I have been at my current job for almost 4 year. We were having our third child last year, and my wife would need a c-section so I had to take time off. Although there is a long paternity leave for the father I decided to take half of it. My employer told me to consider only taking a quarter, but I told them I could not.
Just before I announced that I would need to take this leave, I had been made a Project Manager in duty, not in the title.
When I returned, I could feel that something was off.
We had the best year that it has had in quite some time. Due to our industry, we had no impact due to the pandemic, other than royally padding bids. Talk around the office was big bonuses raises.
At my year-end performance review, I was told that I had not been able to fully reintegrate after my leave, so my bonus and raise would be withheld, and we would reassess at my mid-year review.
I was pissed, as all of my projects had better margins than what was projected, but whatever, a bit of a delay was not the end of the world.
It is illegal for my employer to directly punish me for taking the protected leave, so this felt like a way for them to get around that.
This year, the number of projects that I managed increased significantly, but the company on the whole struggled a bit. I was given some formal training as a manager via online courses that the company paid for.
At my mid-year review, my promotion was made official, however, I was told that the company was not in a position to be giving me a raise at this time, they were offering me a bonus equal to one week of my pay. I told them that with my increased responsibilities, and the results of my projects, I think that I have earned a 5% bump in pay. Denied.
I went home, hopped on Indeed, and applied for a position overseas. Had a couple of interviews that week and received an offer for about 20% more than I am making here (in a place with a much lower cost of living), with a 15k signing bonus.
I handed in my 2 weeks less than a month after my promotion and my boss is livid, saying that I leveraged my promotion to get this job, and that it is completely improper after the training that they paid for.
I told him that I did not think that my efforts had been appreciated and that you were unwilling to work with me on it.
I think that my actions were completely justified, but a couple of my coworkers also think what I did was pretty shady/unethical, so I wanted to see what y’all think.