401–410 of 684 posts
> 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."
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…
> but anything outside of a salary for compensation is just a bad idea. In the hedge fund industry, you can't be a successful firm without a bonus compensation model. - The profit is usual attributable exactly to specific people. If they don't get paid their share of what they brought in, they'll quit and go elsewhere where they can be paid their share, and you'll be left with all the worst people. - Some years are s…
You are selecting for lucky people that way not competent.
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> 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…
> 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.
It's a flat out awful structure, as people will legitimately wait until they get that annual bonus to quit, which can mean unhappy people staying in a job they don't want, making others around them unhappy as well.
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> Feel free to name any category of professional where working over 40 hours a week isn’t quite normal. YMMV but the only time I ever experienced the myth that "working over 40 hours a week is the norm" was when I started working at a US-based company. And the only reason unpaid overtime was the norm was that managers, specially skip-level management, did a piss-poor job establishing sane goals based on realistic tim…
> YMMV but the only time I ever experienced the myth that "working over 40 hours a week is the norm" was when I started working at a US-based company. Even in France, where the base legal hours are only 35 hours a week, intellectual/upper professions in a full-time position work an average of 43 hours a week. That's the average which includes women, who work 10% less (in terms of number of hours worked) than men. If…
they chose to so that they can skip other obligations (family for example) and as you said it's mostly a men thing
I'm in a professional full-time position and nominally I should work 40 hours but actually we work less especially now that we are working from home
nobody will ask you to do something on a friday afternoon "I'll see you on monday"
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> Peter Gibbons: You see, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't even care. >Bob Porter: Don't- don't care? >Peter Gibbons: It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime, so where's the motivation? Before I started working at MASSIVE CORP I thought Office Space was a comedy.....
When I come to the "I just don't even care" state, I start looking for another job. I was at a startup company that in my opinion got a great idea and with enough focus, we could have been successful. I always tried to think about the product, the impact, the roadmap, the quality... And after some time I realized that I just annoy the founders and I care and worry more about things then they do. So I decided to care…
You can be motivated as much as you want, but tomorrow you can be replaced. Your company gets acquired, and you happen to be in the "wrong" office. Bye bye. Or whatever other reason. Covid! Bye bye again.
We are just minions with a good technical knowledge. And if you don't step up and get closer and closer to CTO level you'll be "just" working on features, sporadically "exceeding the goals set" and get rewarded for that. Yay. Get the most out of it and that's it. If that's enough for you, so be it.
Learn, develop, make shit happen, iterate.
Do you want to have a major impact? It takes hours and stress from your own personal life (I couldn't stress this out more), things don't come easily.
If you want to have power you need to be your own boss. And even then I wonder how much power you truly have.
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> 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…
Ignore the money, divorce your happiness from money, and do what makes you feel happy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's.
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> 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!"
Employees forget that they sell their labor. Sell your labor to the highest bidder.
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> 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.
But using your money to buy happiness after your ten hour work Saturday is not going to be a big success, either. Yes, it does not replace money, but for some people it is worth more to feel happy at work than to receive a bit more money.
It depends. If working 10-hour Saturdays for a year results in me buying a yacht, you can be sure that actual real money bought the happiness that came with my yacht.
It's all a tradeoff and for some things you are unlikely to get the big payoff without a risk involved. Determining where your personal boundaries are with the risk-taking is an individual decision.
TLDR; you can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket.