Social IssuesJAN 13, 2022

‘You Can’t Do Both’: People Applaud This Viral Tweet Talking About Two-Faced CEOs

According to the Economic Policy Institute, CEO pay has skyrocketed 1,322% since 1978. That means that CEOs were paid 351 times as much as a typical worker in 2020. CEOs are getting more because of their power to set pay and because so much of their pay (more than 80%) is stock-related, not because they are increasing their productivity or possess specific, high-demand skills.

As a result, what we’re experiencing now is the vicious cycle of ever-growing inequality between ordinary workers and stratospheric earners, like Musk or Bezos. EPI states that “the economy would suffer no harm if CEOs were paid less (or were taxed more).”

So when economics journalist Patrick W. Watson shared this illuminating tweet pointing out that deceitful and greedy CEOs can’t go on like this anymore, it generated a lot of responses. Many people chimed in to share their views on the subject matter, so scroll through the best ones below.

#1

My work told us that they had a record year in profits. So they were going to share a piece of the pie with all of us. And then they brought out actual pies. Actual f**king pies so that they could share a ‘piece of the pie’. If I wasn’t so poor I would’ve quit right then and there.

Erythroneuraix

Report

98points

#2

Reminds me of the end of 2021 when my director told me she couldn't approve the maximum raise for a third of my staff, who met all performance criteria. She said it would get flagged by corporate. Turns out she was the final approver, corporate doesn't question her performance ratings at all. Thank God I called her bluff and will be able to give out some nice raises this year.

cowboyboombap

Report

81points

#3

My boss literally did this at the end of the year: "We projected 10 million in revenue and we cleared 12 million!" Immediately became "we appreciate all your hard work and everything you do, but we can't afford to give you a raise that keeps up with inflation."

Fleudian

Report

79points

Bored Panda reached out to one Redditor who preferred to stay anonymous, who shared their own experience in response to this thread: “Reminds me of the end of 2021 when my director told me she couldn't approve the maximum raise for a third of my staff, who met all performance criteria. She said it would get flagged by corporate. Turns out she was the final approver, corporate doesn't question her performance ratings at all. Thank God I called her bluff and will be able to give out some nice raises this year.”

The Redditor told us that their initial reaction to this situation was confusion. “She's normally pretty great when it comes to the employee experience, and she even applauded me for trying to get more for my people. I honestly think she's just been conditioned by 'corporate propaganda,' if you will, to try and protect the bottom line.”

“I've worked for this company for 11 years and I've found that tons of directors and VPs make decisions just because they think that's the way it is. When we research policies or procedures, 'the way it is' holds no water. Their boss fed them a line and as they ascended into positions of power, they kept regurgitating it,” they explained.

#4

My favorite was telling the employees themselves how great our profits are, then performance reviews came around and suddenly they can't afford raises.

fuzzypops

Report

57points

#5

My work does it all the time

"we in a good place with covid, thr company is making 50 million profit a month"

"sadly the legislation has changed amd now we have removed 70% of your paid sick days, didnt have to... Just make more money"

lazyeyepsycho

Report

52points

#6

My coworker was furious when the news drop that our company has had the best profits ever and yet just a week prior to he was denied a raise because "we can't afford to."

todezz8008

Report

52points

When asked about greedy CEOs and directors, the Redditor said they definitely feel entitled. “Especially directors in massive organizations, a lot of them did start on the ground floor and move up and now they feel entitled to recognition and bonuses,” they said and added that “As for CEOs, they'll feed you the standard line of shit that they 'worked 20-hour days' etc. when really, data shows they're just lucky and had opportunity provided by a cushy family life.”

Having said that, the Redditor believes that the pay inequality is “disgusting.” “These people have no idea what it's like to actually be a front-line employee. They have no empathy, and no desire to understand how it really works. The irony of people insulated, in executive echo chambers, working from home, trying to push their most vulnerable workers back into the field is really depressing.”

#7

The best part is when they brag about record profits so you look at the publicly available financial statement and see that 30% of those profits are because they cancelled raises and staff costs didnt rise as expected.

Yes they usually list how much they expect to increase staff pay. So they factored in raises already but then cancelled them and bragged to staff about taking that money away from them and making it as a profit that went to giving executives a 50% bonus on salary...

SharkAttack14

Report

49points

#8

The best are the humble brags around the holidays or when a big milestone was hit.

The CEO sends a company-wide email saying, "Happy Holidays! Thanks for a great year everybody!"

... And it's a picture of the inside of his giant house with a $10k espresso machine in the kitchen; his fat mitts holding up a glass with a spherical ice cube in it; and a bottle of 30-year old Scotch in the background.

It usually comes over the weekend before Xmas when a bunch of people are actually still working to hit another imaginary deadline on December 23rd.

kaolin224

Report

48points

#9

I got laid off from Starbucks corporate along with about 350 other people. Some tenured for 25 years.

A month later, they posted record quarterly profits and cited "operational efficiency" as the cause.

F**k Starbucks and f**k profits over people.

odelay42

Report

46points

The Redditor also shared their own idea for pay and wealth inequality. “The company I work for actually addressed it and I think it's a great idea. So, a lot of capitalist sympathizers will use the line, 'well they're not sitting on cash, they just have stock.' Okay, fine. Companies can start giving out restricted stock units. The same way they offer executives stock packages, give some of that to the frontline. CEOs can still keep controlling interest even if they give thousands of RSUs to their lowest-tier workers,” they said and added that “That's a great way to distribute wealth and reduce turnover.”

They continued: “I also think we need legislation to address the pay gap. Even without stock units, executives are still paid 10x, 20x, 30x their entry-level positions in cash. We need to legislate that out of existence. Studies show time after time that increasing the income for anyone making less than ~$60k/year will directly feed all of that money back into the economy. The corporations will make it back!”

#10

I'm from Europe and the current company i work for started 4 years ago. They had the investment capital for a quick start and the revenue generated is as follows, roughly

nothing > 200k > 10 mil > 30 mil.

Wages are the same as they were whey the company was operating at a loss in its opening year.

SS_wypipo

Report

46points

#11

My previous CEO asked where I lived and when I told him he responded with why I didn't live closer to work. I told him that he didn't pay enough (one of the most affluent neighborhood in San Diego). Moron had the surprised Pikachu face but I knew he knew. F**k that guy.

Also double reported my income to the IRS and the onus was on ME to prove otherwise. I provided the IRS with all my account documents as if I was providing a self-audit. The IRS never bothered him. F**k America. It's built for the rich.

Name and shame: snapIoT (iot) aquired by Covance under LabCorp division. Still run by the s**tty and useless CEO

dungfecespoops**t

Report

44points

#12

My company just pulled our covid sick pay yesterday and we've posted record profits for 8 quarters in a row.

Wartburg13

Report

39points

#13

I think it was pretty hilarious when my husband's company told him he couldn't get a raise because they can't afford to do raises right now while simultaneously telling their shareholders that they had a record year of profits have over 10 million in the bank and giving out a 2.5 million dollar shareholder payout.

Then after they had a mass quitting they decided to up the pay what they claim will be a 5% raise. But when you sit down and do the math it actually is less than 2%. So an extra $20 a week on average. But still puts them about $500 a week behind their closest competitors pay rate. But they don't understand why everybody's leaving.

Omniversal_Seer

Report

34points

#14

My company made 6 billion or so during the last year. $100 bonus.

blackheartedmonkey

Report

34points

#15

My boss would do this. I worked at a privately owned daycare. They had 3 locations. My boss would brag online about buying Gucci with her daughter, and she would buy new cars all the time, but then would say she can't afford to give us raises or benefits because she is "already in debt from using my own money to pay your wages." She would also call us stupid and say we don't deserve to make $15 and hour. Heck she even hemmed and hawed about the government forcing her to give us paid sick leave, and tried to make it so we had to give 2 weeks advanced notice to use it, and that it was only for medical emergencies.

NekoMimiMisa

Report

32points

#16

I worked for a small company that once cancelled the Christmas bonuses and raises because of the collapse in 2008. The company was still millions in profit. We only had about 40 employees. The last minute the owner decides he wants to take us out to Chinese for a Christmas dinner. The day of the dinner in a meeting with about 15 workers, he plays a slideshow of his recent vacation to Peru after the financials. He said, ”here’s where we took a plane tour”. All of us couldn’t believe how disconnected and his lack empathy. I left shortly after for a job making twice as much in a different field. He showed up at my job months later to see if I could get him a discount on his car repair at another store, my store owned…

Thebuicon

Report

23points

#17

Insurance company I used to work for (Unitedhealth Care) a few years ago announced no real raises (base 1% or something) for the 3rd year in a row. Couple weeks later it was announced that they had record breaking $4B quarterly PROFITS. They had to send out an email to the company saying it was not "real" money they could give out to employees.

Rob_W_

Report

23points

#18

Sounds like the place I used to work. They announced record Q1 profits in 2020 due to COVID driving demand for their product through the roof. Then on the very same call they announced they were reducing 10% of their workforce because "other manufacturing companies are downsizing due to the pandemic and it would be a disservice to our shareholders if we didn't do the same."

They also announced on that same call that anyone who remained with the company would be giving the company 10-25% of their paychecks (based on pay grade) for the next year as a "loan" which would be paid back to them in 2021. They used that "loan" exclusively for stock buybacks.

CaptainWart

Report

22points

#19

A few years back, my company sent out an email lauding the efforts that got us to a $94 BILLION profit that year.

A week later, they changed our healthcare to be considerably more expensive. Raises were 2% for "exceeds expectations" ratings.

Their justification? "We have to draw down costs so we can remain competitive". That's all the employees are to the CEOs: costs. They pay lip service to our work getting them their profits, then immediately turn around and say that we're costing the company money.

ERankLuck

Report

21points

#20

My company went public last year and it was easily the best bargaining chip I had when they tried to say COVID had impacted us hugely and they couldn't afford raises this year. I literally had our public financial statements in my hands to show them and ask them to explain where exactly they were losing money and how they couldn't afford to give even cost of living increases, how they could tell shareholders that things were looking great, and yet be sitting across from me telling me the exact opposite.

Didn't really matter since they couldn't afford to lose me either way but it was great to not be blind to the company's finances going in.

Syrairc

Report

21points