'Congratulations!': HR gives worker letter congratulating them on their 4.75% raise but then says they will still be paid the same amount

There are plenty of times in life where things just don't make sense and where people try and lead you to believe that 1+1=3 which doesn't really line up with the figure that you might have expected or the actual truth of the situation. A lot of these situations will probably take place at work under the supervision of someone who has no business being in charge.

Let's do a little math equation as an example. I know—I know…. you didn't think you were signing up for homework when you clicked on this post in your Google Discover feed. (Or on our website. Bless you, our loyal readers.) But bear with me; this is an easy one: If you were making $19.75 as an hourly rate and your employer gave you a raise of, say… 4.75%, what would you expect your new pay to be? I'll save you the brain work because the actual figure doesn't matter. (It's $20.69.) What matters is that you'd expect to be getting paid a higher amount… right?

Well. Not the case for this worker, who was given a letter by their employer's HR department congratulating them on their 4.75% raise but calculating their new rate to be exactly the same as the old one. Now, no one expects their HR rep to be a math wiz, but you'd at least expect them to be able to use Google as a calculator like the rest of us. They queried the letter with their boss and were told that they would not be receiving the raise that the rest of the team was receiving because they had been with the company for less than a year, despite having been told in a meeting prior to receiving the letter that they would be receiving the raise along with the rest of the team. It's the kind of thing that is so ridiculous that it would make you laugh if it wasn't so depressing.

See their post below, which they shared with this popular online workplace community, along with the advice that readers shared.

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Posted by Brad Dickson