HR begs math teacher to reconsider quitting when they resign after years of being underpaid, urging them to stay after refusing a proper raise for years: ‘You said you could not afford to pay me, and now this is the consequence of that’

They say you never know what you've got till it's gone. It's a proverb meant for lost love and missed chances, but if it ever needed a sequel, it would be about HR departments and salary negotiations. Not only do they suddenly appreciate an employee the second a resignation slides across their desk, but the money—oh, the money!—finally materializes, as if the mythical "raise" was hiding in the break room this whole time. The moment you hand in your resignation. Suddenly, that raise you begged for — the one they couldn't afford when you were happily underpaid — magically appears out of thin air. Spoiler alert: they didn't know what they had until they lost you.

So, this one math and physics teacher has been grinding away at an arts school, shaping young minds in a haze of chalk dust, all while collecting a salary that looks more like a part-time allowance than a living wage. Official guidelines say thirty-six grand, but no, the school offers twenty-five and expects a grateful smile. Adjusting that salary to the actual standard would cost maybe five grand more a year—a sum they apparently can't spare, at least not until a resignation threatens to trigger an administrative extinction event.

Cue HR's desperate email, pleading for reconsideration, mourning the "unexpected" cost of hiring a replacement, and conveniently forgetting all past conversations about fair pay. But the teacher's moved on: a new job lined up, full-time, at a salary that actually respects their credentials.