As the title says folks, I've now heard it all.
I'm a recent aeronautical engineer in Spain. Finished my master's in September last year, and was in this company since September 2021.
I started out originally in a 6 months internship(800€/month) that was supposed to go on to full time employment. Instead, they renewed said internship. After 1 month of said renewal they moved me to another team and changed the contract to an in between, not full term, but not internship. Money was also in between (€16K). It was a shitty deal, but still doing my master's and with little experience it was the only one I had.
The new team was a three person team with no real boss, but I was still answering to the same people as before. One direct superior that handled the overall team (great guy, let's call him GG), and a guy above that managed this and other teams and handles contracts and the like (sycophant asshole, so let's call him SA).
After 6 months of this middle contract, in renewal, I get the first real slap in the face. Apparently, SA tells me that since my contract was not full time I shouldn't be having direct contact with client, and I should have had a direct supervisor. But at the same time they're not really offering me the full time, they're renewing me for another 6 months. I'm supper pissed, but at the last stages of my master's thesis so no real time to look for another job.
As expected, big talks of direct supervisors and no contact with clients but nothing really changes, still doing the same job as my 2 teammates but without the same contract.
Now on to December 2022, the veteran of my team leaves for better pay and the other girl is close to leaving too. So I get rapidly offered the full time contract (finally!) so that the team doesn't implode (for the second time in like a year, I might add). The contract is €25K, with +€2K anual after a year and another +€2K after another year.
I obviously take it, but by this point I'm burned out and finished my master's, so I'm actively looking for work.
The other girl from the team also leaves and I find myself in the very ironic situation of being the veteran of the team while simultaneously being the lowest paid of the three. Great fun.
Throughout all this GG is constantly pushing to management the subrealism of the situation while still being down to earth and actively helping the people under his management with job applications and the like (I'm not the only person the company screwed over). While SA is acting like the “cool guy” boss and trying to be friendly and acting like everything is ok.
Now on to the main dish. I get an offer by another company for a similar job. But it's €33K, higher level and more responsibilities.
GG helps me navigate the HR and times for anouncing everything, and when to tell SA for the counter offer. While telling me that it is a very good offer and it will be hard to match.
When I get the official offer, I notify SA by mail, and get an almost inmediate call form him. His response was the BS from the title.
Sadly, they were “right in the middle” of the yearly salary review process, so he is completely incapable of offering me absolutely anything, much less match the offer.
So after 1.5 years of stringing me along and giving me the runaround, and currently being the veteran of the team, he's literally incapable of offering me anything to stay, and giving me the worst excuse in existence.
So I start in the new place next week, with an 8K more a year of salary. Fuck the company and fuck SA.
As a bonus, said salary review process finished recently and it was BAAAAAD. Apparently the allotted money for raises has been greatly reduced since last year and almost no one got shit. They even held a Teams meeting led by SA and with ALL the people of the teams under his care, and it was a shitshow. Everyone is updating resumes and looking at the job market. And I was watching it all with popcorn and counting the days until I start at the new place.