Man gets raise for leaving on time, saying no to extra work: 'Corporate logic makes no sense'
An employee's shift from overworking to setting boundaries led to a surprising 15% raise.
After years of working late and taking on extra tasks, a man claimed that it was setting boundaries at the workplace to secure more work-life balance that got his a raise. In a now-viral Reddit post, an anonymous user narrated how he went from being the office “try-hard” to promotion material just because he decided to do less not more.
“I got a raise after I started leaving exactly at 5pm and my boss is acting like I've ‘stepped up my game,’” he wrote.
He said that for years he was a hardworking employee who put was the first one in and the last to leave, constantly answering late-night emails and picking up coworkers' slack. However, he rarely got a promotion or raise despite asking, constantly brushed off with vague reassurances.
“I asked for a promotion three times and kept getting the ‘we see your potential, just need to wait for the right timing’ speech," he said.
Check out his full post here:
The turning point came after he was once again passed over and newer colleague with connections to upper management was promoted instead. That’s when he decided he had to change how much pressure he was putting on himself.
He said he began working strictly from 9 to 5, turned off after-hours email notifications, and politely refused tasks that weren’t in his job description.
“The weirdest thing happened. My boss called me in yesterday and gave me a 15% raise ‘for showing such impressive growth in prioritisation and efficiency.’ He actually said I'm ‘more focused and delivering higher quality work’ than ever before. I'm completely baffled. Everything I thought would get me ahead (overworking, being available 24/7) actually worked against me, and now that I've stopped trying so hard, suddenly I'm promotion material? Corporate logic makes zero sense," he concluded.
Reddit users tried to solve the mystery of the raise by suggesting their own theories. “Ive seen this before. My theory is sometimes people who are over working, staying late, always hustling give the mistaken appearance they are always behind, catching up at last minute, overwhelmed, can’t keep up,” said one of them.
Another said, "Your boss noticed a new pattern. A pattern that usually ends with a great employee leaving. This move they made was to keep you from getting a new job."
