When the boss expects you to work harder and take more responsibilities after you are maxed out on pay raises.

Budgets don't always allow for it because bean counters only think in terms of precedents and maintaining salary structures. But creative bosses can find ways of providing other perks -- more compensatory time off, better office or work space conditions, etc.

I've told the story before on different threads of when I tried to give one of my employees an 11% raise which was within HR's own guidelines because he had done an outstanding job while facing major obstacles. HR warned me it would not be signed off on by the CEO because he demanded to review anything 10% and above, and never approved them. I insisted; CEO called me in, and rejected it. Said no one deserved a double digit raise. If they did they were probably in the wrong job or the job wasn't classified properly. So I took him at his word, went back, rewrote the guy's job description, got it re-graded, and it came out two levels higher, promoted the guy to it, and it went back to the CEO for a 14% raise in pay. The CEO looked at me and said, "isn't this the guy you tried to give a 11% pay raise to?" I said, yes, he chuckled, and approved it. I had played the game and he ad mired people who could played the corporate games.

Boss: You are maxed out on pay raises.
Normal Person: Oh. Who makes the limit?
Boss: I do.

I like it when a promotion's pay doesn't scale with the extra responsibility

You should obviously just feel good about it. Money isn't everything.

Oh will you look at the time
It's maxxed out on giving a shit o' clock