This isn't really my story to tell but I think its message is prudent, so I'm going to leave a lot of potentially identifying information out.
My “friend” recently quit their job. It's a very important one and very public-facing, it's something that every single one of us will encounter at one point in our lives or another and owned by a massive conglomerate.
It wasn't a good environment, the management situation was appalling, they were constantly struggling for the resources to properly provide for their customers but they did their best with what they had. Constantly they were told that this massive fuck-off corporation couldn't afford the absolute most simple things they needed to run the business.
They were the top rated person in the business by far and one of the most renown by their customer base, as well as the most senior at their location (though that doesn't say much because most people didn't stay there more than two years.)
Anyone who is in my “friend's” industry will know that most locations are absolutely desperate for experienced staff to the point of there being an awful lot of poaching going on in the industry. You'd think that would make the corpos careful to keep their staff happy and well provided for, but nope. Their location was drastically under-staffed and under-funded already and they were doing nothing to help.
Come their annual review they were offered a raise of twenty cents. Twenty cents for one of their top staffers, twenty cents for someone who did everything they could for their customer base in spite of the higher-ups constantly sabotaging them for the sake of their shareholders. Not even remotely close to matching inflation on an already relatively low-paying position.
Thankfully, before this went down, my friend had been offered a position at another business in which they had the upper-hand in the negotiations, given how desperate everyone is for people of my friend's role. They ended up with an offer $4.50 higher than what the corporation was willing to pay them, and they took it. Upon hearing this my friend's bosses desperately tried to keep them on, even finally offered a raise of $6 to keep them in their current position. They turned it down because fuck that entire company, they clearly weren't valued there. At this point they were just done and wanted to damage the company for being such shit-heels.
That old location is now in a complete fucking mess, they barely have enough staff to keep things running day-to-day. They can't hire anyone else because all of their prospects end up taking jobs elsewhere once they realize how hard the corporation is trying to shaft them, meanwhile the manager is bringing out the beloved old adage… “Nobody wants to work any more.”
Know your worth, friends. If you have to interview elsewhere to get some bargaining power in your current position, do it… And be careful who you entrust your loved ones to at the end of their lives.