First, I am aware how whiny and entitled my post is. But, it's eating away at me, and I hope that writing this out helps rationalise this and I can move on.
I work for a small business with around 100 employees. Two weeks ago this was sold for around £200,000,000. The CEO received £70,000,000 for his shares.
Around 60 of the employees held shares. The share scheme ended a year before I joined.
Every employee with shares received between £100,000 and £1,000,000 depending on shares that were issued before the scheme closed.
I should point out that the employees weren't compensated part shares and part salary – those who arrived after the scheme closed are paid the same (for similar roles) as counterparts from before.
The sale has been negotiated over the last year. There is a small pot of shares that consist of those recovered from people who left.
That pot of shares could have been shared out amongst all employees – giving just a few shares would gave given everyone a bonus of £1,000. That pot was not distributed, but merged into the total share pool.
Had all employees been given the remainder of that pool, the total impact to the £200,000,000 sale price would have been £100,000. As for the CEO, he'd simply have received £69,960,000 rather than £70,000,000. It's so small as not to have mattered.
I KNOW I'm being unreasonable because I signed up on a salary and I'm being paid that salary. It just keeps eating away at me. I don't resent my colleagues with shares, I'm just appalled at the manifest greed of the CEO. It would have been such a trivial amount, but he needed that extra money l guess 🤷️.
My wouldn't have been changed by £1,000 – it's a week's wages. For US readers, that's a decent salary in the UK.
It's the principle and contempt, and knowing that there are certain other people in the company who architected this sale and who think so poorly of their colleagues.
I can't see any option but to leave, since all my love for the company had evaporated.
Please commence telling me I'm irrational, and I'd be grateful for advice on seeing past this.