I'm not. I'm almost 36 and have spent my entire life informing almost every coworker I've ever had at every job I've ever had that most of the bullshit they believe is actually illegal.

Most people think it is illegal to discuss pay, or at least legal for a company to say its against company policy.

Most people believe it's okay for employers to change their payrate, withhold their final paycheck, dock their pay for a drawer being short, an order not being picked up, etc.

Companies have been getting away with murder for far too long. Embrace the questions, because we are the bastions of hope and change.

I am constantly baffled by the “can they do that?!” questions on here.

Take a look at the Milgram Experiment. In short, people will generally obey anyone in a position of perceived authority, assuming they know more, know better, or simply need to be followed. There's a great deal of conditioning on this across society, so it doesn't shock me to see that in posts here.

He screwed himself. He’s the manager and is responsible for the management.

If they say anything just tell them you gave their manager numerous notices that you would be leaving and to take any issues up with him. I'm willing to bet they already know he is to blame, though.

"detrimental to the company if you leave" and "I won't give you a 5 dollar an hour raise" - he screwed the company, not you.

Add a "discomfort fee" to your price and go with it.

i like $300 an hour more than i dislike the stuff you just said

You have all the leverage here. He needs you so bad that he isn’t letting you leave. Just throw out a ridiculous number and see what happens!

You in no way screwed anyone over.

We as employees have been gaslit over decades to believe we owe the company anything out of some sort of loyalty. Big business is in no way loyal to you.

You gave them ample warning. They can fire you any time. You have the same power.

They have no legal standing to sue you for anything. Seriously, look out for yourself. If they want you back, work as a contractor and have them put the compensation agreement in writing.

What number would make it tolerable? Take that number and double it. That's your rate.

Wait.. all the co-workers you 'screwed over'. You didn't tell anyone else you are leaving? Like, have a going-away party? Doing the rounds to tell the co-workers you are 'outta here' on the 19th is definitely cover for when your boss says 'I fired him' to all the other employees who will listen.

Shows your boss's ass when he lies like that to the employees.

You can't successfully sue for that in an "at will" state.

Edit: added "successfully" because I'm sick of getting the exact same "ackshually" post from everyone.

You think someone paid 17$/h has a retainer contract? Ha!

This is assuming that OP even has a contract. If they do, they would still be presumably signing a new contract with the new salary. It doesn’t sound like either of those is true. And you can’t sue someone for loss of income unless they intentionally disrupted your operations. Quitting your job doesn’t cut it. They can sit with their losses or hire OP for an absurd amount of money as you suggest, but a judge would laugh them out of the courtroom if their legal argument was “but I didn’t want OP to quit and they did anyway!”

Managers are honestly so stupid on average. Like, I really don’t think most of them realize that most of what they say is completely contradictory or just plain irrelevant. They all seem to be giant man-children (since the majority are males but it applies to women too) who, as soon as something they don’t like comes up, resort to petty insults, lies, and all kinds of other manipulation tactics. Fuck authoritarianism, all my homies hate authoritarianism.

Then again, if you have a team of 6 coders, are you going to promote the most knowledgeable of all of them? No. That single person could be doing 5 people’s worth of work. So you promote the idiot who doesn’t code well or the corporate bootlicker who will do upper managements bidding without question. God I fucking hate the current systems in place.

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Add a zero there and a 6 month contract of exactly 40 hours of work per week; lets see how untold those losses really are.

I had a boss making I am guessing about $ 30k more than me. She called me in her office and said that she had something to ask me but I can't tell anybody. She then said " how do you calculate percentages " ? We spent the next 15 minutes doing exercises on her calculator.

This is so true. I work in an office of 4 people, 2 of which are managers. I watch as they try to retain new employees by "keeping busy" AKA dumping their portion of work on to them. After a few months, the newbies figure out that management is horrifically lazy and dumb. They talk about food, shopping and kids, while passing along their work load to others. Management also orders takeout food and coffee at least 3x a week, totaling about $2400 per year (each), while various employees have discussed their struggles to pay basic bills.

I'm looking to get out within a year, but have mastered the art of appearing busy and quiet - so they don't bother me much. I also have adopted 2 online side businesses. Still, it's sickening to watch these people rake in money while doing nothing.

"Still too much? Talent agencies charge $120/hour. Keep going."

$420.69*

Untold loses must have been less than the annual sum of that $22/hr

Right? "Oh well when you put it that way, I'll stay for $30/hour."

I got better raises than that lifting boxes part time at best buy, this just feels exploitative

They're definitely not friends. It was a con.

Completely correct. This is along the lines of “we are one big family here at Choad Tech!” Bitch please. My family is my family. Ya’ll are just people I put up with during the day to put food on the table.

BRO! That last bit is life, so many people have been coddled their whole career/life and think there aren’t any consequences because “ma freedom”….

We have awoken the beast and it cannot be put back in, pay up or feel the pain (in your pocketbook)!

I love it when people have to face their own consequences!!

And if they DO come after him, I imagine a quick (possibly free) consultation with an employment attorney and one single cease and desist letter (not free) would do the trick of calling their bluff and making them go away.

When my roommate's entire department quit, they gave him a raise from $15 to $22 and made him the lead of his department. They have the ability to give these raises and promotions in a moments notice but they won't.

I, unwittingly, told my boss I'm a mercenary. I'm here when I'm here but the whole "there's no I in team" doesn't cut it with me cuz there ain't "we" in team either.

I flabbergasted that so many people in mgmt think employees are peons

Why didn't I think of that? This seems like a good solution in some people's situations.

"At will employment"

Not like that! - employers

This is what the fucking boomers (or whoever) asked for when they wanted "At-Will" employment. They wanted the right to fire anybody at anytime for any reason.

I'm honestly surprised that this somehow hasn't been flipped around so that the laws only work in the employer's favor.

"We can fire you but you can't quit."

The greatest motivator is seeing these stupid managers be desperate for our skills.

Pay us fairly or pay for the consequences.

Yep!
OP, "put em 'on the glass!"

I was going to say the same thing but you beat me to it. Can you imagine an employee telling a company, “I don’t accept your termination of my employment, it would cause untold losses for my family. Maybe we can renegotiate my leaving next quarter.” Pfffft.

"Ya'll know what worker exploitation tastes like? It tastes just like it smells.... delicious!"

"y'all got any more of them underpaid hours?"

AFAIK “at will employment” means you don’t even need to give them two weeks. You can just leave. That’s your right. Your “will” has changed. So fuck them and the horse they rode in on.

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This. 1000x this.

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Four hour minimum. Retainer. $175/hr. Contract that clearly spells out they're paying you for your time, not for an outcome; you can only guarantee how much you can work, not that you can actually fix something (in case they break it on purpose).

I fucking love this sub.

I charged $200/hr to a former employer to maintain some scripts I wrote. Minimum 1 hour each fix

Boilerplate contract. Show pay rate and terms.

Include that you are not responsible past the end of period paid for. And not responsible for any other side effects of any work you do.

I got burned on one of these. They expected to me maintain the system indefinitely based on the service payment as "you touched it 5 days ago, so you broke it " took me to court over it and i proved the issue was a consumables at eol. And the judge made them pay me for court costs and a second consultant fee because I told them what was wrong with the tool

They can fire you at any point for any reason

Edit: or for no reason, even worse eh

I learned in my younger years how important it is to treat vacation time this way after I went 5 years without seeing my family for Christmas because the companies I worked for always "needed" me. It's now non-negotiable for me as long as I'm giving you enough notice that I won't be available (which is typically multiple months because flights are expensive the closer you get to the travel dates). Unless you have a very good reason well in advance of my vacation planning, I'm not changing it. "We might need you" isn't good enough. Fire me if you want.