I’m so proud of us for leaving because each of us landed in a better situation.
Pro tip to the CEO, don’t complain that you are poor when you pay yourself $150k a year and drive the nicest car in the parking lot…