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Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

madned.substack.com

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Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#311

Post by jmchuster »

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…

I think it helps employees if they understand that bonuses are not rewards, or for incentivizing behavior, though they might incidentally do that. They are built-in pay cuts that companies can use when their financials don't end up matching what they plan for.

I've only ever been at one company that went out of their way to regularly present and show company financials in a digestible way, that when the year ended, it was clear to me at least why we got bonuses one year and why we didn't the other.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#312

Post by alasdair_ »

astrange wrote: post #197
sneak wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is exactly the issue. I left my last job with almost two months of vacation time. No startup wants to pay that out if they can help it.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#313

Post by sjwright »

sokoloff wrote: post #118
sjwright wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then the accountants probably tabulated them as corporate donations. So were they gifts from the employee or not?

If you make a donation in someone's name, you get the tax deduction, not them. Google couldn't "pay" the employees in some non-taxable form and then let the employees take the $1000 deduction even if they wanted to (which they don't).

That’s my point. The donation is financially a corporate donation, but is being marketed to the employee as a perk of their employment. That it’s “their” donation.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#314

Post by faeyanpiraat »

laurent92 wrote: post #282
m463 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After that I went freelance. And 15 years later I can say it was the best decision ever. Every time I've left a job, I've been uncertain and conflicted. Every. Time. Then, a week or two into the new job... Every. Time. ...I thought, "Wow! I should have done this sooner!"

I’ve worked for a startup who was giving 866 stock options per month. Had I known they are valued $125 today, I would have: - Shut up a few more times because I’d trust more the managers, and just followed the stream, - Accepted to be patient about being a developer on a boring project, because what stressed me was “I don’t know enough to reach the career level that can allow me to ever buy a house.” - Made 4 million…

You really shouldn’t feel bad, because what happened has a low probability.

It’s like saying I should’ve invested in X which got quadrupled in price last year.

Most stocks (even very promising ones) didn’t achieve anywhere near that growth.

So you choosing the right one among the many to “shut up and stick to it just a little bit longer” has a low chance of exceptional returns on your investment.

You cannot see the future, even the most sophisticated analysis can be wrong, and even the best companies can stagnate for a loong time before getting lucky.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#315

Post by ipaddr »

peteretep wrote: post #158
greggman3 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, what's a reasonable solution for a small company (since it's easier to do thought experiments on a small company). You're a business owner. You hire 3 people. You pay them salaries. That year the company does really well. You want to thank your employees. You're not going to just give them raises because there's no guarantee you'll do as well next year It sounds by Netflix logic you should just keep…

When I take dividends, 20% of the value I take gets distributed to the staff

I think by pooling and sharing a fixed amount the reward is company wide not connected to individuals. That aligns everyone to work as a team to generate enough income that you will allow you to take a dividend. I like the approach for smaller business.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#316

Post by vidarh »

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...

In 25 years, exactly once have I had someone in my team that was paid more than me.

It was someone who had been in the job 5-6 years longer than me, and consistently been one of the highest performers. I believe I was the one to give him a raise to a higher base than me.

So it does certainly happen, but as you say I think they're outliers.

Usually I think you'll see this happen because companies are poor at having a separate tech promotion track that doesn't lead into management, and so it sometimes happens with people that really ought to have been promoted, but that neither they or you want to become managers.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#317

Post by hibbelig »

bsder wrote: post #122
taf2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I visited China in 2000 and remember one night in Beijing I very poor sad little came up to me asking for help for food and I handed her 5 dollars. As I recall at the time the little ones always were asking for “one dollar” so i felt it very nice to give 5... after an hour or so eating in the restaurant when I came out a literal sea of children were gathered all around me begging for the same gift... I had given the…

> very poor sad little came up to me asking for help Never give to beggars. Ever. For any reason. If you just feel you must give, give food --something that can't be converted to cash. Nothing pisses off "beggars" faster than giving them a sandwich. 1) Most of the time it's a scam. Often the individual isn't really that badly off or, if they're children, the money is being skimmed by adults. 2) A lot of the time it's…

Once I saw kids begging and I wanted to give them money. But they pointed at the packed leftover food from the restaurant. Then I knew it was not a scam and it taught me about the living conditions in that place. Thank you for the chance to remember this incident.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#318

Post by barry-cotter »

ipaddr wrote: post #295
barry-cotter wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, overwork doesn't lead to more productivity for knowledge workers. You get to pay that piper one way or another in the end. I have never seen any research showing net negative productivity for any job for under 60 hours a week of work. Overwork sucks but if you have evidence that it’s bad for productivity please cite it.

If you typed those words into google instead of asking for research you would have found this and millions of other documents. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2015/01/26/wor...

From the academic paper linked to in that news article

> the hours at which output is a maximum is at 67 and at 64, respectively. In fact, there are a few cases in which actual observations on hours of work exceed 67 and 64 meaning that, in these instances, average observed hours were at levels where the estimated marginal product of hours is negative!

http://ftp.iza.org/dp8129.pdf

The Productivity of Working Hours John Pencavel April 2014

I believe this is in line with what I wrote

> I have never seen any research showing net negative productivity for any job for under 60 hours a week of work.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#319

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

supernovae wrote: post #242
crocsarecool wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m back to a traditional place after unlimited. It’s annoying waiting to accumulate time, but I prefer the lines being clearer. The way my old company did unlimited felt like a cheat to not have to pay a vacation accumulation out if you didn’t use it, but you also felt like you were put on the naughty list for taking too much vacation. If you took beyond a certain amount of leave, someone from higher and higher up t…

I take about 3-5 weeks of vacation a year + our 14 company holidays. I typically do one big road trip for ~2 weeks and then a week randomly through the year plus random days fishing, doings tuff with kids or just taking a break from work. I could never do that having to accrue

You could if you lived in Europe, where you must get at least four weeks minimum vacation per year (plus public holidays).

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#320

Post by TheCapeGreek »

jachee wrote: post #211
kbenson wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It sets obvious precedent and will upset more folks when you stop. Isn't another solution to make perks not variable, and clearly outlined in the contract as part of the employment package? You only have to worry about what your employees will do if you take away a perk when it's actually something you can consider taking away. If you treat it as part of the guaranteed compensation, you'll budget for it accordingly…

> make it a flat guaranteed amount Isn't this functionally equivalent to "pay better base salaries"?

Indeed, but in many countries this is done via a 13th payment.

To be honest I've never seen 13th payments offered in dev careers, so when I hear some of my Scrum friends demanding it I'm quite surprised since I know they make comparable amounts to me.

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