Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

madned.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 684 posts

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#21

Post by ldiracdelta »

jedberg wrote: post #17

When I worked at eBay, we had a bonus program based on company revenue. It was around 6% of your salary max and managers got around 25% max based on the same formula. For the first few years, you could count on getting a max bonus every quarter. To the point where most everyone who worked there had always gotten one. And the one quarter, we didn't get the max bonus. In fact, I don't think we got it all. People scream…

I've been at places where you get bonuses and me and the wife always call it "magic money". We don't bank on it and we try to pay down debt or invest it.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#22

Post by jedberg »

jakemal wrote: post #14
dewitt wrote: post #7

> "$25,000 was not enough money to retire on for sure, even in 1996." $25,000 in 1996 is $42,000 in 2021. Seems like a modest incentive for top tech talent, even back then. * To respond to the comment below, the author had been working as a hardware systems engineer at headquarters for 10 years by 1996.

I wonder how it compares to the average salary for an experienced hardware engineer. It may be a ~50% pay bump in 1996 vs a 10-25% bump today.

In 1996 college grads were pretty excited about $50K-$60K paychecks. So I can't imagine a senior engineer getting more than $120K or so, but they definitely were not only getting $50K.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#23

Post by void_mint »

smitty1e wrote: post #11
Negitivefrags wrote: post #6

I actually think bonuses and equity grants are terrible for comapany morale. I've seen it many times, and heard many more stories. On top of the issue in this story, there are others too. For example, if someone wants to leave, but the bonus or vesting is coming up, they will stay, and you don't want people on a project who don't want to be there. As another example I know people who work at companies that are going…

Incentives happen because they are empirically effective. I would contend that the issue is less the content of the incentives but rather the perception of fairness. If everyone is aware how the bonuses work and feels their 'fair' share is obtained, then it just becomes another part of the calculus. I speculate as a non-manager that bonuses are a good way (in the federal contracting realm, from the company perspectiv…

> If everyone is aware how the bonuses work and feels their 'fair' share is obtained, then it just becomes another part of the calculus.

If everyone is not aware of how a bonus works, lots of people assume it's just smoke and mirrors and disregard (the correct strategy). You're not incentivized to care about your "incentives", so you don't.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#24

Post by jedberg »

ldiracdelta wrote: post #21
jedberg wrote: post #17

When I worked at eBay, we had a bonus program based on company revenue. It was around 6% of your salary max and managers got around 25% max based on the same formula. For the first few years, you could count on getting a max bonus every quarter. To the point where most everyone who worked there had always gotten one. And the one quarter, we didn't get the max bonus. In fact, I don't think we got it all. People scream…

I've been at places where you get bonuses and me and the wife always call it "magic money". We don't bank on it and we try to pay down debt or invest it.

Yeah, that is the smart way to do it, but as I learned, very few people treat it that way.

I know that sales people usually are smart enough to "live off the base, play on the commission", but that's because commissions are quite variable. When you get a fixed bonus every quarter, it starts to feel very much a forgone conclusion.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#25

Post by Negitivefrags »

smitty1e wrote: post #11
Negitivefrags wrote: post #6

I actually think bonuses and equity grants are terrible for comapany morale. I've seen it many times, and heard many more stories. On top of the issue in this story, there are others too. For example, if someone wants to leave, but the bonus or vesting is coming up, they will stay, and you don't want people on a project who don't want to be there. As another example I know people who work at companies that are going…

Incentives happen because they are empirically effective. I would contend that the issue is less the content of the incentives but rather the perception of fairness. If everyone is aware how the bonuses work and feels their 'fair' share is obtained, then it just becomes another part of the calculus. I speculate as a non-manager that bonuses are a good way (in the federal contracting realm, from the company perspectiv…

> just becomes another part of the calculus.

This is exactly what happens. So then why not just include it in the salary at that point? All you are doing with bonuses is just causing an opportunity for issues.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#26

Post by taeric »

This is literally a plot point in Christmas Vacation.

Is also why I think it is silly for startups to provide too many perks. It sets obvious precedent and will upset more folks when you stop. Find ways to invest in the company so that success is it's own perk. If the company truly has more, work that into raises where you clearly tie the income to the success of the company.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#27

Post by rdtwo »

Op got robbed. Not only did he work way more hours to meet a milestone but in the end he got the bonus because it was structured in such a way that he did not have sufficient control of the outcome. It always surprises me how genius level folks can’t do simple math to realize that salaried employees get compensated on the compensation/hours worked formula and if compensation is fixed and hours increase you are getting a screwed.

The manufacturing folks got the better deal because they worked at fixed hourly rate and got and equally sad bonus

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#28

Post by jedberg »

dleslie wrote: post #9
sneak wrote: post #2

This is really making me want to buy an Alpha on ebay. Is there an OS that has ever had a better name than "Digital Unix"?

OS/2 Warp Amiga Workbench NeXTStep Plan9

OS/2 Warp is my favorite OS name, and when it came out, was pretty mind blowing in how it worked compared to everything else.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#29

Post by jedberg »

taeric wrote: post #26

This is literally a plot point in Christmas Vacation. Is also why I think it is silly for startups to provide too many perks. It sets obvious precedent and will upset more folks when you stop. Find ways to invest in the company so that success is it's own perk. If the company truly has more, work that into raises where you clearly tie the income to the success of the company.

> This is literally a plot point in Christmas Vacation.

Ha! You're totally right. I'd forgotten about that. He acts out what everyone wished they could do. :)

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#30

Post by reincarnate0x14 »

sneak wrote: post #2

This is really making me want to buy an Alpha on ebay. Is there an OS that has ever had a better name than "Digital Unix"?

Probably won't be as exciting as you remember.

We maintained some Wildfire systems on Tru64, which somehow took all the possible coolness of the "Digital Unix" name and inverted it into bizarro horror, into the late 00s, and it was mostly just depressing seeing what happened versus what could have been. Icing on the foot-gun cake was the IA-64 replacement ended up being EOLed before it was even delivered. That one came in on HPUX, which seemed to have been more often pronounced PHUX.

Post reply on HN