Burned-Out Employee Asks For A Pay Raise, Is Told To ‘Go Get Another Offer’ And He Maliciously Complies

Recently, a person shared an incident from a former job he had last summer on the Malicious Compliance subreddit. “I'd been working at an office for about three years,” the Redditor wrote. As the office was starting to come back to a hybrid schedule, the author caught COVID, which made him very tired for the next month.

Exhaustion led to burnout, but despite it, the author kept believing he was in the right position career-wise. “Then my manager starts telling me about how he's working on hiring someone who used to work there before I did.”

Apparently, this new employee was asking for a twenty or more percent higher salary than what the author had been making. Not only did it upset the author, but made him request what seemed like a fair bump in pay too.

Bored Panda reached out to the author of this story who wished to remain anonymous. “The pandemic may have kept me in that job longer. Once we started working from home, it was easier to avoid talking to my boss. The uncomfortability started ramping up when we started going back into the office and it was impossible to avoid my boss again.” The Redditor added that he hadn't considered quitting “until finding out the new employee would be making more than me, though.”

When asked what were the reasons that led the author to burnout, he said it was the long days and a high workload. “I had so much to do that I couldn't make any meaningful progress on anything. My workload kept getting higher and I continued to be unable to make progress. Then with every new task comes a status meeting to see how things are going with that task. Half my week was meetings and the other half I had to choose which one thing I might be able to show some progress on.”

Moreover, the Redditor explained that this whole schedule really negatively impacted his mental health. “I experienced anxiety like never before. It spilled over into my personal life as well.” The author added that he is not sure he could have done anything differently. “I directly told my boss I had too much to do and he just kept piling work on me.”

Luckily, now the author is happy with the new job. “I have a much more sustainable workload. If anything, most of the time I feel like I don't have enough to do. I generally feel like I can take all the time I need to do a thorough job. Lately, there's been a little extra to do, all pretty manageable, but my current boss is the first to offer help and stay apprised of how I'm doing and if I need any help. He's also more concerned about the well-being of his employees than any boss I've ever had.”

When asked what would be his advice for anyone struggling with burnout right now, the Redditor said it is quintessential to make sure you take care of yourself. “The sad truth is most companies do not care about your well-being and are going to grind you into nothing to extract value from you if you let them.”

“Don't be afraid to keep your options open. If you move on to another job, try not to burn the bridge behind you if it was a place you were okay with. I'm working at a place I had worked at previously. I liked it but I made a move to fill my resume a bit more. I always knew I had something in my back pocket if I needed it and it made making a switch much easier,” the author concluded.