This is a bit of a different perspective from most of the posts here. I'm a software engineer. It's a small company and a small team, but we built a great piece of software that I'm very proud of. The company was acquired last year because of it. I didn't know for how much, but the senior tech team was offered “retention bonuses” if we stayed for a year. It's basically a year's salary plus some stock options. Theoretically the options are worth a lot, but it's a private company. So they're basically air. Unless the company that acquired us gets bought or has an IPO, there isn't anything I can do with them.
The cash part of that bonus means that my wife and I will be in a position to put a really good down payment on a house, which we've wanted to do for years but couldn't quite manage. Tonight I found out how much they sold the company for. And now I'm so angry that I honestly don't know how I'm going to stick it out the rest of the way.
Apparently the bonuses they gave the senior engineers combined total to about roughly one percent of the amount the executives walked away with. They got rich because of our work. And they offered us the promise of just enough money that we'd be stupid to turn it down. As long as we kept working hard for them for a while longer.
I'm devastated right now, and I honestly don't want to go back in on Monday. I feel duped, and I feel like we all got screwed. Somehow I'm going to find a way to keep going until I can cash that check, if only out of spite – me leaving now means they'd get to keep that too. But after that, I'm out.
No matter the industry, no matter how senior you are or how many years of experience, no matter how hard you work, your boss doesn't give a flying shit about you. They might act nice, but they're in it for themselves.