‘A new hire earns double what I’m getting': CEO screenshare blunder reveals a long-standing employee is the lowest-paid worker in the department, so they negotiate a substantial raise

It's pretty taboo to talk about your salary in the workplace, but why? Under the watchful eye of micromanagers, coworkers cower in the corner under the impression that chatting about financial compensation is uncouth. However, the real reason Big Corpo wants you to think it's unsavory to discuss compensation is that they don't want anyone realizing they're underpaid in comparison. 

To keep wages down, companies have propagated the tabooness of discussing wages, because they don't want to fork out more dough if they don't have to. When this tenured employee, who had worked at a company for years, realized they were the lowest-paid employee in the department, they were shocked. After the CEO blundered through the 2026 company budget on a screenshare malfunction, this employee went back to the meeting recording to scour the revelation. With the annual budget as ammunition, and with proof that they were being seriously underpaid, this worker went out and got what was theirs: A huge raise.