Some unfortunate situations in life arise out of mere happenstance or coincidence—but when something unfortunate happens to you that seems just a little too conveniently inconvenient, it can be hard to dismiss it as such. Of course, such thinking gives rise to all sorts of ridiculous conspiracy, but when your employer suddenly fires you just before you're set to receive a huge payout—one that they've been dangling on a stick all year like you're some kind of cartoon donkey—it just seems like there might be something more going on there. Of course, there's an argument there that if you've been doing the work in the promise of more pay, then they should at least be retrospectively paying you out for that extra work. Unfortunately, such arrangements are usually (intentionally) made verbally, and you probably won't have any sort of leg to stand on—legally speaking. And that's why, while you should always be a flexible and cooperative team member, especially if the working relationship is already a little unstable or shaky, you should never get the work you're doing get too far ahead of what you're getting paid for, especially without some kind of written arrangement in place.
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This whole scenario is one that this worker, unfortunately, found themselves in, being unexpectedly laid off just before their year-end bonus was due, which also meant that they weren't going to see the raise they were expecting in the new year.
Honestly, we're seeing a lot of posts and discussions like this at the moment, more than I remember seeing at the end of recent years… With many companies looking to scale back spending on bulked-up labor forces—which were hired to meet skyrocketing production demands over the pandemic period—it won't be surprising, but still disappointing, when we see more of these empty promises being tossed out the backdoor in the form of layoffs and redundancies. Meanwhile, many companies across major sectors are still posting record post-pandemic profits.
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