'Everyone is replaceable': Boss refuses to give hardworking employee a raise, claiming he can find someone else to do the job if needed, employee quits and proves boss wrong

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Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
Sep 4, 2025 6:00 AM EDT

It always boggles our minds that instead of giving hardworking employees a raise, some bosses would rather lose employees and then end up paying much more to hire someone else. Why is giving a pay raise to someone who truly deserves it considered such a difficult task?

Take the employee in the story below as an example. They decided to ask for a raise after three years of working as an assistant manager at a retail chain. For some reason, the boss refuses, claiming that it will only take him a week to find someone else who can do the job. "If you don't like the pay, leave; everyone is replaceable". 

We will see about that, bossman.

Two months later, the employee finds a better job and quits, giving their boss the opportunity to prove himself right. You can already guess what happened next…

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  • Instead of being proved right, the boss is proven to be very, very wrong when three weeks after the employee left, the store is a mess. Turns out, someone is indeed replaceable, but it's not this employee.

  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 10549931264
    via pixelshot

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 02

    Boss said I was replaceable turns out, he was wrong.

    Last year, I worked as an assistant manager at a retail chain. I was basically running the store because my manager barely showed up, but i never got credit. Did scheduling,
    via swjedi101
  • 03
    trained new hires, dealt with vendors, even handled payroll issues. When i asked for a raise after 3 years, my boss straight
    via swjedi101
  • 04
    up told me "If you don't like the pay, I can find someone else in a week. Everyone's replaceable.
    via swjedi101
  • 05
    Well, funny enough, two months later i found a new job with better pay, less stress, and actual work-life balance. I gave
    via swjedi101
  • 06
    my two weeks, and on my last day my boss was still smug about how the store will run fine.
    via swjedi101
  • 07
    Fast forward three weeks, I get texts from my old coworkers, schedules are a mess, vendors aren't getting paid, new hires
    via swjedi101
  • 08
    are quitting after a week, and corporate had to send someone from another state to fix things.
    via swjedi101
  • 09
    Meanwhile, I'm working fewer hours, making more money, and actually having weekends off.
    via swjedi101
  • 10
    Boss Discussing Work
    via StockSnap

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 11
    DadPool79 I'm here for this. I have told a couple of my bosses, "You can replace the body, but you can't replace the skillset."
    via DadPool79
  • 12
    petabread91 Turns out he's the replaceable one.
    via petabread91
  • 13
    Bulky-Internal8579 Building an effective team and rewarding good employees is how I help my business unit. succeed. As a manager, their success is my success - I hate it
    via Bulky-Internal8579
  • 14
    when I lose good people although I'm happy for them if they're moving onto better things because then I have to train someone new we've lost the
    via Bulky-Internal8579
  • 15
    experience and skills that go with a good employee. Only a foolish manager or owner doesn't recognize that.
    via Bulky-Internal8579
  • 16
    oppzorro Same thing happened to me. 8 months after they fired me for a dumb reason, I move out of state, get a job I love, they call me begging me to come back and fix
    via oppzorro
  • 17
    the mess they have made. When I asked them what my incentives were, they said I would make the same amount of pay as before and would put me up for a month until I found a new place to live. I said, "No thanks."
    via oppzorro
  • 18
    Nervous_Explorer_898 I once had a supervisor who told me and my coworkers during a mandatory meeting we were all expendable. A couple days later, found out he was fired. So, yeah. I guess we are, my dude. I guess we are.
    via Nervous_Explorer_898
  • 19
    autoredial Bad bosses often undervalue the staff and their skills, rarely understanding how critical they are to the business.
    via autoredial
  • 20
    ErectTubesock Few things are more satisfying than watching your old workplace implode after leaving.
    via ErectTubesock

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Tags

boss workplace-stories employee manager job tales-from-the-workplace reddit story raise pay raise overworked-employees workplace Reddit company funny quitting
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