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Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

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Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#191

Post by ed25519FUUU »

woeirua wrote: post #188

Bonuses should be: infrequent, irregular, unannounced, and large. Otherwise you end up in this trap where people expect the bonus and worse yet, count on it to pay their bills. It’s stupid to make it a part of your overall compensation package because if you do, then the bonus is always weighted based on overall company performance. So if the company has a bad year no one gets bonuses even if individual teams crushed…

> Otherwise you end up in this trap where people expect the bonus and worse yet, count on it to pay their bills.

Kind of like tipping in the USA. It has nothing to do with service, is a standard percentage of the total bill (cork a $200 bottle of wine versus $20?). And the managers pay the wait staff less with the assumption they’ll make it up with tips.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#192

Post by twodave »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #128

This reminds me of a story back around that time about a guy who was, like, employee 200 at Amazon. He goes to the can, and sees a vestment sheet for the early employees, and realizes that he’s been hired just after people were getting stock grants. Just just prior to him are shortly to become millionaires, and he’s sitting there with a regular job. He quit because of the inequity, and did a tour with this story as a…

There's literally a biblical parable about this (though sort of in reverse). I'll paraphrase it (it's from Matthew Ch 20):

A man goes out in the morning to find workers for his vineyard, promising them each denarius for the day. Around lunch he goes to find more workers. During the afternoon, he goes to find even more workers. At the end of the day the man pays everyone, starting with those who arrived during the afternoon. To these folks he gives a denarius. The workers who had arrived earlier see this and think they're about to get a bonus, only to then also receive a denarius apiece.

The main purpose of the parable is to describe that everybody who makes it to Heaven is there on equal terms. But there's another truth to it that the article also describes--if you agreed to work for a wage and then receive that wage, can it really be called unfair?

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#193

Post by zepto »

donw wrote: post #161
m463 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is also why I think it is silly for startups to provide too many perks Should the opposite be true as well? Startup employees going home at 5 and fighting unreasonable schedules?

> Startup employees going home at 5 and fighting unreasonable schedules? Absolutely. First, overwork doesn't lead to more productivity for knowledge workers. You get to pay that piper one way or another in the end. Second, back in the day, if your company was acquired for multiple billions, you had a pretty good shot at a life-changing infusion of cash. Nowadays, stock options given to employees often end up being wo…

> Nowadays, stock options given to employees often end up being worth nothing, even on a successful exit.

This seems unlikely.

Exits and IPOs have much greater valuations now than they did ‘back in the day’ so far more early employees end up with a significant infusion of cash.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#194

Post by astrange »

dlp211 wrote: post #151
mcny wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is a thousand dollar donation, what am I going to do with the tax break? I still have to take a standard deduction. What am I missing?

Charity is an above the line deduction.

It wasn't last year, now it is again, so people might've missed it. I thought you could only deduct $300 though.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#195

Post by astrange »

analog31 wrote: post #97
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…

Management lesson: Money is fungible. Making some part of compensation variable on a whim is giving management a rope to hang themselves with.

There are differences in types of compensation in the very short term because of IRS withholding rules. I think a lot more gets taken out of a bonus early in the year, although of course it's all the same when you do your taxes.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#196

Post by cmrdporcupine »

shubik22 wrote: post #59

This reminds me of the holiday gifts at Google. By the time I joined, Google had already switched from physical gifts (e.g. a new Pixel) to allowing each employee to choose a charity to which Google.org would donate $1,000. Even years later, there was still bitterness among the employee base about the holiday gift. It was a bit mystifying to me (as I never had the expectation of a $400 electronic for a holiday gift f…

Hm, but it was the way they managed the transition. When I joined (actually I believe I joined literally the day before the cut-off for the holiday gift so got it even tho I started in December 2011)... it was "free Nexus" (and so on, choose from a list, etc) and then it was "very cheap hardware devices we have excess inventory of" and then it was "donation to a charity we chose" and people got miffed because it just smelled like a big tax write-off.

They would have been much better off just eliminating the holiday gift with a heartfelt letter from Larry explaining that he didn't want a creeping culture of entitlement and we were all aware we were compensated handsomely anyways so happy holidays, you'll get your annual bonus soon anyways. Pretending the charity thing was a gift was a bit weird. At that point I was giving 5-10x that amount in my own cash to charities anyways.

It's handled a bit better now, because you get to choose the charity, and it's accompanied by a good matching charity drive program etc.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#197

Post by astrange »

sneak wrote: post #162
tjr225 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m back at a more traditional company after being at a startup for two years and the unlimited PTO was amazing. It wasn’t passive aggressive at all and now I sit here one my hands waiting to accumulate enough pto to take an extended break.

It wasn't unlimited though. If startups will let you take 4 weeks, or 8 weeks, or 12 weeks, or whatever - they should simply publish that up front. I am fairly certain that they would have had an issue with you taking 52 weeks of paid vacation time off per year. The actual policy number is somewhere between 2 and 52. I agree that 2 weeks of PTO for an employee per year is too little, but I think we are talking about…

If you give people defined vacation time, you have to pay it out when they leave in CA. If it's undefined it's worthless, which is good for the employer.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#198

Post by hardwaregeek »

I don't know if that was the lesson I would have taken. The lesson I'd take is "don't work for a company that tries to manipulate employees to work ridiculous hours for the possibility of more pay".

First of all, it's a bad idea for all of the classic Goodhart's law measure-becoming-a-target reasons. Management throwing money at a problem reveals a certain amount of stupidity fostered by desperateness. Second, it's a very devious practice. This person made 2,000, but most likely worked an extra 10-20 hours a week for a few months. That's 2,000/120 = 16.6 dollars per hour. The company effectively got a lot more work out of some employees for a pretty cheap price. Yeah, sure the other team got a lot more. But never, ever work your ass off for the possibility of more money.

What's fascinating about this post is how the author manages to frame his exploitation in terms of how he was ungrateful or unreasonable. Yeah, sure, for your own benefit you shouldn't care that much about bonuses and you should be grateful for what you have. But that doesn't mean you should let your company exploit you! It's perfectly okay to fight your damnest to get more money from the company. Lord knows they're fighting to pay you the least they can get away with.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#199

Post by LambdaComplex »

kbenson wrote: post #183
suifbwish wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not staying at a job past 5 unless I have a share of the company. Screw that. Every startup owner thinks they are unique and that’s why 90% of them fail. If you are working at a new startup the stats says it’s going to be time to look for a new job anyway in a year so why go any extra miles when you don’t have stake? Silicon Valley isn’t a charity

> I’m not staying at a job past 5 unless I have a share of the company. Screw that. Every startup owner thinks they are unique and that’s why 90% of them fail. Not all companies are the same, and not all companies are startups. I'm back working at the same company which was my first job in tech. Not for the second time, not the third either, but the fourth time now. I was first hired there over 22 years ago in tech s…

> even if it can't pay a huge amount for some positions, there's always a lot of recognition that everyone is needed to make it work, and everyone is appreciated

I can't pay my rent in recognition or appreciation though.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#200

Post by ryandrake »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #99
fuzzythinker wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ouch, 25% vs. 6%. That's how they value managers vs. (engineers? or everyone else?). Sad.

Well, a) it's based of base salary, so managers may be making a lower base than others, and b) while both bonuses are based on company revenue, managers may have a higher target. It makes sense to have a larger part of sales' income be commission than, say, engineers, who may have less control over meeting revenue targets.

In what universe are managers averaging less base salary than individual contributors? Aside from a few outlier engineers you see from time to time...
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