Guy demands a 10% raise after learning Welsh, pushing HR to honor a promise for wage increases for bilingual employees: ‘The policy meant Spanish, but [it] didn't specify Spanish'

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Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Mar 25, 2026 6:00 PM EDT

Only 0.01% of the world population speaks Welsh, but this office employee used his Welsh lessons to teach his HR department a lesson in honoring company policy… Down to the letter. 

It's not uncommon to hear promises of a raise thrown around in the workplace. Dangling a juicy carrot in front of their workforce, bosses, managers, and the invulnerable HR department are happy to toss around hopeful words like "raise," "wage increase," "merit-based," and "salary adjustment."

And yet, oftentimes, those promises are empty, leaving workers with twice the workload and nothing to show for it apart from bags under their eyes and the empty cup of a 3rd coffee on their desk. 

Some employees, however, refuse to accept the empty promises of their higher-ups and will hold them to their word. This office employee in the next story was a man of specifics, and he refused to let the HR department slither out of this one. After diligently reading the company policy regarding bilingual employees, he noticed that any employee who could prove they were proficient in another language would be eligible for a 10% raise. 

Now, 10% is not something you turn up your nose to; that's some decent money!

However, as the policy didn't specify which languages employees had to prove they knew, this worker decided to take the opportunity to deep-dive into his own family's personal history. Although only roughly 0.01% of the global population speaks it, this man took his Welsh lessons to the bank, cashing in on his company's bilingual policy while getting in touch with his 18th century roots. 

And by holding his company to their word, an extra snarky employee taught the HR department a lesson in policy specifics…

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  • Man looking smug in the office after maliciously complying with protocol.
    via Yan Krukao

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

  • My job told us they would pay more if an employee became bilingual. Felly, dysgais Gymraeg.

    I had a job that had a standing policy that if you could speak at least two languages, you got a 10% raise.
    via TheGlen
  • I've always been a natural at languages but I don't speak any of them fluently. Usually just enough to get into trouble.
    via TheGlen
  • At a previous job I was disciplined for telling a supervisor that only ever addressed me in Spanish to please speak English.
    via TheGlen
  • In German. She wrote me up for speaking a language that she didn't understand, and was completely oblivious to the irony.
    via TheGlen
  • But I got a job I liked and saw that pay incentive because we only had so many bilingual employees in a job that frequently requires you to go to job sites where English is not spoken.
    via TheGlen
  • Well I wanted to learn the language of my ancestors, so I picked up a Welsh class online and while I didn't become fluent, I spoke enough to carry on a rudimentary conversation.
    via TheGlen
  • Man looking smug in the office after maliciously complying with protocol.
    via Yan Krukao

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

  • Which would be great if anybody here actually spoke Welsh. But I then went to HR to see if I qualified for the pay raise.
    via TheGlen
  • You had to go talk to someone and management, and they would test your proficiency. I proceeded to tell them in Welsh that I could speak it, and that my family came from Wales in 1745.
    via TheGlen
  • The manager then told me that the policy meant Spanish. But as the policy didn't specify Spanish and just said bilingual, they honored the policy gave me my raise and then change the policy immediately after that.
    via TheGlen
  • I haven't ever had to use Welsh at work, but they have had me translate for new hires who couldn't understand some of our clients who speak with very accented Cajun and Scottish accents.
    via TheGlen
  • marvchuk Telling your manager to please speak English, in German, is fkn hilarious
    via TheGlen
  • OP TheGlen Ich sprechen Spanish nicht. Sprechen sie English bitte.
    via TheGlen
  • Aggressive-Fig-8734 Good effort, definitely clear enough to bring the point across! And yes I know you made your point without it needing to be perfect German, but just in case you ever need to make that move again, the correct phrase would be: "Ich spreche kein Spanisch. Sprechen Sie bitte Englisch."
    via Aggressive-Fig-8734
  • OP TheGlen My German used to be much better, but I don't have anybody to speak it to locally. I am sadly down to just maybe a few hundred words. Likewise I'm also beginning to lose my Welsh. Funny enough we have a nearby German speaking community, but they speak a very archaic form of German so it's not much help
    via TheGlen
  • SordoCrabs More like using a loophole than malicious compliance, but still a solid anecdote. I think it would only be malicious compliance if the company had required bilingualism across the board.
    via SordoCrabs
  • OP TheGlen It's a bit of both. I knew they meant Spanish, they knew I knew they meant Spanish. It was more used to give new hires a signing bonus.
    via TheGlen
  • SnarkyBeanBroth Ardderchog! Dw i'n dwlu a'r dosbarthiau Dysgu Cymraeg ar-lein.
    via SnarkyBeanBroth
  • OP TheGlen Braf! Dweud rwybeth yn Gymraeg neu Duolingo?
    via TheGlen
  • bagofboards u/TheGlen are you in the petrochemical industry? I've lived in South Louisiana for 43 years. That accent is something.
    via bagofboards
  • OP TheGlen I'm adjacent to it. We do work with a lot of petrochemical companies on the Gulf Coast. And the warehouse manager of one of them over on Barbour's Cut had an accent so thick it was legend. I don't think the guy pronounced half the letters in any word
    via TheGlen
  • SMM50 Mein Luftkissenfahrzeug ist voller Aale.
    via SMM50
  • OP TheGlen Meine Brustwarzen explodieren vor Freude
    via TheGlen
  • SugarBeefs So an environment with Spanish, heavily accented Cajun, and Scottish??? That's a wild mix. I'm going to guess Gulf of Mexico oil industry?
    via SugarBeefs
  • OP TheGlen You are correct good sir
    via TheGlen
  • lazerbullet Surely there was a proficiency level involved in this policy?
    via lazerbullet
  • OP TheGlen For Spanish yes. You had to prove to the supervisor that you were fluent. It never dawned on the person who made the policy up in corporate that other languages existed
    via TheGlen
  • Mocollombi Reminds me of a post where two multilingual persons were told not to speak in Spanish, so they proceeded to speak in German and Russian.
    via Mocollombi
  • Zonnebloempje I would actually change it into "Ich verstehe kein Spanisch. Sprechen Sie bitte Englisch." This means you say you dont understand Spanish. Not speaking it could be interpreted as just that, meaning you don't speak Spanish, but may understand it.
    via TheGlen

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languages hr raise Office bilingual
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