‘I told them to kick rocks’: Employee quits after 5 years of being denied a promotion, panicked company finally offers him a promotion, but it's too late

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Jun 19, 2024 4:00 PM EDT

Greedy companies are gonna greedy, but karma still gonna karma. 

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  • There is nothing more satisfying than leaving a toxic workplace and everything you knew they would fail at without you crumbles the second you leave. That is what happened to this employee who shared his story on Reddit. 

    This employee was working for cheap doing the job of three employees. He kept asking for a raise and a promotion, but the company kept denying him. He did this for five years and finally reached his limit. He quit and walked out on the spot. After he was gone, the company quickly realizes that it's difficult to function without him. So they finally give him a counter offer hoping he would come back. But now the employee sees their truth, that they totally could afford giving him that promotion years ago, but they just didn't want to because they had him for cheap. He tells them to kick rocks and the company is forced to higher several people in order to get his duties covered. That's whatcha get, ya greedy company! 

  • 01
    "Never accept the counter offer. Just leave." A/S (792022) "
    via pxhere
  • 02
    Denied promotion for 5 years, told the company I'm leaving for another job, and NOW they're offering a counter while hiring 3 people to replace me. I told them to kick rocks, because if they wanted to promote me and pay me they would have done it a long time ago. They're now in a panic because it's impossible to train people to do my job quickly. It takes about 6 months. Had they treated me correctly, I would have stayed. Never accept the counter offer. Just leave. If you accept a counter, you w
    via StopManaCheating
  • 03
    Soupernerd-386 7h ago • They didn't promote you because they had you doing the work of 3 people for barely any money. Same thing happened to me, and I won't make this mistake ever again. 1.1K Reply
    via Soupernerd-386
  • 04
    • Graycat17 7h ago That is 100% correct. Also, in the interim you'll be treated like That's because they are used to underpaying you. So now that they are paying you, say, 20% more, they expect 20% more work. Which is super unreasonable and stupid. But they forget you were underpaid. They forget your role is critical. They just see you as a greedy a raise. 2.7K who blackmailed them for Reply
    via Graycat17
  • 05
    MiyagiJunior .7h ago "Never accept the counter offer. Just leave. If you accept a counter, you will be fired within a year." Very true. The one time I accepted a counter-offer, a month later they reneged on all their promises and things became worse than ever. I ended leaving a few months later and bitterly regretted not taking the offer I got. 312 Reply
    via MiyagiJunior
  • 06
    Open-Bath-7654 .7h ago Good on you! I left a job for a similar reason but with a different result. I was getting 5 star performance reviews, won an award for having the lowest error rate for the entire year, had volunteered tons of overtime on projects for other departments, interviewed for promotions, trained for certifications in lean six sigma and 5s, had the entire mid level manager team advocating for my promotion and
    via Open-Bath-7654
  • 07
    got denied every single time. Finally took a higher paying job with another company. In my exit interview the department head told me I made the right call because he never would have allowed me to be promoted. He didn't think the work I did was important, didn't value my contributions, and had personally blocked every promotion opportunity and would continue to do so. 207 Reply
    via Open-Bath-7654
  • 08
    KronkLaSworda • 8h ago "Never accept the counter offer. Just leave. If you accept a counter, you will be fired within a year." This is 100% true. I've seen it happen. 1.6K Reply
    via KronkLaSworda
  • 09
    Fleeting_Victory • 5h ago Edited 4h ago Storytime I worked for a multibillion-dollar oil and gas company for 15 years. My salary at the time was right at $100K/year. I could have made more jumping ship, but I set my own hours, had great coworkers, the benefits were outstanding, and the money was still somewhat decent. The freedom and stability I had compensated for my slightly lower salary.
    via Fleeting_Victory
  • 10
    Then got a new CIO who mandated a "temporary" hiring freeze which left my team extremely short staffed. During my next review, I told my boss that she had 1 year to either get me some help, move me to a new area that was fully staffed, or find a replacement because I was going to move on. She laughed it off and probably forgot about it. On the 1-year anniversary of that meeting, I emailed her and HR my resignation.
    via Fleeting_Victory
  • 11
    She panicked. I was in charge of designing, maintaining, and deploying all of the OS builds for our entire company of 20K employees/30K machines. It was fairly complex and highly customized process; and I was the only one who really knew how it worked from end to end. As soon as she got my resignation email, she called me into her office to "Discuss my issues." The first thing she asked me was "What will it take to change your mind?" I shrugged and said "I told you a year ago what I wanted. Noth
    via Fleeting_Victory
  • 12
    She then offered to match whatever my new job was paying me. I laughed and told her I didn't have a new job lined up; I was just done with this companies' off. and was going to take some time She then said something like "Well, if I can't talk you into staying, I am going to need to you document your workload such that a non-technical user could easily do the job as I can't afford to hire a replacement for you." (Keep in mind multibillion dollar multinational corporation)
    via Fleeting_Victory
  • 13
    She also said that since I was salary, it shouldn't be a big deal if I had to use a bit of my own time to make it happen. I nodded and said something along the lines of "I told you a year ago that I needed help and nothing changed. I'm not going to kill myself now because you chose to ignore me then." She then tried to guilt me into staying by talking about how my coworkers would have to do my job once I left which would kill team morale. I actually laughed at that point and said, "Managing empl
    via Fleeting_Victory
  • 14
    Thats when she got pissy said that I still had two weeks left and she would expect me to do as I was told until then and that I should keep my smart- remarks to myself. I said "okay" and walked out of her office. I then cleaned out of my desk, sent her and HR an email changing resignation date from 2 weeks to effective immediately, and turned my badge into security. Had I agreed to stay, she would have waited until I had documented my process, hired someone for half my salary, and then let me go
    via Fleeting_Victory
  • 15
    I took the next year off and then was hired by a different company for $160K.Never accept the counteroffer. Also, 2 weeks' notice is a courtesy, not a companies and requirement. managers who think they rule the world. 159 Reply
    via Fleeting_Victory
  • 16
    Iphacles 7h ago • Something similar happened to a friend of mine. He had been working for a company for several years, and over time, they kept piling on more responsibilities outside his job scope. Eventually, he was doing twice the work of others with the same job description. He approached management to either reduce his duties to match his job description or give him a raise, but they were noncommittal. He found a new job and made the same request again, but management remained wishy-washy.
    via Iphacles
  • 17
    Slaves2Darkness • 8h ago Exactly. You have to remember you are selling your labor. At the end of the day, at the end of all the employer you are a selling them a service, your labor. Insist on the highest price for your services. 44 Reply
    via Slaves2Darkness
  • 18
    FollowingNo4648 7h ago • Agree 100% with the counter offer. My brother foolishly did that years ago and everything they promised in the counter offer never actually happened. He did finally end up leaving the company a few years later. 31 Reply
    via FollowingNo4648
  • 19
    KT_mama .7h ago Absolutely correct. If it's possible, offer to write a guide for your role and/or offer on-going support for an exorbitant hourly rate, minimum 1 hour per instance, all billable hours rounding up to the half hour. Whatever you quote them now, if they decline and come crawling back later, please double your number 20 ↓ Reply
    via KT_mama
  • 20
    CoatAlternative1771 5h ago My dumbass coworker accepted the counter when she put in her notice. I told her point blank, they will fire you the moment they can. Her: but I like my job now. 6 months later... Coworker got fired. 22 Reply
    via CoatAlternative1771
  • 21
    Obvious_Exam_8604 6h ago My old job did this. A friend was promoted to manager and revealed to me I was paid significantly less than everyone in the dept, including a guy that was always on a PIP and was terrible. I stayed with the job anyway cause I hate change and liked my coworkers but when a job landed in my lap that paid 15k more I was out of there. Boss came up to me my last day saying it was sad I was leaving they were just about to give me a pay raise. 17 Reply
    via Obvious_Exam_8604

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