My company recently had one of those townhall meetings for all employees. One of the executives was presenting financials for the 2022 year and was saying it was a tough year due to a lot of different challenges, particularly high inflation. He says that with high inflation doesn't just impact businesses and that “everyone is feeling the pinch in their pocket books. Whether it's groceries or gas, everything is expensive.” Then goes on to add “especially with flights and travel! Have you seen the prices lately?! I took my family on our annual Christmas vacation and boy let me tell ya, you could really feel that inflation! *chuckling and laughing* Ya know, I thought about downgrading our usual hotel resort but I thought no I better dig deeper for my family after the tough year we've all had.”
Seriously, how can people be so tone deaf? How on earth is you maybe not booking your typical 5 star resort anywhere near the same as someone not affording food?
At the end there was a question and answer session and someone asks if we'll be getting cost of living adjustments due to the abnormally high inflation, to which the same guy responds “the short answer is no. The long answer is, our raises have never been tied to inflation. We did a review of our compensation structure Q4 last year and found our data says what we pay is inline with the market.” He pauses a bit and then tries to soften it by saying “Looks guys, I know that may not be the answer some of you wanted to hear, but a piece of advice I was given early on in my career was 'your raise is effective whenever you are'. If you have the skills, the pay will take care of itself in the long run. This is something I truly believe and share with people because it's worked for me.”
Imagine acknowledging that inflation is a problem and having the ability to fix that for some people and help them out, but then deciding to not do anything about it.