30 Employees Who Went The Extra Mile Just To Be Taken Advantage Of

We got in touch with MikalCaober on Reddit to see what inspired him to originally make the post that sparked this conversation. He told Bored Panda, "I felt a sense of injustice when I saw this tweet, not just because the employee was fired for asking for pay reflecting their worth to the bakery, but also because the gender pay gap may have also been an issue." We then asked him if he believes situations like this are common. "From what I've seen on r/antiwork, it sounds common," he says. "Of course, we shouldn't assume that all employers do take advantage of their best employees, but it seems that many do." In terms of what he looks for in an employer, MikalCaober said, "I look for employers who genuinely see employees as human beings, not just assets."

In reference to his post, he also raised the point that, "Many of the Redditors who responded suggested that the person might have been fired for different reasons and that they could have been spinning the story to make it look like they were fired for being a good employee. It doesn't help that Twitter's character limit doesn't permit all details to be included (not unless you make your story span multiple tweets). I'd be curious to know what the employee says and what the employer's side of the story was." People online are always looking to play devil's advocate, so I would be curious to get a larger scope of the situation as well. As of now, we haven't been able to get in touch with the woman who made the original Tweet, but I have to admit, I'm inclined to be on her side, rather than her employer's.

We also reached out to Mark Anthony Dyson, founder of The Voice of Job Seekers, to hear if he thinks it’s common for employees who work exceptionally hard to be taken advantage of. “Yes, and those exceptional workers have values placed on the quality of their work, and many view their work as the pathway to getting promotions and raises,” Mark told Bored Panda. “Employers who take advantage of hardworking employees understand and encourage it even if they experience burnout.”

We also asked Mark if he thinks employees require incentives to work hard and wondered what he thinks of the idea that minimum wage jobs will yield minimum effort from employees. “No, people aim to work hard, but need incentives for productivity that their boss values the most.” He went on to explain that, “Hard work is subjective when it’s undefined. Quantitative and qualitative data goals define productivity, then it is more motivating. There are times when the eye test is enough, then effort counts. If there is transparency behind the goal (like a leaderboard), and the results are based on data, the rewards will matter. There are always top performers in minimum wage jobs, but outstanding performances are often unnoticed.”

Next, we asked Mark if he had any tips for employees who feel their contributions go unnoticed by their employers. His first suggestion is to “amicably meet with your boss and ask for clear performance goals and incentives”. He then recommends asking for frequent feedback and keeping records of it. “Ensure documentation is in place, and make sure your boss signs off on it,” Mark added. He also says to “keep a list of how you add value and present it to your boss regularly”. “The list keeps your accomplishments in front of them and helps you to remain productive in his eyes.” Lastly, Mark added that, “If your boss allows their boss to join the meetings once in a while, use the opportunity to put your work and ideas out there for their feedback. This will help your visibility and potential recognition for future promotions and projects.”

If you’re interested in more tips from Mark, be sure to check out his podcast “The Voice of Job Seekers”.

The idea that valuable employees are taken advantage of is not new. In 2015, Stanford Business published a piece titled “Why Companies No Longer Reward Loyal Employees” featuring insight from Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Jeffrey Pfeffer. He notes that in our regular lives, we make agreements with one another all the time and we understand how to reciprocate treatment. At work, however, these social expectations seem to fly out the window. “Implicit contracts are violated in the corporate world on a daily basis,” says Pfeffer. “Workplaces not only fail to acknowledge past employee loyalty and contributions, but they also renege on what has been implicitly or explicitly promised, such as pensions and retiree health care.”

Pfeffer worked with doctoral student Peter Belmi on several studies investigating why people feel less obligated to reciprocate favors in a work environment than they do in their personal lives. What they found, Pfeffer says, is that, “People operating in organizations generally have a business mind-set, which is more calculative and oriented toward the foreseeable future. They tend to make decisions that maximize the benefits to them personally while minimizing the cost.” The studies also showed that participants were strategic about who they would offer help to, noting that if someone could be valuable to them in the future they were more likely to receive a favor. The participants even said that they tend to question the motives behind workplace favors in the first place, so they don’t feel obligated to reciprocate if the original intention wasn’t genuine.

On the other hand, these studies found that when we receive personal favors, we want to reciprocate them without considering how useful the person can be to us in the future. We simply understand that it’s the right thing to do. “But we found almost the exact opposite in an organizational context,” Pfeffer says. “There, it’s all about calculations. If we don’t feel repaying the favor will benefit us much in the future, we won’t do it. That calculative, future-oriented mind-set means we shouldn’t expect companies to be as strongly bound by moral norms.”

Pfeffer went on to note that this calculative culture creates a vicious cycle. Employees that don’t trust their employers to follow through with promises are more likely to quit, and people who believe they have been treated unfairly are more likely to channel their resentment in how they treat others. Pfeffer says that it would benefit everyone for companies to begin placing greater value on morality and ethics. “Research shows that when people believe implicit agreements have been violated, they are more likely to be dissatisfied, less engaged, less committed to work, and less productive,” he says. “There are hard consequences to breaching these norms, and yet we breach them all the time.”

While many companies demand loyalty from their employees, unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic made it clear that those corporations don’t hold themselves to the same standards. In March of 2020, a string of powerful CEOs made public statements declaring that their employees did not need to worry about job security within the pandemic. The list of companies promising their employees were safe included Morgan Stanley, Salesforce, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank and Visa. However, over the next 7 months, many of those companies changed their stance on layoffs. By October 2020, Citigroup continued a layoff of 1% of their employees that had paused during the pandemic, and Goldman Sachs got to work eliminating 400 jobs. Wells Fargo also announced plans to cut thousands of jobs, along with Deutsche Bank and Salesforce. 

The significant number of layoffs during the pandemic are an upsetting reminder that employees cannot trust corporations to look out for them. Concerns have also been raised about these ruthless corporations beginning to replace as many jobs as possible with robots and AI workers. While that prediction sounds like the plot of a dystopian novel, it’s not an impossible future. Some companies have already allocated funds towards robotics and artificial intelligence, and Amazon even has robots working in their warehouses. Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang is particularly concerned about the future of American jobs, when companies are showing their true colors already. Yang is advocating for Universal Basic Income to be paid to Americans to ensure that, if they can’t have job security, the government will at least provide enough help to get by.