Employee stands her ground after boss tries to backtrack on the raise she was promised

Hardworking employees often get taken for granted unless they raise their voices and advocate for themselves at the workplace. They are overworked and not paid the compensation that they deserve. A woman on Reddit, u/Maximum-Sun-8455, highlighted this toxic workplace trend by sharing a conversation she had with her boss in which he tried to backtrack on a raise that he had promised her.

She goes on to give a background on exactly what happened. "We work in a small business together, we were friends, I am the only female-identifying employee he has. So he hired his other friends and one in particular who I’ve ‘shared’ a job with largely the last 2 years," wrote the employee.

"He is sadly, an alcoholic, and has been fired from this job before being re-hired for coming to work with alcohol on his breath," the person continued. She added that on the days her boss was on leave, the co-worker would often come to work with "zero sleep and alcohol on his breath."

"I do his job for him I’d say 90% of the time if we are working a shift together. This guy also just leaves to smoke cigarettes whenever he wants with no communication- and this is a front-of-house retail business," added the woman. 

She then shared an incident that took place at work recently. "So, this past week my coworker does the above on a very busy day and my boss ends up coming in on his day off to help. He is literally training the coworker for the job he was doing the last 2 years??," said the employee. 

However, the boss ended up firing the other employee. "Before any of the falling out happened with my coworker, I, for what felt like the thousandth time, told my boss about doing this coworkers job for him and how it’s crazy because he literally was having this dude ‘train’ another new hire but it just ended up being me training him and my coworker," wrote the employee. "And he told me he would bump my pay $2 an hour from what it was immediately and in April when our retail season hits, I’d go up to 29 or 28." 

The employee then wrote about how he backtracked on her raise. "I stopped interviewing at places when he told me I would be anticipating this raise, but now I’m questioning if this is worth it. It’s been teetering on weird gender pay gap s**t too- for instance, I found out I was getting paid the same amount per hour as my alcoholic coworker I did his job for, and $1 LESS PER HOUR than the new hire I am training out of kindness? Crazy," concluded the employee.

People on Reddit were upset and suggested that she quit. u/goodforabeer commented, "A dollar less/hour than a new hire that you're training? Nope. Get out now." u/croud_control wrote, "Friends and respectable business partners, keep their word. He's neither one of them. Secure another job and ditch the traitor." u/FireWatch_man expressed, "There is plenty of evidence to show that the fastest way to increase your income is to move to a different company offering more. Loyalty doesn't pay anymore, maybe it never did. Either way, look out for #1. Good luck out there." u/wjean shared, "Nope. smile, take the $28/hr and start looking elsewhere. Leave when you find a better fit that values your expertise."