‘You got what you asked for’: CEO announces a 15% pay cut for every employee as a way to ‘reduce costs’, resulting in mass walkout by all employees

Author image for Bar Mor Hazut
Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
Mar 26, 2024 7:00 AM EDT

One of the best ways to determine whether a company is overall a good company, specifically with how the employees are treated, is by checking how long the employees have been there. If the company has existed for longer than 10 years and no employee has been there for more than a year, then something must be wrong.

The employee in this Reddit story has been feeling that something is wrong with the company for quite some time. Mostly because of the CEO, who has been treating OP (original poster) and the rest of his employees extremely poorly. What really tipped OP over the edge was when the CEO announced a 15% pay cut for everyone in the company in order to 'reduce costs'. OP and the rest of the employees decided they had enough, and started helping each other to find new jobs while planning a mass walkout when they were all ready to leave. 

That is honestly only the tip of the iceberg in this story, so scroll down to read the full tale. Once you are done, click here for another workplace story of an employee who left her job after she was forced out of her own office. 

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  • 01
    "He sought a 15% pay reduction, we made sure no reduction was needed" (。
    via Canva
  • 02
    My CEO blew up at me on my final day and I just laughed in his face. Just a little vent about freedom from a toxic workplace.
    via u/Spudguy
  • 03
    So for background, I've been looking to leave the company for about a year due to the CEO's narcissism and inability to lead a company. The company
    via u/Spudguy
  • 04
    is 22 years old and as of yesterday at 5pm, has 17 employees with only 6 of them being there more than 3 years including the CEO.
    via u/Spudguy
  • 05
    We are UK based an in IT services; we have no major competitors and with our margins/services we should be printing money. I personally joined just under 4 years ago
    via u/Spudguy
  • 06
    and have a very strong background in what I do which started off really well, I bought in just shy of £750k for the company against a salary of £65k. I was the only person for
    via u/Spudguy
  • 07
    my first year who delivered this (as well as worked as a Sales Engineer to sell it). Second year, we won two deals totalling £1.5m entirely based on my connections in the industry and
    via u/Spudguy
  • 08
    I finally got an employee under me - I managed to secure a raise to £90k after using an offer from elsewhere to negotiate.
    via u/Spudguy
  • 09
    I'll be as brief as I can with some examples of how he's been as a boss:
    via u/Spudguy
  • 10
    • Guaranteed calls every single time I block something personal out in my diary even though we have "flexible working". I'm talking 100% of times I went to the gym I would get a call in the middle of it for something benign.
    via u/Spudguy
  • 11
    Every time I was owed commission, I had to fight for it - In December I was due £5,500 for a deal but he changed the entire commission structure so I got a little over £1000 - this was between the order coming in and my commission being paid
    via u/Spudguy
  • 12
    • He at an event got drunk and explained to me how he hired me with a lower salary allowing him to give a big bump to me which "made me more loyal" - he was literally gloating about how he manipulated me
    via u/Spudguy
  • 13
    • At our kick off in September he boasted to the entire company by telling a detailed story about when he went out drinking on a friday night with the guy who was best man at his first wedding. The short
    via u/Spudguy
  • 14
    version is he pushed his friend for details of a deal about to go through then called the customer first thing on Monday to under-cut him and smugly said "Loose lips sink ships"
    via u/Spudguy
  • 15
    • He called me at some point last year and shouted at me for answering his calls with "What's up?" and told me to never speak to him like that
    via u/Spudguy
  • 16
    In February the entire company was on a call where the CEO announced that we need to take a "Voluntary" 15% pay cut to reduce the cost to the business and avoid redundancies. If there was a
    via u/Spudguy
  • 17
    single person who refused, the redundancies would be immediate. I had this call immediately after my final stage interview for my new job so I quickly started working out how I can use this to my advantage.
    via u/Spudguy
  • 18
    Basically, I told him I'll agree to it if he changes my notice period from 3 months to 1. He agreed and when it was in writing I gave him my notice. He was clearly off as he kept saying "Well played" on a
    via u/Spudguy
  • 19
    call immediately after. For the past month he's mostly avoided me, communicating using other people as a proxy and a "Handover Document" which is an excel sheet of things he wanted from me.
    via u/Spudguy
  • 20
    In the notice period he called me about two weeks ago and told me about how he's going to have his lawyer draft a document prohibiting me from using any of the documents I've
    via u/Spudguy
  • 21
    created under him in a future role. This is the same man who asked me when I joined to provide a detailed list of all previous customers and share with him all documents I had from my old role. He also asked
    via u/Spudguy
  • 22
    me not to attend a company wide meeting on Thursday due to "Trade Secrets". So I trundled along, and then yesterday on my last day posted on LinkedIn about it being my
    via u/Spudguy
  • 23
    last day with the company, thanking a ton of people and being very positive. By the time it had over 50 reactions and 1500+ views, he called me and told me to remove it as I wasn't
    via u/Spudguy
  • 24
    following his "Communication Plan." This is where it gets satisfying; I said "With all due respect, you've not spoken to me in the past 4 weeks and if you had,
    via u/Spudguy
  • 25
    maybe I would have known about this communication plan and been able to follow it." "Spudguy, when someone says 'with all due respect' there isn't a more arrogant thing someone can say."
    via u/Spudguy
  • 26
    "Well, CEO, you'd be the master at that wouldn't you." I then faced the most incredible pink face, raised voice and barrage of attempts to rattle me I've ever experienced. He
    via u/Spudguy
  • 27
    started by reminding me that he's still paying my salary (I was paid in full for yesterday before this call). When I said nothing, he went on to say he hired me when I was unemployed and
    via u/Spudguy
  • 28
    needed the help. I said nothing. He then said "It struck me at the company event yesterday - everyone who has been here as long as you have and has left, has had a gift or a card or something. I realised you have
    via u/Spudguy
  • 29
    nothing. Maybe you should reflect on that." I was grinning at this point and told him that just because he hasn't seen it, doesn't mean it didn't happen. He finally realised he had no more power
    via u/Spudguy
  • 30
    over me and said sarcastically that he wishes me well and hung up. For almost 4 years, I've bent over backwards to make sure he was happy, worked on days off and given everything I
    via u/Spudguy
  • 31
    possibly could to ensure the business was successful, but his ego and self-sabotage have meant that I have been in a group chat with everyone in the business except for him, his
    via u/Spudguy
  • 32
    wife and his "second in command" where people are actively helping one another find a new job. There's way more to this but it's getting quite long and I don't know if anyone would care, but
    via u/Spudguy
  • 33
    the summary is that this of a man is going to probably lose his business due to a mass walkout as soon as people can get new jobs and my only regret is that I'm not around to see it crumble.
    via u/Spudguy

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