Imagine working at the same company for a long time, and you’re up for a promotion. What would you do if your boss was dragging his feet on actually promoting you and made it sound like you might not ever get that promotion after all?

In this story, one employee is in that exact situation, and she was pretty upset about what her boss had to say. She really needed that raise.

Keep reading to find out what she did about it and how her boss reacted.

If you tell your employees that people who want more money should work somewhere else, don’t be surprised when they quit.

About four years ago I worked for a company that provided behavior services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We did individual counseling, parent trainings, data analysis, etc.

Think highly specialized mental care and support in home and community settings.

Anyway after two years of working there and getting another certification, I asked my boss for a raise.

I was newly divorced and raising 3 kids, so I really needed the money. I had been working 10+ hours a week of overtime to stay afloat.

This wasn’t news to OP’s boss.

My boss also knew about my situation.

My evaluations were great and I had been told I would be moved up to supervisor soon, so my boss had to have known this conversation was coming.

This man looked me dead in my eyes and said that he knew I wanted to make more money and my reviews were great, but he wanted to make sure I was “loyal to the company mission”. He told me he can tell when people are “just looking to make more money. And we tell those people to go work somewhere else.”

He wanted to make sure that the new supervisor would “put the company mission and families they support first.” He told me that he couldn’t offer me a raise at that time but he would get back to me. No date was set for a follow up meeting or anything.

She took that as her sign to move on.

I started applying for new jobs that day.

Within two weeks I had found a new position making double the salary for only 40 hours of work a week.

As it turns out, I was being severely underpaid (shocker I know).

The day I handed in my notice, my boss and the owner were in a meeting about my new position within the organization. Of course no one said anything to me about it beforehand.

Her boss really wanted her to stay.

They sent me an offer, which I politely declined because it sucked.

Then they tried to hire me on as a contractor at a rate that was at least 25% lower than every other contractor rate in the city for my position, so I turned that down too.

My boss and the owner were both shocked that I rejected their offers, especially since they were willing to offer me “so many perks,” they were giving me the opportunity to “become a leader in a great company” and believed I was “a great clinician” who would do “so many great things within their organization,” etc.

I reminded my boss that he is the one who told me to go work somewhere else and then I stopped responding to their messages.

Wow. Her boss really messed up by not agreeing to give her a raise and promote her to supervisor right away. But, it worked out great for her. Now, she doesn’t have to work overtime, and she makes much more money.

Let’s see how Reddit responded.

A company is not family.

Exactly!

Another person was denied a raise.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an artist who made sure to leave the walls of her home blank and boring before moving out, even though they were covered with gorgeous murals before then.

Here’s some more praise for OP.

Companies need to start valuing their employees and they need to stop assuming their employees need the job more than they need the employee to work there. A hard worker won’t have a hard time finding another company that will be happy to hire them.

Promoting a good employee is the smart move unless you’re willing to replace them.