50 Reasons Why You’re Not Getting A Raise This Year

By Rob Gunther

You’re always late to work. Right, your car broke down. OK, sure, you had a doctor appointment last week. I mean, once in a while would be understandable, but it’s become a pretty regular thing here.
You were late to this meeting. What time did you come in today, eleven? And you knew we had this performance review, right? See, this is what I’m talking about.
You’ve got an excuse for everything. I was going to get to this in a little bit, but this is a perfect example. I point out a simple fact, that you’re always late, and you immediately get going about another broken down car and doctor appointment. I’m not convinced.
How about just owning up to your mistakes? That’s the thing, you never own up to anything. Remember the water cooler a few weeks back? Oh please, don’t play me like I’m an idiot, we both know exactly what I’m talking about. I saw you, I was right there, you tried to change the bottle on the water cooler, you missed, and nearly a quarter of the water splashed all over the floor. Yes, fine, everyone makes mistakes, great. But don’t you think you could have maybe cleaned it up? Grabbed some paper towels? We have those yellow “wet floor” signs right next to the water cooler for exactly these types of accidents. Or maybe you could have just read the sign taped above the water cooler that says, “This is a two-person job! Please don’t change the water cooler bottle by yourself!”
No, I don’t care how much you can lift. And that’s beside the point, because you spilled it anyway. Yes you did. Yes, I saw you. Are you serious here? I saw you spill it, fill up your cup with water, and walk away.
You’re not getting a raise because you’re a compulsive liar. You lie about everything. Yes, I’m talking about the water cooler. But not just the water cooler. You asked to borrow my stapler three weeks ago and I haven’t seen it back. No, it was totally you. You’re wasting your breath. You’re lying right now.
You lied about needing off for Rosh Hashanah earlier this year.
You lied about needing off for the end of Ramadan. No, you don’t get to celebrate both. OK, fine, celebrate whatever you want, but you don’t get free vacation days for every major religion, that’s not how this works.
You’re always on the Internet. Again, we’re not trying to micromanage your work-life balance. Everyone needs to blow off some steam online every now and then. I’m a human being too, I get it. But with you it’s a constant. Just the other day, I saw you on reddit for like six hours straight.
No, I wasn’t actually watching you for six hours straight, but I walked by your desk maybe five or six times during those six hours, and you were on reddit every single time. Come on, you weren’t even trying to hide it. Maybe if you tried to click over to a work document or something, just at least pretend to be doing something productive, maybe I’d have a little bit more sympathy.
Oh, so what, you’re saying that you’re not on reddit all day? That I just happened to be walking by your desk exactly on those five or six occasions that you decided to spend a minute or two online? No, I’m not buying it. Yes, I guess theoretically it’s possible, but it’s not just that one day. It’s all the time. You’re on reddit like every single time I pass by your desk. No, I don’t think it’s a coincidence.
Look, right here, yeah, I can see your phone underneath the desk, all right, you think it’s beneath my line of sight, but it’s not, you’re on reddit, and I can see you.
Seriously, put the phone away. I don’t care how much comment karma you’re raking in.
You’re always taking other people’s food out of the fridge.
You’re trying to deny that too? Yeah well, Maggie set up one of those nanny-cams in the office kitchen a week ago. She wasn’t the only one complaining about stolen lunches. Yeah, I’m sorry it had to come to that also, but you were caught red-handed. Save the “I thought it was mine” excuse, OK, do you think I’m stupid?
You’re still lying. Before it was the water cooler. Now it’s the office fridge.
And while we’re talking about food, that wasn’t cool what you did last week during the working lunch. With the pizzas? You took six slices. Well that pizza was for everyone. So you can’t just take six slices. We had to order out for more pizza. Look, I can’t believe I have to spell this out for you, but if your work orders pizza for everyone, you take like two slices, you wait for everyone else to eat, and then if there’s any left over, then you can maybe think about taking some more. You don’t just take six right away. Yeah, we bought more, so what? We bought it for everyone, not just you. They gave me a certain budget for pizza. So when I bought more pizza, I went over budget. How do you think that makes me look? Like I can’t handle a lunch order without going over.
And by the way, you didn’t even eat all six slices. No, that wasn’t just the crusts you left, there was probably two or three inches of pizza beneath each crust.
You’re not getting a raise because we’re all really tired of that thing you do with the wastepaper. It’s super annoying, and we’ve talked about it before. If you’re going to throw out a piece of paper from the copier, just put it in the “recycle” box. Stop crumpling it up and throwing it toward the garbage can across the room.
Stop saying, “He shoots!” every time you take one of those shots. It’s really obnoxious and distracting.
And for real, you never make it in, so it’s not cool that you just leave the paper on the floor. Yes, we have a custodial team, but that’s not the point. They’re paid for regular cleaning, not to pick up your trash. Just stop doing. Just, come on, just stop, just put the paper in the recycling pile.
You’re not getting a raise because I saw all of those nasty tweets you posted last month about my tie. If you don’t like my tie, keep it to yourself. Don’t take incognito pictures and post them on Twitter. Right here, this one, I printed it out. “Haha, look at my jerk boss’s stupid tie.”
About your performance here, I don’t like your work ethic. I don’t think you have a work ethic.
Like when you sent out that mass mailing last month, and you didn’t add any of the postage, and the post office sent everything right back, that was a huge waste of time.
Or when I asked you to replace the toner in my printer, come on man, that’s an easy fix. But no, all you did was unplug the machine and tape an “out of order” sign right above.
And then last week I asked you to make fifty copies of document 205-C. Later in the day I asked you, “Hey, did you get around to those copies?” and you made this big scene, you got up from your desk and you were like, “Ugh …” dragging your feet to the copy room. Still, by the end of the day, I didn’t have any copies. I asked you again and you did the same thing as before, so this time I followed you. And you didn’t go to the copy room. You turned left just before the copy room, went downstairs, and had a cigarette break.
Everything you hand in smells like cigarettes, which I don’t get, because there’s no smoking allowed inside, and no work documents allowed outside. Which rule are you breaking, and how many cigarette breaks are you taking?
The other day line three on my phone was blinking for like two hours. Finally I picked it up, and the woman on the other end was like, “Hello?” and I said, “Yes?” She said, “I’ve been on hold for a long time now.” I asked her, “Who did you speak to? Who put you on hold?” And you know what she did? She said my name, like it was me, like I’m answering phones and putting people on hold. Are you using my name when you answer the phone?
You went out for coffee last week, you came around to my office and said, “Hey boss, I’m going out for coffee, you want anything?” I said sure. I gave you five bucks. And then you just disappeared. Where’s my coffee? Where’s my five bucks?
I’m not giving you a raise because you keep bringing your friend Bill into work with you. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: that’s not cool. We have ID tags for a reason. I keep running into him in the bathroom, which is just weird, because why is he in there all the time? And do you know he tried to hook his Nintendo 64 up to the projection screen in Conference Room D?
When my wife stopped by on Friday, it was really unprofessional of you to do the whole, “You’re his wife? You looked a lot different last time. Did you dye your hair?”
You’re definitely not getting a raise until the copy machine stops stapling everything on the right side of the page.
Let me ask you a question, if you were head of HR, and one of your employees kept coming into work wearing sweatpants, and you kept asking that employee over and over again to wear dress pants and a nice shirt, and that employee kept saying, “You got it boss,” but never actually stopped wearing sweatpants, would you give that person a raise?
When the regional VP made rounds through our office, he told me some disheveled looking guy in sweatpants introduced himself as me. Look, you said it wasn’t you, so it’s your word against mine. Maybe I can’t fire you just yet, but I’m definitely not giving you a raise.
And the business cards. Did you print out fake business cards with my name and your phone number? Because if I ever tie these back to you, those’ll be some serious charges, you hear me?
You’re not getting a raise because of that time last month when we had a client visiting from Mexico. I’d sent out that email to the staff asking if anybody speaks Spanish. You said you did, you wrote, “Boss, I speak Spanish.” So we brought you out to lunch with us, we trusted you man. And what do you do? The guy starts in with his, “Buenos días,” and it turns out you don’t speak any Spanish at all. That was a huge account. And what’s your excuse, that you took Spanish in high school but you’re a little rusty? How did you think that was going to play out?
Man, I know it’s none of my business, but you take way too many really long bathroom breaks throughout the course of the workday. And listen up, that’s not your private bathroom, all right? There are multiple stalls for a reason, and it really inconveniences your coworkers when you lock the door. It’s not fair to make everyone else wait. What are you up to in there?
Hey, what are you doing? Put your shirt back on.
No, I’m not sexually harassing you, sit down.
No, I’m not scared. Yeah, go ahead and file a report, I’ve been videotaping this entire performance review. You think I didn’t suspect you might try something stupid?
You’re not getting a raise because, no I can’t prove it was you, but someone spiked last week’s coffee with LSD, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Johnson.
By the way, I don’t care what kind of paperwork you filled out with the city, that iguana is not a service animal, and if you try bringing him in the office again, I’m going to call animal control.
You know what this is? This is an official complaint written up by Jean in accounting. He said that you messed around with his computer? That you took a screenshot of his desktop, and then set it as the wallpaper? And then you moved all of the folders and moved them off screen? What the hell is that about? What do you think this is, The Office?
No, that’s not all, I’ve got plenty of complaints from pretty much the entire staff. Let’s see, this one says you’ve been parking in Greg’s parking spot every day for the past three months. Come on, Greg has that handicap spot for a reason. That’s just cruel.
Phil keeps telling me that you steal all of the pens off of his desk, every single day. He says he’s talked to you about it, that he’s asked you to stop taking them, but you just keep doing it anyway, right in front of him.
Susan says you’ve been calling her Margarita for months. Knock it off.
I’ve asked you several times already, but can you please unfriend my daughter on Facebook?
I don’t care who friended who first, even though I don’t believe you, I mean, there’s no way, how would she find you out of nowhere? What did she do, run a search for incompetent goof-offs?
No, I’m not on Tinder. You made me a Tinder account? Why would you … I swear to God, you leave Stephanie out of this, OK?
You can’t be serious, that’s blackmail. What the hell man? What did I ever do to you? Jesus Christ, what do you want from me? You really need a raise that badly? You’re the CEO’s son, why do I have to be involved in any of this? Fine, you know what? Whatever, I don’t care. Just take whatever you want. Just take the raise and get out of my office. Son of a bitch.

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