Companies are known to min-max the heck out of their finances. It’s only logical for a business to do that. Is it good for the employee, though? Not really. Not always.

Salaries are one of the main aspects companies love to negotiate on with prospective employees, so employees are often advised to ask for more because they’re gonna be negotiated with and they’ll probably be met in the middle.

But when you specifically say that X is your absolute minimum, and yet the company still tries to low-ball it, well, then that’s just a bit of a jerk move.

A woman has recently shared this particular story, with a little bit of a leaky twist, the Reddits, and folks definitely had something to say about it.

More Info: Original Post | Follow-Up Comment

No matter how convinced someone is that what they say will remain a secret, there is always a non-zero chance of it getting exposed

Image credits: u/Komeandgo

And sometimes it’s the person with all the secrets who exposes himself by sheer accident—CC’ing a prospective employee

Reddit user u/Komeandgo, a woman in tech with whom Bored Panda got in touch for an interview, was recently applying for an IT job. All was fine and dandy with the first interview, when out of the blue, OP got an interesting email from one of the departmental higher-ups in the company.

Well, the email wasn’t directed at her—it was actually addressed to another team leader. She just so happened to be tagged in the conversation via carbon copy. But it was enough to ruin the company’s reputation.

The said email discussed OP as being an alternative candidate for another team, if their initial pick doesn’t work out. But then came a comment about the salary. “[OP] is looking for 55K–60K. She lives in [undisclosed]. I think she would accept 53K. She has committed to a second interview with you. I am sending over her resume.”

A Redditor recently shared how they got an email they weren’t supposed to that was lowballing them on their salary

Image credits: u/Komeandgo

In reality, OP very clearly said that 60K was her minimum. So, the sneaky devil of a company was trying to low-ball her. In her follow-up, she gave more context as to how it all went down.

During the interview, which included OP, 2 system admins, and an IT director, OP disclosed her salary expectations, which was a minimum of 60K. So, once she saw the email, she was dumbfounded, as the salary range was not listed anywhere, and it surely wasn’t 55K or less on Glassdoor. Apart from this, they just said OK and that was that.

“I wasn’t actually shocked at the email itself because I know that’s how corporate America can be. I was, however, shocked at the decreased salary range they created and that they got caught discussing it so openly,” explained OP in our interview. “I thought about typing up a response, but I enjoyed attending the interview and having that face-to-face conversation much more.”

The story goes that OP wanted no less than 60K, but a secret conversation was suggesting as low as 53K. And when OP exposed them, HR had a lot of work

Image credits: u/Komeandgo

Image credits: cottonbro studio (not the actual image)

The conversation she’s referring to was the second interview where she just told them about the email. They did, of course, begin to apologize profusely, explaining how embarrassing that was.

“I told them I feel they wouldn’t have my best interest at heart if they’re already undervaluing me and that I didn’t want to continue forward with a team that’s likely to stab me in the back,” elaborated OP. HR did reach out with more apologies, saying how that’s actually not how they do business, among other methods of damage control.

So, why was all of this such a big deal? You see, OP lives in a high-cost city, and you can barely afford a room on 53K a year alone. And it’s not like you can do it remotely as the job requires 4 days on-site as a minimum. So, this alone felt like an immediate deal-breaker. Actually, it also felt like an immediate share on r/AntiWork.

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Having garnered nearly 60K (very coincidentally) upvotes, the story went viral and both OP and commenters were engaged

“I was just enjoying my day-to-day at the job I received after this email mishap. I couldn’t help but laugh at how difficult the job market can be when you don’t really know what you’re getting yourself into, with any company,” explained OP.

Shortly after said interview, and as you’d expect at this point, OP took up another job—one that had no problem paying more than 60K. But the whole situation was just purely funny to OP—funny enough that it would be a crime not to share it on Reddit.

And a lot of people had a lot to say about it all. Most suggested OP reply to them and said “I now see why you need IT help. Considering this, my price just went up.” And while that would be a satisfying move in and of itself, others were quick to point out just how red-flaggy that is. Any place that would be stingy with $2,000 a year is indicative of bigger issues, both financial and social.

Yet others shared their own experiences, on either side of the barricade. The person who was actually hiring someone had to deal with a penny-pinching higher-up who was just plain old “dumb” when it came to the matter. They, without consulting anyone, started lowballing a perfectly good candidate, who was actually spot-on with the company’s budget, for no reason other than undervaluing someone just to save a few bucks. Unnecessary for a huge corporation.

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The post ended up gaining quite a bit of attention—so much in fact that it’s now garnered nearly 60,000 upvotes (90% positive), a couple of Reddit awards, and thousands of comments. Incidentally, you can check out the post here.

There were a few people in the comments who speculated whether or not this was done on purpose, so we asked OP’s take on this: “I believe it genuinely was human error since this wasn’t an HR recruiter or a trained hiring staff member. It was just the Director of the team that they were looking to fill. That made it more disappointing. To think that if I was considered for the role, my own potential boss already was undervaluing me.”

According to a Work Human report, published last month, nearly half of all employees in their study felt only somewhat valued in their companies, and another 10.7% felt not valued at all. Women were more likely to report being somewhat valued (at 48.8%). And being lowballed is only one of many issues that can cause this.

But there’s more ways than one to combat that, with refusing to work there being an extreme on one end. But given this particular situation, OP recommended grabbing the bull by its horns and discussing the pay up-front.

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“It’s better to know what a company is offering or what you’ll accept from the start. It’s much better than going through the entire process to find out it’s not what you need. Potential employees have a lot of steps and hoops to jump through before they can even receive an offer so time is definitely valuable when it comes to interviewing,” said OP.

“I would just like to say that I support my fellow women in tech who may not get treated the way they deserve. Even with matching credentials to their peers, I know the job market can be hard on us. All the more reason to find ways to support each other in our shared communities,” concluded OP. And when you really think about it, r/AntiWork is all about finding support when an employer’s being difficult.

But what are your thoughts on this whole issue? Have you ever gotten an email you weren’t supposed to get? Share your opinions and stories in the comment section below!

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