I've only managed about 50 people, and only in the UK, but in my experience it's extremely rare for someone to explicitly say to their manager that they want more money / a promotion.
I guess a lot of people are under the impression greed is something to be ashamed of, or feel it would be confrontational or ungrateful to ask for more money?
I've always been up front with money and/or promotions discussion. But, I've also always told my manager that I'm not a squeaky wheel. I treat it like a sports player, we talk once/year, agree, and then I'm good until next year (with some caveats like an offer doubling my salary showing up).
When I managed people in a big company, it was closer to your experience. When I was one of the owners in a small startup, people had no problem asking for more. I think it's a different type of person who works in bigco vs. small startup.
I have a backlog of nearly 1000 questions my manager literally doesn't have time to answer. Those 1000 are directly related to work tasks. I don't need the answers as I'm capable of working around the uncertainty -- also, half the questions wouldn't have concrete answers and would only provide different uncertainty
In that environment, choosing to spend my manager's time discussing my pay and not these work questions, would feel to me that I'm narcissistically putting myself ahead of my team and organization.
How in the hell am I supposed to balance my needs against the companies when we're all stressed the duck out and just trying to make it work well enough that we can have a relaxing dinner with our families.
Shouldn't it be obvious I would accept a pay raise? Another classic example of management demanding one behavior and rewarding another.
Every company that approached me with raises without my asking got A LOT more of my time than those who seemed to want me to open negotiations.
The company is looking out for itself, but it seems to me that you're not looking out for yourself. You're expecting the company, which is already over-extended, to look out for you as well.
In your situation (like many out there) it's a lot easier for you to get a new job with a much higher pay rate than to ask your current employer for that raise. They might be paying low on purpose, or they might just not realize the situation they've put themselves in. Either way, you're being undervalued and it's causing you stress which is not helping your productivity.
Sure, everyone would always accept a pay raise. But not everyone feels they deserve one at the moment, and the company can't know who feels that way until they're told.
I guess a lot of people are under the impression greed is something to be ashamed of, or feel it would be confrontational or ungrateful to ask for more money?