A sysadmin was forced to do the job of a 2-man team for 300 users. The CFO denied a raise, so he bounced for a $20k bump and a real team. A classic IT tale.
Carrying the entire infra for 300 users on your back and the boss says "wait until the end of the year to see if we can pay you"? Sounds like a classic IT nightmare. Grab a coffee, folks, let's talk about an epic mic drop that probably gave a penny-pinching CFO a massive headache.
So here's the context: OP was part of a 2-man IT team. One guy drops, and suddenly OP is forced to be a solo admin managing the system for 300 users. Doing x2 the work means it's time to march into the CFO's office and ask for the bag, right?
Well, reality hits hard. The CFO denied the raise until the end of the fiscal year (meaning OP would have to grind as cheap labor for another year and a half). To make matters worse, the CFO dangled a non-guaranteed $10k carrot, refused to provide a temporary title adjustment, and essentially expected OP to just eat the extra workload for free.
But our guy didn't just sit there and take it. He quietly shopped his resume around and just accepted a Network Administrator offer at another company. The loot? A sweet $20k pay increase, a hybrid schedule, and most importantly—an actual IT team so he doesn't have to be a lone wolf in the server room.
Down in the comment section, the graybeards and keyboard warriors were absolutely living for this. Most agreed that the CFO played a stupid game and won a stupid prize.
Look, you can be a wizard at configuring networks, but if you don't know your worth, corporate management will chew you up and spit you out. "We are a family" is just code for "we expect you to do two jobs for the price of one."
Loyalty doesn't pay the bills. When you find yourself drowning in work and management feeds you the "let's wait and see" BS, your first instinct shouldn't be to argue. Your first instinct should be to polish your resume. Instead of burning out, use your free time to grab Free $300 to test VPS on Vultr, upskill, and secure a better bag.
Huge props to the OP for knowing his worth and escaping the trenches. As for the rest of you, take a good look at your workload today—are you getting paid for what you actually do?
Source: Update: 2-man IT team → solo admin for 300 users, no raise
