u/Infinite-Town6432

This was the back to school clearance at one of the big box stores on Saturday. My son is autistic and there is exactly one lunch bag he will use, the insulated kind with the wide strap, because the thin ones dig into his shoulder and he will just not carry it. They had been discontinued and there were 2 left on the endcap, so I put both in my cart.

A woman about my age had been working the same aisle. She watched me take them, and about a minute later she came over and asked whether I needed both of them. I said yes, one for this year and one for when the first one goes.

She said her 3 were starting at a new school and she needed them. I said sorry, there had been 2 and I had taken 2. She said, and this is close to word for word, "But I have three kids. You clearly only have the one."

She followed me around the store after that. Not saying anything, just there, 2 aisles over every time I looked up. Then she found a young guy stocking shelves and brought him over and told him I was refusing to SHARE and could he please make me put one back.

He went and checked the back, came out and told her there were none left and that it was first come first served. She told me I was the reason kids go without and walked off. .

I see so many people in this sub saying things like I asked for a raise six months ago and my manager said maybe next quarter or I keep getting told the budget isnt there right now and Im just tired of watching good people sit around hoping their company is suddenly gonna wake up and realize what theyre worth.

Thats not how it works. If they valued you at a higher number you would already be at that number. Every time they say not yet or lets revisit that later what theyre really telling you is we know you'll stay anyway so why would we.

And the worst part is most people do stay. They stay because its comfortable or because they think loyalty means something or because theyre scared of starting over somewhere else. Meanwhile the person who got hired after them is making more because they negotiated harder on the way in and the company had no problem finding the budget for that.

I wasted three years at a place waiting for a promotion they kept dangling in front of me. Three years of next quarter and youre almost there and we just need to see one more strong review. You know what finally got me paid what I was worth. Leaving. One month of job searching and I had an offer for thirty percent more doing the same work.

Your company is not your family. Your manager might genuinely like you but they are not going to fight the system to get you paid. The only person who is going to fix your paycheck is you and that usually means being willing to walk.