So I had my review less than a week ago and I was told I was getting a 5% raise after being here for 3 years and taking on multiple jobs to assist our ever growing department. Looking at inflation the raise doesn’t even cover the price changes the world is seeing all over let alone really qualify as making my wage livable. When asked why we can’t go higher than 5%, they gave me the excuse that the company bases their raises on merit. Mind you the people who are being hired this year are making only 90 cents less than what I am making after my raise. To further the insult my boss is now demanding that anyone wanting to leave their position notify her with a 2 week notice because it leaves her in the lurch and she has to go and find new people to hire. People are wanting to quit because the wages don’t match the work and my direct supervisor had the audacity to say that at least it’s better than nothing. I have been given more work on top of filling in to help train (never paid for it), told I’m not allowed to exceed more than 10 hours of OT in a pay period (two weeks), and finally when I asked for FMLA because the stress of the job is making me physically ill, I haven’t heard anything back from them in 3 weeks despite following up twice. They have the money to hire new executives every two weeks but can’t pay their employees, who do most of the work that is highlighted by our marketing to potential customers, enough to make them want to stay. I’m not even sure what my next steps are because I have to now have surgery for my vision that will put me out of the office for a week at least and I already know it will be an issue but I can’t leave until this is done. How do I talk to them about the lack of financial compensation without seeming ungrateful?