Pretty dang proud of my wife right now. She's worked in her field of work for over 12 years, spending the last ten years for the same company. About two years ago, her boss sold the company to a nation wide corporation, who kept the name the same, the staff the same, mainly just changing some policies, and HR stuff. Last year, the corporation bumped the minimum wage for everybody that does my wife's job up to $15 per hour, resulting in a dollar raise for her.
Cool, right? Sure, besides the fact that employees with a quarter the experience of my wife were also bumped up there. Good for them, but, in our opinion, employees with experience and seniority deserved more of a raise. Surprisingly, the corporation agreed, offering longer tenured employees an additional 50 cents an hour. Yay.
Since returning to work two months ago after a three month maternity leave (of which she was only paid for two months), my wife has felt disrespected, having jobs taken away from her, repeatedly having to go over her office managers head to address problems, because her office manager is never there when needed, and just not being happy.
She finally went out last week and applied at a few other companies. She went in for a working interview at one company, and was offered the job the same day, with a $5 per hour raise. She was struggling with leaving her job of ten years, so went to her office manager, asking if they would match the offer or not. Her office manager got back to her a few days later, denied the raise, telling my wife her behavior didn't warrant it. She then went on to tell my wife that just because another company saw her skills on a piece of paper, doesn't mean she's actually worth what they're willing to pay them. My wife put in her two weeks right then, and called the other company to accept the job offer.
She's only working the next two weeks because of the other employees there, not wanting to let her office manager push her away. It took a day to come to terms with the decision, but she's happy that she can get back to doing what she loves, not having to worry about playing politics or worrying about a corporate office any more.