A person claiming to work at a privately-owned tech company claims that despite the CEO’s announcement that the company achieved its highest day of revenue generation ever, its austerity measures—denying raises for deserving employees—were still being kept in effect.
The revelation comes from Reddit user u/dumpster-pirate, and it was shared on the site’s r/antiwork subreddit. r/Antiwork is a subreddit dedicated to “those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life, want more information on anti-work ideas and want personal help with their own jobs/work-related struggles.”
In the post, the Redditor shared, “I work at a medium-sized tech company. It is all privately owned by the CEO still and he is looking to sell soon and retire. Because of this, the company is obsessed with spending as little money as possible. No one can get a raise, reimbursement, promotion, hire, or purchase without the CEO’s approval. When someone is fired or quits we are not allowed to fill their role leaving every department understaffed.”
The employee goes on to say that recently, “a new advertising campaign came out and we made nearly 10x in one day what we normally make a week as a company. The CEO went to every floor of our office to share the good news to everyone.”
However, that didn’t seem to change much. “The same day he denied several raises for hardworking, critical employees,” says the Redditor.
Then they revealed, “Now a group of us are planning to all quit together, leaving no one behind to manage our product that has made the company so much money lately.”
The story comes amid a landscape in which CEOs earn much more than their employees. According to an Economic Policy Institute report, “In 2021, the ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker compensation was 399-to-1 under the realized measure of CEO pay; that is up from 366-to-1 in 2020 and a big increase from 20-to-1 in 1965 and 59-to-1 in 1989.”
The report also noted, “From 1978 to 2021, CEO pay based on realized compensation grew by 1,460%, far outstripping S&P stock market growth (1,063%) and top 0.1% earnings growth (which was 385% between 1978 and 2020, according to the latest data available). In contrast, compensation of the typical worker grew by just 18.1% from 1978 to 2021.”
Fellow members of the subreddit commiserated, and also responded with similar experiences of their own
“That’s so f*cked up,” one said. “Not only the fact he basically froze the company but ‘sharing the good news?’ What a selfish bastard. I hope the entire company quits.”
Another shared an anecdote: “My old boss told us we all have to tighten our belts because times are tough. Within 2 weeks all 3 directors bought new cars totalling just over 500k.”
“Imagine what they would have bought if they weren’t tightening their belts,” someone quipped in response.
One person shared, “I am in a similar situation. Two months ago, we had an “all hands” zoom meeting where the company gloated about having the highest revenue in their history at around $10 billion. Then a week later 4% of the employees were terminated because we only grew by 2% but our industry standard was 6% and the investors needed to make up the difference.”
That commenter also noted, “Been so understaffed we’ve had customers threaten to leave if they don’t get faster service, but now we’re going to pull back even more. I’m sure that will help!”
Others reacted positively to the Redditor’s pledge to walk out.
One commenter suggested that the company employees “don’t quit, just quit working.” Another cosigned the suggestion, adding, “If you all call in sick or stop working then the pain would be worse initially.”
The Daily Dot reached out to the Redditor via a comment on their post.
