From peak pandemic times to the beginning of this year, I worked an administrative role at a large-ish company and part of my job was to supply the office with snacks. Some of the owners had bougie taste, so I stocked it regularly with $6 drinks, $9 bags of chips, and coming out of the peak pandemic era, it wasn’t uncommon for me to be spending $500+ at the most expensive grocery store around. The office regulars loved it, they loved my taste in the goods, so I couldn’t complain.
There’s a membership program at this particular grocery store and multiple times I suggested we sign up for it as it would’ve saved us about 20% on our grocery bill. I never got a response back. Things were a bit chaotic, granted: my boss & her boss & her boss’s boss ended up finding new jobs or being let go within the span of a month, so that took priority. Understandable.
My workload increased at this time. I noted the increased workload and requested a raise to, at the bare minimum, ease the burden of inflation (this is an expensive city, after all). Some of my new bosses spoke in favor of it for months, there was talk of negotiating one, maybe even more than what I wanted, maybe a title bump as well, but ultimately nothing came of it.
Fast forward six months or so, and the company is struggling. They let me go instead. My new boss quit soon after that (we were a team of two). No hard feelings, it’s tough out there and all things considered, they treated me pretty well.
I did the math. They would’ve been saving approximately $100 a week. My requested raise amounted to something like $80 max.
I was also the de facto IT guy at the office by the way, so this is just the tip of the iceberg. Oh yeah, and the person who could've helped me win a raise the most was in Europe the majority of the time.
The fuck is wrong with this country.