'No matter how long he stays after this, his salary is frozen and won't increase again': Coworker receives "final" raise after 12 years at his company, immediately submits resignation and uses new salary to get a better job offer

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Dec 19, 2025 2:00 PM EST

This man's salary freeze was the justification he needed to leave his company for good.

One has to wonder who the culprit behind this foolish policy was and what they were thinking. After all, employees who have given more than 12 years to a given company should be incentivized to stay, not to leave. 

For this coworker, he had been a proud "company man" for over a decade, earning promotions and raises nearly every year. However, once he hit his twelfth year, it was company policy that he would receive one final raise. From that point forward, his salary would he frozen. 

Somehow, the HR department did not anticipate how the average employee would respond to this news. The fact that they could not foresee the potential pushback or even exodus from folks who reached this point is mind-blowing. After all, wasn't loyalty supposed to be rewarded? 

If the core principle behind this idea was to ensure that lower-level employees' compensation would not be affected to benefit those at the top, that might have been slightly more understandable, but it sounds like that was not the thinking behind this policy. Besides, there are certainly other ways in which this company can cut costs to both provide all employees fair compensation while rewarding those who have given years on end to the company. 

Let's just say that this policy backfired majorly!

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  • The one benefit to this salary freeze was the fact that this coworker was able to use his new compensation package to negotiate an even better one at a different business when he decided to apply elsewhere. Again, the fact that this HR department could not anticipate this man's resignation as even a possibility says everything one needs to know about the level of incompetence within this company.

  • "My coworker quit his job right after getting his 'last' raise after 12 years. His thinking was brilliant."

    Anyway, a colleague of mine at work had just completed 12 years at the company about two months ago. According to our policy, this is the last milestone you can reach. You get a final salary increase, an extra week of vacation, and that's it. He is now
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  • earning the maximum salary he can reach here. No matter how long he stays after this, his salary is frozen and won't increase again.
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  • Anyway, last Monday, he submitted his resignation and told them he's leaving in two weeks. In the exit interview, HR was genuinely surprised and asked him why he was leaving
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  • after all this time. His response was spot on. He simply told them that there was no longer a reason for him to stay. Since he would no longer receive any more salary increases, the only way to increase his income was to look for a new job.
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  • And that's exactly what he did. He used his new, maxed-out salary as a starting point to negotiate elsewhere. And he just signed for a new job with a salary
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  • 20% higher than his current one, and they'll also give him the same number of vacation days. Honestly, I can't blame him.
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  • This shows you that when companies get rid of pension plans and put a cap on salaries after a certain number of years,
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  • they are essentially telling their most experienced people to go look for a job elsewhere. They created the perfect incentive for him to leave.
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  • A mature man in a button down shirt and tie works on his laptop while talking on the phone in his office.
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

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

  • mepel_met_een_I... And then they get mad because people play the system they created. I'd do the same
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  • just_another-aNDy 12 years is long enough that most people are properly settled in, and would find it hard to think of a different life. Very sneaky, and very stupid
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  • Wekko306 That's a bat insane HR policy that actively pushes out the people that you really want to keep in your organization. Good for your colleague and everyone that will follow his example in the future.
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  • Especially with inflation and without compensation for it, you're actively getting worse year over year.
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  • Extra-Blueberry-4... My old company relied on that policy too. If you wanted to get a raise, you had to get promoted within the company but the company would always hire
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  • new outside people because they'd work for less money. I got sick of it after a while and left to get a 35% pay bump. The company was relying on me being secure
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  • in my position and settling. for mediocre wages in exchange for a safe job. Very sneaky of the employer to do that sort of thing.
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  • tatortot1003 Knew a guy that did the same thing. Engineering department head. Maxed out. I'm out.
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  • Consistent-Movi... 12 year experience is gone and it will probably cost them more to replace him.
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salary promotion employment issues coworkers upper management i quit satisfying quitting story Horrible Bosses toxic-work-environment
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