Employees at a local digital marketing agency have expressed shock after being offered a raise of one peanut. 

For the past two months, employees have been engaged in intense negotiations with the company's leadership over a pay raise.

"Inflation is not just a figure on a piece of paper. Have you tried going grocery shopping recently? We are being reduced to living in poverty even though our labour contributes to all the wealth that is being accumulated by the owners of this company and their clients," said Niriho Chakurey, leader of the copywriters' union at Bling Bling Kaching Digital Agency.

The owner of this marketing agency, famous entrepreneur and social media personality Nawab Bin Shamrat, spoke to Satireday about the current state of limbo at his organisation.

"The head honchos of those companies have to maintain a certain lifestyle, you know? Add to that the additional cost of my lifestyle, there really is no room to pay employees more than what we have offered."

"We are losing revenue every hour that my resources sit idle. Multiple companies have given signed deals with us worth multiple millions of peanuts, but this situation with the copywriters is going to dump all my hard work in water," he complained.

Bling Bling Kaching Digital Agency is one of the biggest digital agencies in the country in terms of revenue, and according to figures provided by the company, they have made 7 million peanuts in profit in the last quarter.

Then why is there a reluctance to pay their copywriters, say, two more peanuts? According to owner Nawab Bin Shamrat, they have no option.

"The only reason we get these orders is because clients know our copywriters are cheap … we don't really provide any other special services. The head honchos of those companies have to maintain a certain lifestyle, you know? Add to that the additional cost of my lifestyle, there really is no room to pay employees more than what we have offered," he said.

The lifestyle Nawab Bin Shamrat refers to is indeed lavish, and it includes biweekly helicopter rides to meet his fiance who lives 12 kilometres away, 20 pairs of designer underwear from Balenciaga, 13 cars, one each for every strand of hair on his head, and monthly shipments of sand from the Aral Sea for his cat's litter. All this information was collected from Nawab Bin Shamrat's Instagram page.

When asked if this lifestyle was a bit too extravagant and whether he could make changes that would allow him to maybe pay his copywriters the eight peanuts that they're asking for, Nawab Bin Shamrat seemed shocked.

"That is preposterous. My lifestyle is vital for the future growth of my company. There are more copywriters, there will always be more copywriters. But the cult of personality I have developed and the lifestyle I flaunt is the X factor that attracts other rich people with money, who eventually become my clients. You can run an agency without copywriters, but you can't run an agency without an obnoxious owner/CEO like me," he said.

As of yesterday, the copywriters are still not working, and in a show of protests, they have switched the desktop backgrounds of every PC in the office to that of the crying cat meme. They demand eight peanuts as the minimum compensation for the work they do, but the company management seems adamant that they won't move beyond five.