I wouldn't go so far as to call one of my former bosses a "cunt" but he owned a Porsche 911 and would park in the best spot all the time. Hearing him talk about how there was no budget for raises while seeing his $100k car outside was definitely a bit of cognitive dissonance. I know it's his company and it's not a charity, etc etc, but the impact of being told you can't have more money despite the job you're doing while seeing the fact that the person telling you this makes a LOT more than you definitely stirs up some emotions. They may not be entirely rational, but they're definitely real.
Or maybe not a be a cunt of a boss and give a little shit about the people who work for you... I mean, you expect them to give a shit about their job right? Mutual benefit. Care about your employee, they'll most likely care more about you and the job and not run off when stuff starts going bad.
What I would have personally done in the situation would be to sell anything I had that I didn't need, to keep the company afloat, and my employees paid, because I know if we can weather it, it'll pay off in the end.
But a lot of people are assholes and don't give a shit about their employees... And that's why they have a revolving door and churn through employees like no tomorrow.
This is why i like contracting, no one gives a shit about their company and no company gives a shit about the workers - if you think that is not the case you are misguided.
Contacting (in the uk at least) is much more honest, you work you get paid, you want to have a sick day, you don't get paid. If your crap you go, if your good they try to keep you.
"but he owned a Porsche 911 and would park in the best spot all the time. Hearing him talk about how there was no budget for raises while seeing his $100k car outside was definitely a bit of cognitive dissonance"
Maybe. But most employees don't seem to care that:
1) the boss may have gotten the money to buy the car before owning the current company. Most people in business have had multiple businesses throughout their lives. Even if it's not, they risked everything to create the company that now employs you.
2) The boss probably lost much more than the employees. When an employee loses a job, it sucks. But they can often times get unemployment and find another job (I've worked for plenty of companies that went under over the years).
The boss loses: money (if they are a co-owner, they probably invested money), reputation, and credit is possibly damaged.
Yes, I'm aware. Which is why I added disclaimers about knowing the emotion was not entirely rational. I know the entire situation around his purchase of the car, etc. It's all water under the bridge at this point so I won't rehash it.
