Don't know if general venting is allowed but here it goes. I was hired on to a small financial institution about 3 years ago as their senior accountant. Just before covid hit the CFO notified the CEO and the board that he intended to retire in about a year and a few months. Myself and the CFO actually shared a double office for a matter of months before covid hit, so I made it clear that I would like to fill that position as I have the qualifications on paper holding four college degrees one of which is a bachelor's in finance one is an MBA and another is a masters of management and leadership. The only thing holding me back is a lack of years worth of experience as I had only been a corporate tax accountant after college for around 2 and 1/2 to 3 years. So the CEO built a learning and development plan for me that basically said if I did the learning and development plan I would become director of finance and approximately 2 to 3 years and I would have the ability to become CFO in about 5 years. About 3 weeks ago he has a meeting with me and lets me know that he's hiring the individual who he had originally offered the CFO position to before covid but this person would be joining not as the CFO but as a newly created position called the chief growth officer. Obviously red flags are going up at this point but the job has been fairly easy and we've had some good incentives over the last few years and as far as I can tell the CEO was truly not lying to me. He's very charismatic and knows how to manipulate people especially someone who is young and has aspirational career goals. Today I was working on our audit files and I just so happened to stumble across a folder of executive session meeting minutes and out of curiosity I took a look… In the meeting minutes I find that not only did they actually hire this guy on to be the CFO but the entire time that I've been strung along he has been actively seeking to recruit a new CFO to fill the role. So basically I have been doing the work of the old CFO for about a year now without any major hiccups or problems all. They've been paying me a measly 55,000 a year base salary. Everyone I know tells me I'm being underpaid including everyone that I graduated with who are currently making more than I am doing less work. Because I was in it for the long haul, in which I would be promoted up and have much better salary once I got to the director and CFO position I decided to stay and not push the salary issue. So now I've decided to find a new job and one day I'm just going to walk in and quit on the spot because f*** them!