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The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

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Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#241

Post by nothrabannosir »

x2f10 wrote: post #190
ravroid wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the only raise I received unfortunately. But once I realized that the work I was doing produced the same value as salaried employees, I learned to use leverage to negotiate better compensation. I haven't waited around for a raise ever since.

What's a good way to go about this?

Get a competing job offer. Whatever they offer you, ask for a comparable raise of your current workplace. Be very explicit about it being non-negotiable. Whether to mention the competing job offer is a matter of taste; it helps prove you mean business, but it can damage trust. Either way: if they say no you leave.

This only works if, and because, you are ready to walk away. It's the easiest form of negotiating. But it does require you to actually be able to walk away!

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#242

Post by pixl97 »

gameswithgo wrote: post #151

I worked for a while for Thomson Reuters, where some years ago somebody in charge read that companies with value statements performed better than those that did not. So they hired a 3rd party consultant to write down their values and they had these posted all over the walls. They also had posters of stuff like "the mood elevator" pasted up in the kitchen: https://themoodelevator.com/ Everyone I felt like I could talk…

>I worked for a while for Thomson Reuters

I'm sorry, have you recovered?

Dealing with their accounting/auditing software is not good for ones health.

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#243

Post by defen »

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #209
Nexxxeh wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more a cultural thing. Not everyone is financially motivated, they want the recognition. A challenge coin is a tool for doing that. It's in a similar vein to a medal. It might have been misjudged in this instance however, but they're a thing in military circles so I can imagine how it seemed like a good idea. Tbh I'd have been really pleased, but I can appreciate that's not universal.

If you are in the military, you can use challenge coins to get yourself free drinks. The idea is that when everyone is at a bar, the guy or gal with the challenge coin from the highest ranking officer never has to pay for rounds of drinks. I've never seen a civilian use one. We don't spend much time in bars, and the feeling I get is that if I did try to whip one out in the presence of uniformed personnel -- a challen…

How long are challenge coins "valid"? If someone had a challenge coin from Eisenhower (not sure those exist, let's pretend they do) would that person essentially always win, forever?

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#244

Post by niccl »

A different view: I'm a contract dev at a very small company (20 all up, 2.5 devs, all contractors). The bosses are owners, and work _crazy_ hours. Occasionally they'll give out $100 supermarket vouchers, with a hand-written Thank You message, when we've hit some milestone. It's worth barely more than an hour's work, but I still appreciate it. I'm pretty well paid there, and to give a cash bonus that would be significant on top would be a big dent for them, so I mentally fall back on the 'It's the thought that counts', and the hand-written cards give a genuine feeling of being appreciated

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#245

Post by perl4ever »

woah wrote: post #220
cptskippy wrote: post #115

I worked on a team of three people in the early 2000s to develop one of the first web based automotive insurance underwriting applications for an insurance broker. It was a low volume program and as such they hired a single marketing representative to cover the entire state of Pennsylvania. He worked on commission and was expected to make in the high five figures. It ended up being wildly more successful than anticip…

Was it really his responsibility to give your team a lavish thanks? Sounds like he had a windfall, but working on commission can very easily go the opposite direction. Was the wild success of the initiative due to your team’s outstanding technical genius?

"Sounds like he had a windfall, but working on commission can very easily go the opposite direction"

Well, I'm a bit skeptical. Someone who makes $500K unexpectedly isn't going to lose $500K unexpectedly.

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#246

Post by function_seven »

cleetus wrote: post #240

I worked for a retail clothing company called Steve & Barry's which was very much like The Office. One year the bonus was a novelty 5 pound Hershey chocolate bar. I ended up with 20 pounds of chocolate because several people in my department had no idea what to do with them. Another year they gave Miracle on 34th Street DVDs and popcorn because earlier that year we opened a location on 34th St in Manhattan. There wer…

Oh God I forgot about that place. I went there once after hearing about the hype from a coworker ("Dude, great selection and cheap as hell!").

The place was miserable. Dirty clothing strewn all over the place. I bought a couple shirts for like $8 each. Neither of them fit all that well. They disintegrated after one wash. One was cut crooked.

Seems like the whole company was a thin (and I mean thin) quick fashion veneer over sweatshop labor?

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#247

Post by falsedan »

One job presented me with a Kindle after passing probation, it was still in the box so straight into eBay to get money for something I actually wanted. Same place rewarded a risky project we completed blazingly fast (the new VP, when reviewing it, said it looked good for three quarters of work and we had to correct him to say we’d started 3 months ago) with an Italian meal and a promotion for the lead dev. The rest of us were on pitiful salaries and all but one quit in the next three months.

Makes me appreciate the current role more, which has 4 office events a year, a kids Christmas party where the parent-provided presents are reimbursed, and a standard formula for a leaving drinks budget (roughly enough for one drink per employee per year of employment). People still talk about when a 5- and 7-year veteran both finished up in the same week.

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#248

Post by raphlinus »

pwodhouse wrote: post #213
radcon wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So they hired a 3rd party consultant to write down their values and they had these posted all over the walls. My previous employer did something similar with a word they invented -- except it was really just a synonym for efficiency. The CFO got so excited that he had a bunch of posters printed out and handed out smaller versions to the supervisors. The supervisors all thought it was embarrassing but none of them h…

That doesn't sound very Googley.

I chuckled, but I have to say that the word "Googley" used to mean something when I was there. It was exemplified by, among others, Claire Stapleton, who would post incredible little stories to go along with TGIF announcements. Retaliating against her for organizing a walkout is one of the most un-Googley things you can imagine. Now that she's left, if someone uses the word "Googley" unironically, you can laugh in their face and tell them I gave you permission.

ETA: I found that Claire has posted a sampling of these on her site: http://cargocollective.com/clairest/Miscellaneous

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#249

Post by fj39dkf »

vinceguidry wrote: post #156

One of my hobbies is to dream up fun ways to shame the higher ups. The basic gist of it is that you have to thread a needle between the fiction that you as an employee care about the business and the business cares about the employees and the reality that the business primarily cares about increasing profits and the employees just don't want to be bothered by silly management tactics. So in order to be successful at…

I'm surprised this seems to work so well for you. I've had colleagues do similar things and it pretty much always resulted in them being "managed out", outright fired, or mysteriously lumped into a round of layoffs that otherwise didn't affect their department.

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#250

Post by Scoundreller »

failrate wrote: post #39
magashna wrote: post #26

I got an XXL Berkshire Hathaway shirt. I'm a medium. Thanks

Did you even work for Berkshire Hathaway? Lie to me, and tell me you worked for Citibank: it makes the story even better.

They may have gotten a BH T-Shirt even though they worked for somebody else.
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