A corporate employee's baffling experience has gone viral on Reddit, leaving thousands intrigued and sparking a flood of theories about modern corporate culture. User @tag0223 shared a post titled, "I got a raise after I started leaving exactly at 5 pm and my boss is acting like I've 'stepped up my game'", which has since blown up across the platform.
For years, the poster says they played the "office try-hard" - arriving first, leaving last, answering midnight emails, and picking up tasks no one else wanted. Despite years of dedication and three promotion requests, they were repeatedly told, "We see your potential, just need to wait for the right timing."
But everything changed when the user hit their breaking point. After getting passed over yet again, this time for someone who simply played golf with the VP, they decided to stop going above and beyond. Instead, they set strict boundaries: working 9 to 5, turning off email notifications after hours, and saying "no" to last-minute tasks outside their scope.
The result? Not backlash, but a 15% raise.
According to the post, their boss praised their "impressive growth in prioritisation and efficiency" and claimed they were delivering "higher quality work" than ever before. The user admits they're completely baffled: "Everything I thought would get me ahead (overworking, being available 24/7) actually worked against me, and now that I've stopped trying so hard, suddenly I'm promotion material? Corporate logic makes zero sense."
I got a raise after I started leaving exactly at 5pm and my boss is acting like I've "stepped up my game"
byu/tag0223 incareeradvice
The Reddit community quickly jumped in, trying to decode the corporate logic behind the surprising reward.
"I've seen this before. My theory is sometimes people who are overworking, staying late, always hustling give the mistaken appearance they are always behind, catching up at last minute, overwhelmed, can't keep up," a user wrote.
"I think his boss feared he was gonna quit and raised him to get him to reconsider," another user shared their theory.
"Your work might be of better quality and you're more efficient, because you only "care" about work 8 hours a day," the third user wrote.
