Getting a bump in pay at work is something every employee hopes and waits for, so it's no surprise one worker was left shocked when their pay went up by just 3 cents.
Sure, every little helps, but 3 cents isn't exactly going to cover the bills is it?
The shocked employee took to Reddit's 'mildly infuriating' thread to share their experience, explaining that they'd decided to reach out to HR after spotting the tiny increase on their pay and realizing there must have been an 'error'.
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The employee was expecting a 10 percent pay increase from their hourly rate of $26.35, but that wasn't reflected in their paycheck.
However, when they reached out to HR, the team stood by their decision and attempted to show their workings.
They wrote: "I am writing to confirm that your 10% pay raise was applied to your pay during the work period from August 11 to August 25. Your new hourly rate is $26.38."
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Now, you don't have to be a math genius to know that $26.38 is not a 10 percent increase from $26.35. It's not even close.
But still, the HR team continued on with their workings:
"Previous pay rate: $26.35
"New pay rate calculation: $26.35 (1 + 0.10/100) = $26.38."
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Do you see where the team went wrong? Other Reddit users certainly did.
Responding to the post, one person commented: "What baffles me is they didn't go "hmm, 3 cents increase? That can't be right!"
Another wrote: "So HR is either wildly incompetent at math, or they know damn well what they're doing and hope it's the employees who are wildly math-illiterate.
"OP should get in touch with finance dept. if possible, maybe they could teach HR a bit of 3rd-grade math."
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Just so we're all on the same page - including the HR department, if they happen to be reading this - the calculation they offered was correct, it just wasn't the right way to increase the initial pay by 10 percent.
To do that, as many Reddit users pointed out, they'd have simply needed to times $26.35 by 1.10 - resulting of a new pay rate of $28.985, or $29, if we're rounding up.
Another user offered up an even simpler way to figure it out, saying: "Or literally just move the decimal. what is 10% of $26.35? $2.635. So add that."
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It's unclear whether the poster was able to make the HR team understand their error, but hopefully they didn't have to wait too long to get the pay increase they deserved!
Emily Brown