,"Do the work of a position two levels above yours for a year, and then maybe we'll consider changing your title and compensation to match." But of course they never do.

Yup.

At the job before the two I talked about, I got hired with a raise at 6 months built into my offer. After that, I was there 2.5 years with not one more raise, not even cost of living, let alone anything remotely keeping up with inflation or any sort of merit based increase.

The one time I asked about a raise, 2 full years in, I got the same response as you did. Work an extra job role on top of my main role for a year then we'll think about it.

I asked in response what they'd say if I had walked in suggesting I should get a 50% raise for no extra work performance for a year, and then I'd decide whether or not I want to take on the extra work after a year of the extra pay. My boss kinda laughed and said that's not how it works.

So I said exactly, it doesn't work the other way either, and that was the end of that meeting.

...then it was total surprised Pikachu less than 6 months later when I gave my notice.

In one of my several "exit interviews" in which they tried to convince me to stick around (but offered only the "incentive" of letting me make more money...by working 5 hours of OT every week...when OT had been always available in unlimited amounts anyway), my boss asked me what was so bad about my current situation or what was so great about my new offer that I wanted to "hang him and the company out to dry" (they'd asked me to stay on indefinitely...at no raise...until they could recruit my replacement and I could train them...naturally I refused).

My answer was basically: "You remember how you laughed me out of the room when I suggested that instead of me working a year of double work for the same pay before you gave me a raise, and instead you give me the raise for a year and I'd decide if I wanted to do the work? Well this new role gives me a 40% raise and less than half the workload of my current role. Also it is strictly focused on my area of expertise and technical work instead of being 90% customer service like it is here, which I specifically asked about in my interview and was assured it'd be less than 25% public facing. So in effect, they're actually beating the offer I proposed that you laughed at. Honestly, you wouldn't even have to match their offer to get me to stay. Had you given me a 10 or 15% raise, I'd have never even gone looking. But now I've been offered 3 things I wanted, and you've made it clear that you never have any intention of ever even coming close to that offer, on any of the 3 fronts of pay, workload, and focus on technical work and getting away from customer relations."

They said basically they were a small business and couldn't afford to do any of that, and that was basically the end of the discussion.