I have a story I thought people might find entertaining, since I enjoy reading about others shitty employers and how it backfires.
About 6 years ago I was working as an IT Manager at a local manufacturing place. I was the only IT person in the department as the owners had recently gotten into a tiff with our MSP and the MSP killed the contract. So, just me overseeing everything. Our networking and server infrastructure, software, all levels of support, custom tools, etc. I’m basically doing like three jobs and I’m making 65k. I managed the workload well, no complaints by any other department and special projects always finished on time or before, so after a few years of dedicating my time to this place, I feel like I can successfully negotiate a raise. I put together a document outlining my experience in the industry, what I have done, my responsibilities, and some other contributing factors like losing the MSP to state my case. I ask for 85k, still well below the area average for my job title and especially for the work I was doing. It goes to the owners and HR, and I don’t hear anything for a while. I inquire with HR around a month later and ask for an update, and they responded that I will be hearing from someone soon. A few days later, the president of the company sends me an Email with the typical spiel about ‘times are tough, business is down’ blah, blah, bullshit that you hear a hundred times around here. I know for a fact the company was very profitable because at the beginning of the year they did a recap on their revenue and how well the company did. Nearly 100 million. The president owns a helicopter and an airplane. So after he finishes complaining to me, he says that he is going to have HR do a salary analysis of my job and responsibilities at the national level and adjust my pay based on that. I really don’t know what he expected the outcome to be, but I’m sure it wasn’t what he found.
Another month goes by and I ask for a follow up from HR and she says the same thing as before, that someone will be in touch with me soon. Sure enough, the president calls me up and says he really pulled some strings and got me a bump to 80k. So I asked, is that what the analysis turned up? He stuttered a bit and asked “What analysis?” so I repeated what he had told me previously about doing a salary analysis to bring my pay in line to something competitive in the industry. He tried telling me that this was above average. I told him these numbers were very easily found with minimal research online and that he was bullshitting me. He comes back with “okay, I can do 85k.” I again said, what did the analysis say? He refuses to tell me, says that he is getting me a big pay raise when they normally don’t do this kind of thing, and raises are merit based and performance based and only given at the end of the year, etc. I ended up accepting the pay raise, since hey, that’s what I originally asked for and immediately started applying for new jobs since that put a pretty bad taste in my mouth. I hated the owners anyway and the work environment was toxic as hell. I had a new job paying me six figures within the week. Putting my two weeks notice on the president’s desk was one of the most satisfying days of my life. He was in complete disbelief, red faced, saying how he worked so hard to get me that raise and how he went out on a limb for me. I asked him a third time, what did the analysis say? And he STILL wouldn’t tell me! He said it didn’t matter and that I got what I asked for. I really couldn’t fault him for that, he was right! He gave me what I asked for. I reiterated to him that my last day would be X and told him where all important info regarding logins and documentation could be found for whoever they replaced me with. Right as I was about to walk away, he asked where I was going. I refused to tell him so he asked what they were paying me. I told him “probably what your analysis said.” The president ended up just telling me to leave after a week into my final two and that I’d be paid out accordingly including all my PTO. It was so liberating to leave that place.
I was decent friends with one of the HR staff so during my last week, I ended up asking her if she knew anything about a salary analysis for me and she confirmed she was involved and the average pay with all the factors they included ended up coming out to like 125k. I've kept small tabs on them and have seen them go through 3 IT Managers in the time since. It blows me away how little respect big wigs have for their employees.