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Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

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Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#481

Post by dhosek »

zepto wrote: post #193
donw wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

In my 30 year career, I have never had a stock option worth a single penny. When I have someone talk up options as part of a compensation package, I tell them that options are nice, but my experience is that they have had no value in my past and that's the value that I'll assign them in the present and the future.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#482

Post by gedy »

musingsole wrote: post #477
benhurmarcel wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true but what can you do about it? It's a direct consequence of building large/complex products. To me it seems that you're just advocating for only building small/simple products. Typically you have a chief engineering team that is in charge to strike that balance, and drive the compromises with all the specialists.

Have Special Teams & Product Teams. Special Teams don't get ownership of anything, can't veto anything. They're there to answer any and all questions from the product team and to set the stage for how the product team may solve a challenge (i.e. present a menu of relevant approaches with expert commentary on the applicability to the problem, but implementation is the product team's job). This limbo position helps tam…

Issue with this approach at some companies though is when Special X Team is measured by the quality of X, but has little authority over Product teams, who have no incentive to do X well.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#483

Post by dhosek »

jac241 wrote: post #467
ipaddr wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normal for whom? Specialist doctors are not staying late on a Friday or working the weekend. While a walkin clinic doctor might be pushing 60 hours. An average business owner might spend more than 40 hours a week. The most successful business owners hire people to work for them while they enjoy their lives. 8 hours of tired programming gets less done compared to a well rested 3 hour work session.

Maybe plastic surgery, dermatology, rheumatology, and psychiatry don't, but other doctors are going to be splitting weekends and call among the members of their group. For specialties that have fewer doctors nationwide like vascular surgery, cardiothoracic surgery, and neurosurgery you can expect to be on home-call every third night and covering the weekend every third weekend. You might have to come in to operate ev…

My sister-in-law is an Ob/Gyn. Yes, there's call, but that gets compensated for by fewer hours during the M-F week. There's a reason why doctors on the golf course on Wednesdays is a cliche.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#485

Post by ZephyrBlu »

317070 wrote: post #479
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is exactly why I'm comfortable turning it down if it's not equal. I didn't lose anything. Neither person did any work so I don't understand your point. Why would you offer someone less than half the money when you are no more entitled to it than them? The only reasons I can think of is to take advantage of them settling for less, or because you think you are entitled to more money. Both of which are morally wro…

You write as if "equal" is the objective correct way to distribute. It is a really fun experiment which they replicated in different cultures and got vastly different results. Even both extremes of the spectrum are good ways to describe expected behaviour in some cultures. In some places, the first person would take all the money, and the second would happily accept that split. He could have been first after all and…

I'm explicitly writing from my own moral perspective, which is obviously highly subjective.

I also purposefully didn't use the word "fair" because it's very subjective.

It would definitely be interesting to see the result of this experiment in different cultures. Any sources?

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#486

Post by heresie-dabord »

fuzzythinker wrote: post #70
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…

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

In any human hierarchy, the management of the hierarchy tends to view itself as the most important component.

At the same time, it is literally the least talented.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#487

Post by PKop »

iso1631 wrote: post #408
um_ya wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees forget that they sell their labor. Sell your labor to the highest bidder.

Why? My job is extremely easy with a great team and manager. I could get more, but I'd have to work in a high stress environment, and life is too short for that shit.

>My job is extremely easy with a great team and manager

Value comes in many forms. OP message shouldn't imply that money alone is the only variable in the equation of "am I compensated fairly".

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#488

Post by Nimitz14 »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #397
adamcharnock wrote: post #57

This reminds me of my first job as a developer, age 21. I haven’t shared it before, so here goes... There was a ‘crunch’ coming up at work (i.e. IMHO, bad planning) and so the boss offered everyone a bonus if they performed well. However, the older employees warned me that the criteria for such bonuses were often ill-defined. I therefore pushed for clear achievable objectives. These pre-agreed objectives were promise…

After you pulling a resignation notice as an argument, an experienced boss would instantly know you would not be an asset he could rely on even mid-term, so his best option from a business perspective would be giving you no bonus at all (or the original one), and immediately starting to look for a replacement (and probably firing you).

Yeah... I'm rather perplexed why the boss didn't just fire him on the spot. A new grad is likely not valuable enough to be worth fighting for.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#489

Post by kevinmchugh »

forgingahead wrote: post #443
kaba0 wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boss-employee relationship goes both ways. They pay me because of my work/because I am valuable. From the story, the poster was valuable (otherwise the boss would not have paid him/her out). > Employees are not the top of the totem pole, there are always other factors that people making these decisions have to consider And that is entirely his/her thing. If I was promised this and that for a given task, I should be g…

"Value" does not just comprise of "coding ability". "Attitude" is a key part of it, and I guarantee you the vast majority of all hiring managers everywhere would eliminate a candidate if they demonstrated high entitlement during the interview process. If they somehow get hired because that quality was hidden somehow during the interview process, the moment it surfaced, there would be behind-the-scenes discussions on…

Negotiating is expensive, and constant renegotiation is bad for morale. Employers wishing to avoid that should not change the terms of the agreement by eg requiring or expecting crunch time. Such a change is an act of renegotiation, and employees will leave (BATNA) or negotiate for more compensation. If employers do not wish to add additional compensation to match their changed expectation, well, OP had his resignation in hand.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#490

Post by PKop »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #397
adamcharnock wrote: post #57

This reminds me of my first job as a developer, age 21. I haven’t shared it before, so here goes... There was a ‘crunch’ coming up at work (i.e. IMHO, bad planning) and so the boss offered everyone a bonus if they performed well. However, the older employees warned me that the criteria for such bonuses were often ill-defined. I therefore pushed for clear achievable objectives. These pre-agreed objectives were promise…

After you pulling a resignation notice as an argument, an experienced boss would instantly know you would not be an asset he could rely on even mid-term, so his best option from a business perspective would be giving you no bonus at all (or the original one), and immediately starting to look for a replacement (and probably firing you).

This all depends on the value of the employee and the opportunity cost of firing them and finding a replacement.

It is certainly not true that it is never viable to pull the resignation notice as an ultimatum. Simply depends on who has the leverage.

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