CEO calls employees 'a family' in a meeting, refuses to give top-performing member of the family a $1.50 raise the same day: 'I'm currently doing the workload of 2 people.'

Emmy Pratt • Writer and Editor

May 7, 2026 7:45 AM EDT

He is so unbelievably phony

It can be difficult to tell if the higher-ups at your company are being 100% honest with you. You're not in the room when they discuss the precise figures for operational costs, revenue, and profit. You only know what they tell you, and what they tell the public, but sometimes those narratives are at odds with each other. Sometimes they'll tell the world that they're a world-class company that is doing better than ever, but they'll tell you that there's absolutely no way that they can afford to pay you any more, because the success is allegedly not enough to sustain a paltry pay increase. Maybe it's true that they can't afford to give raises and keep the lights on, but there are always signs that this isn't the case.

If a company keeps hiring a bunch of new employees, they probably have some money to spare. If they're getting rid of a lot of employees, they probably don't. Employees aren't stupid: they can tell when their bosses are lying through their teeth about the company not having enough money to give them a raise. It would be preferable for employers to simply say, "We don't think you deserve a raise this year," but companies obviously won't do that because it would hurt people's feelings. Professionalism is all about lying, but in order for it to be effective, you have to tell a believable lie.

The CEO in this story is clearly lying to his employees, he is telling them that they're his family, despite the fact that he won't even give one of his top performers a raise that keeps up with inflation.

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_{A greedy CEO, who tells his employees they're his "family" to their face, but refuses to pay them what they deserve.}
_{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}
My boss called us a "family" during the meeting, then denied my $1.50 raise request.

via u/SoffiaNov
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via ZBRA Marketing

_{A hardworking employee does the work of two people after his coworker quit.}
_{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}
via u/SoffiaNov
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via u/Agent-c1983
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via u/Toddw1968
via u/BananaJelloXlii
via Vitaly Gariev

_{A group of coworkers who consider themselves to be each other's "family," despite the fact that they would stop talking if one of them left the company.}
_{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}
via u/jeffmc81
via u/Defiant-Scholar-793
via u/Defiant-Scholar-793
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via u/dataless01