Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit • Hacker News Board

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#231

Post by ickelbawd » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 4:27 AM UTC

alienthrowaway wrote: post #172

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 is something buried deeply in our minds that recoils at being treated unfairly. I have a good job, the pay is decent, the work is interesting - but I'm in the process of looking for a different job because I didn't get a promotion. Some junior members on my team did get them though, and it feels unfair (I absolutely have no idea if they don't deserve it, and I like them as team mates). However, I had previously…

Wow. I had a similar experience last Monday. A coworker I like personally, but who I consider myself more senior than, was given an important role on the team that I had been working towards and discussing with my manager. I felt this incredible, irrational anger as soon as it was announced and it stuck with me for days. I went to bed angry and woke up angry. It really surprised me how visceral and uncontrollable my reaction felt. It consumed my thoughts. I’m halfway through a four day weekend to disconnect and try to reset myself mentally because while I still think it was unfair, I can’t actively feel this way and still function well at work. Time will tell if this weekend was long enough...

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#232

Post by dilyevsky » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 4:28 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #203

dilyevsky wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When employer says “unlimited” they actually mean “take as many as you like as long as your manager is happy with your work” so I doubt you can formalize that in the offer. It’s good deal tho for people who can deliver the goods

If you do really good can you take a year off? If not, then it’s still not unlimited. I’d like my salary and benefits be quantified in my contract rather than “manager discretion” which can go south in a hurry if you have a terrible manager.

If you want to be real pedantic I can counter with the fact that at least in the US and with the “at-will” contract just because they promised you 25 days of vacation doesn’t mean you can take it whenever you please or at all.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#233

Post by techrat » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 4:29 AM UTC

projectileboy wrote: post #77

The asymmetry between how employees agonize over their behavior towards their employers vs how employers think of their employees never ceases to amaze me. Never forget that your employer will gleefully lay off their most loyal employees if doing so is somehow in alignment with some executive’s comp. I’m not saying you should ever behave unethically, I’m just saying that if you’re on the field, you should be aware of…

> Never forget that your employer will gleefully lay off their most loyal employees if doing so is somehow in alignment with some executive’s comp.

I'm old enough to remember that people retired from the jobs they spent their whole lives working at... and wondered why those barely older than me were already struggling to find meaningful futures within their careers, nevermind within their company.

Reaganomics and the new business method of short term gains at all costs destroyed company loyalty and loyalty of the employee.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#234

Post by supernovae » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 4:30 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #200

CamelCaseName wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I see it quite a bit... Managers will often have larger equity or bonus comp.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#235

Post by WillDaSilva » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 4:30 AM UTC

heyoni wrote: post #173

lazyasciiart wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "skin in the game" should not be arbitrarily tied to a metric/achievement that is not under your control or else working to the same objectives. If manufacturing have no motivation to go faster, I have no control over their speed, and I know they'll just take as long as the schedule allows? then screw it, getting it to them early won't help me get my bonus. Now, if manufacturing was also getting a bonus dependen…

It sucks but you can't just get bonuses for trying hard, especially when your company is on the verge of collapse or getting bought up for scraps. It's not always fair but in this case, the OP was still getting a good salary. They decided to take a risk together with their employer and it didn't pan out as well as they'd have liked. Happens all the time.

If the goal is to increase the productivity of the employees, then what you want is for the employees to be trying harder. To do that you'll want to incentive trying hard, e.g. through bonuses. The main reason bonuses are awarded for achieving good outcomes instead of for trying hard is because the former is easier to measure. Intentionally rewarding the achievement of good outcomes (which is a matter of chance) instead of good efforts will lead to strife, as those who put in just as much work but weren't as lucky will feel cheated.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#236

Post by shard972 » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 4:32 AM UTC

lixtra wrote: post #228

DoreenMichele wrote: post #209

I knew a guy who put his two weeks notice in just before the annual Christmas bonus came out. So they stiffed him on the bonus. They ended up paying for that in spades. This was in the planning field and he was moving from a private consulting firm to a government job. Government is where the real power is for this industry. If they were one minute late "Sorry, we are closed/you missed the deadline." If they had any…

> They ended up paying for that in spades. Assuming that guy behaved differently with other companies, shouldn’t we call it corruption? Edit: > This was in the planning field and he was moving from a private consulting firm to a government job . Some downvoters want explain? Seriously HN, you want this kind of government workers? I didn’t assume so. It was an interesting story to share.

Maybe we need more of this kind of corruption then

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#237

Post by anonuser123456 » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 4:33 AM UTC

projectileboy wrote: post #77

The asymmetry between how employees agonize over their behavior towards their employers vs how employers think of their employees never ceases to amaze me. Never forget that your employer will gleefully lay off their most loyal employees if doing so is somehow in alignment with some executive’s comp. I’m not saying you should ever behave unethically, I’m just saying that if you’re on the field, you should be aware of…

> Never forget that your employer will gleefully lay off their most loyal employees if doing so is somehow in alignment with some executive’s comp.

I work at a global mega corp run by private equity guy. This is definitely not the way our management works. From my manager up through our BU head, people are valued as a long term investment and are not casually discarded. Yes, if you are not productive, you can be dismissed. But valuable people are not taken for granted at any level of seniority in my experience.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#238

Post by froh » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 4:35 AM UTC

twodave wrote: post #192

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 aft…

the parable leverages our feelings of injustice tickled by the very relatable narrative to carry one point home, the Heavens part.

the other, secular reading, has a heavy taste of prosperity gospel, putting employers into God's boots to justify blatant injustice and better margins, fka profits. it is and remains unfair to offer different employees different wages for the same work.

please don't use the gospel to justify injustice.

btw,bI'm amazed there are employee owned companies.

For example whenever there is another round of Huawei bashing I remind myself that Huawei is fully employee owned with no majority shareholders.

https://www.huawei.com/en/facts/question-answer/who-owns-hua....

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#239

Post by geocrasher » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 4:36 AM UTC

> We are lucky enough to have a regular bonus program even now at work, it’s been going on for years. Every time it is handed out my boss will say something like, “so we had a good bonus this time, but don’t count on it in the future.”

"Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning."

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#240

Post by habitue » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 4:37 AM UTC

whack wrote: post #94

I see a lot of comments bemoaning performance-based bonuses, but consider the following: > I remember being in shouting matches with our signal integrity team about among other things, how many capacitors we needed. These tiny devices evened out the power of the system, but they wanted far too many to be added to allow the design cheap and easy to build > Meanwhile I was waking up at 4AM on most days, in full-stress-…

This is just highly dependent on the structure of the company and the ability to objectively determine an individual's input into the final profit of the company. Small companies, sales orgs, hedge funds have an advantage here. If you're not so lucky, your industry / company size may result in bonuses getting handed out completely based on who your boss likes, and no one can argue because it's subjective.

Spend months sorting out a rat's nest of code that your predecessors created? Over the long term, this is value creating behavior for the company. Is a portion of the bottom line measurably attributable to it in a particular year? Maybe, maybe not.