Gregory was an ambitious young engineer who recently got his Masters degree at a prestigious university. He was already highly regarded by his team as a high performer. Management might even have referred to him as "one of our top young guys". Like all high performers at the Shitshow, Gregory eventually realized that he was severely underappreciated. After years of hard work, initiative, and out of the box thinking, he had nothing to show for it. Not only was he grossly underpaid, he wasn't getting any real benefits either: no career development, no leadership opportunities, no creative assignments, no training that would give him actual skills, and of course, no formal recognition that would make him noticed by Upper Management. All he ever really got were good performance reviews, which somehow never got reflected in his pay raises. He always got verbal promises of being "taken care of" in the future, which always seemed "just one more year" away.
After years of broken promises, Gregory finally grew a pair and stormed into his Functional Manager's office. He demanded more money because, by golly, he actually deserved it. To his surprise, his Functional Manager actually agreed with this assessment. He couldn't argue. Indeed, Gregory was a very high performer and severely underpaid compared to everyone else. The Functional Manager told Gregory to give him a few days and that he will see what he can do. A few days later, he called Gregory into his office and told him there was one way to get more money: Get another job offer.
GET ANOTHER JOB OFFER?!?! That was the suggestion. As if that were not blatantly obvious already, his own company was telling him their official policy was to tell him to look for other jobs, and that once he found one, then maybe they could match the offer and give him fair pay. All the hard work and initiative that Gregory had demonstrated over the years meant absolutely nothing. "That's just how these big corporations work," they told him. It's as if your girlfriend told you that the only way you can get her to marry you… is to find another girl who will marry you.
So for several excruciating months, Gregory busted his ass looking for other jobs. It wasn't fun. He stayed up late, researched companies, sent out resumes, and prepared for interviews. He eventually got a good job offer. Needless to say, he took it. Did the Shitshow actually think that after several months of strenuous job searching, he would accept a counteroffer from the very company that caused him all that unnecessary pain? Apparently, they did. So much for the Shitshow's ingenious plan on keeping around good employees.
Because the only way to get more pay is to go astray, I throw rocks.
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