So, I work for one of the large aerospace firms. It's come to be the norm that you have to work at a higher level than you're compensated for for about two years before you can get a promotion.
It had been 5 years of being underpaid with nothing but occasional Amazon gift cards thrown at me for appreciation. In a move disjointed with the words of our leaders, I'd still get passed up during every promotion cycle. I clearly conveyed with my boss I needed a promotion by the end of the quarter.
The executive of the organization delayed promotions once again so I went and got an outside job offer from a start-up more appreciative of what I was offering. I showed my boss that I was actually worth $60k more than they were paying me!
Needless to say she was shocked, so I offered that they could meet me in the middle if they wanted to retain me. She agreed to submit a counter offer to me, but the next time I heard from her was a day before my outside offer expired.
The people I had worked for for 7 years were telling me to just leave if all I cared about was money. I told her it was eye opening how little they value my work and that I simply could not afford to live in California with what they were paying me. And in a defeated rage of frustration I told them how disappointed I was in their lack of transparency over their last minute change. How petty that they cared more about a few thousand dollars than I did.
So, they convinced me that if I stayed, I would finally be promoted. My outside offer expired, and about 2 months later I got pennies added to my compensation but finally at a level that fit where I was performing at.
But then I saw the power trip my boss was on. She'd start off phone conversations by snapping at me or largely discredit me over department emails without trying to understand my points. I was still on a temporary assignment, and when I tried to return home, my boss told me I had to stay at the assignment location or get laid off…..I had been away from my family and friends for a year and now I was simply being told I couldn't return to my loved ones and that my job was gone. My mom lives alone and has no family besides me in the area.
I told her we need HR on from when we talk from now on so I got them and senior managers online. I flat out accused her of lying since I knew she was still hiring people at the home location. But as is familiar to everyone at the bottom of the totom pole, the other senior leaders back up the manager and discredit me.
For the past few months I had to provide daily task summary emails like an untrustworthy child, and my boss would ignore my calls or have her manager reach out to me instead of talking to me directly. I understood the risk but the lack of professionalism was embarrassing on her behalf.
Anyways, I went and got a fully remote job offer elsewhere and I'm finally going home. Didn't bother to ask for a counter this time 😉 depending on if this gets big, I might elaborate more on their conniving use of customer funds for travel perks to try to retain underpaid employees.
Tl;dr: Don't show any loyalty to a company because they won't show it to you. You're there to make your bosses look good and once that stops you're disposable.