asked for a raise (im the only employee at a small cosmetics company. i handle the manufacturing, labeling, packing, and shipping, as well as keeping up inventory and keeping the place in order. basically everything) and my boss responds by trying to gaslight me, pulling this “we’re a small business 🥺” bullshit
he just bought a 60,000 dollar car and is taking his second vacation of the year next week
he keeps trying to hold “a week of personal time” i had to go on strike by myself to earn, “paid winter break” etc over my head. all shit that the government forces you to give your employees in every other country on the planet. america is a shit hole with no workers rights and it allows the parasitic small business tyrant class feel like they’re doing something good by offering the bare minimum. literally “i treat my slaves nicely” shit
sorry yall just wanted to rant. fuck america and work under capitalism
you hold all the cards here. find another job (not necessarily right away but start looking) that you could tolerate and tell him you're gonna bounce if he doesn't bump you up to $25/hr.
if you have another job offer in hand you can really turn the screws on him, especially since you know the business is profitable enough (that $60k car could have been an additional $30/hr to you over the course of a year, assuming you work 40 hours a week). so ask for a huge raise because the number can only go down during negotiations, not up
then go back to looking for jobs but use your shiny new hourly rate as a baseline for negotiating with other employers and leave your current boss in the lurch, ideally as quickly as possible after winning the negotiation.
get his ass. show this dipshit no mercy, it's not half as bad as what he'd do to you if he could