Boss denies raise for employee pulling 'double duty' — instantly realizes his mistake when work piles over

Every employee should strive to do their best and deserves to be rewarded if they go above and beyond. An employee who goes by u/Playful-Vegetable-15 revealed that when they worked hard and put in extra effort, instead of a raise, they got an attitude. Their boss, instead of acknowledging the effort, asked them to “stick to their job description” instead. So the only sensible thing to do then was to do as they were told. They stopped going overboard and prioritizing work that didn’t fit their “job description.” Turns out, their boss needed it more than he thought, but he realized it the hard way. The since-deleted post was originally shared on u/Playful-Vegetable-15 on February 5, and reposted by u/Choice_Evidence1983 on February 13. 

The employee mentioned they were doing “double duty for 6 months.” Their senior had quit, and there was a lot of backlog, which they kindly stepped in to fix. “I’m fixing legacy code, training the two new interns, and generating the weekly client reports, none of which is actually in my job description,” they explained. Going above and beyond the call of duty, given the situation, they thought it fit to ask for a raise. It wouldn’t actually be a raise since their workload had long increased. At that point, it was only fair pay. When they discussed it with their boss, they didn’t get the raise, not even an appreciation or a “thank you.” 

“My boss gave me a 10-minute lecture on ‘budgets’ and ended it by telling me to ‘focus on the core responsibilities outlined in your contract’ instead of worrying about money,” they shared. It wasn’t just a rejection; it was insulting and disrespectful. The boss had no consideration for how work was getting done and made it look like they were doing it for the money. The only way to deal with the situation was to oblige. “I immediately stopped fixing the nightly build errors, stopped answering the interns' constant Slack messages, and I definitely didn't run the client report this morning,” they noted. None of these duties was a part of their “contract,” and they stopped tending to it. 

“I just got a Slack message marked ‘URGENT’ asking where the data is for his 9 am meeting,” the employee revealed. Guess what? They have no intention of busting their behind going out of their way to fix things for the company. Instead, they had a classy response. “I’m about to reply with a screenshot of the ‘core responsibilities’ section of my contract,” they wrote. As noted, they did just that. “That’s exactly what I did. I quoted his email back to him: 'per your instruction below, I am focusing strictly on core responsibilities,’” they shared. 

The most interesting part is that since it's just him and two interns, the boss is truly in a mess. Moreover, the code they spent 5 years studying was in no way going to be manageable for interns, so the boss really wound himself up in a loss. According to findings from Zety, around 77% of employees said their engagement and productivity at work were negatively impacted due to dissatisfaction with salary.  32% of workers believe they are underpaid for their roles compared to colleagues and professionals in the same positions.

Image Source: Reddit|u/Dodgy Rogue

94% noted that they have negotiated their salary, but only 66% succeeded and got a higher pay. 54% believed their initial salary offer was below market value. Several employees are already underpaid for their roles within their contracts, and for this worker to be on double duty and still receive no compensation was just not done. u/himem_66 wrote, “Good luck. I hope you have something lined up. Shit is REAL out there in the job market.” u/Significant_Cup_238 added, “Your boss is effing stupid. I love it when my people step up and do things that need to get done that's not within their job description. I tend to reward that kind of behavior with promotions.”

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