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Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

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Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#531

Post by emodendroket »

74d-fe6-2c6 wrote: post #421
serial_dev wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> On the other hand, when you just go in to work, do a reasonable amount of effort, then you can work better with others with less stress, and in the end, who cares about "those few extra units"? That's exactly my MO. The extent to which many people start to overidentify with their job is almost comical. If they are lucky it may actually pay off at least. But more likely than not they are just deferring the inevitabl…

Yeah, of course it is. But you also spend a lot of time there, so I don't think it's unreasonable to try to find something you can be proud of delivering.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#532

Post by emodendroket »

decebalus1 wrote: post #514
emodendroket wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once the company is more than a handful of people that's all pretty theoretical.

It doesn't have to be. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

I don't doubt you can make a large co-op. What I do doubt is that working at a large co-op is much different from working at any other large employer (I guess unless you're on the executive team).

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#533

Post by selectodude »

isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote: post #457
alisonkisk wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"13th payment" is the same as getting paid every two weeks (quite common), but concentrated onto one moment instead of evenly paced.

Is it? I've exclusively seen it refer to the extra monthly salary at some point during the year (typically around December). I guess it depends on the country.

12*2 is only twenty four checks. The "13th" month brings you to twenty six checks, which is the actual number of 2 week periods in a year.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#534

Post by emodendroket »

praptak wrote: post #349
im3w1l wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the curse of 95% reliability. People will rely on it even though they shouldn't. It's better if it's only like 66% reliable.

We know how to deal with this in the technical domain - we break things on purpose in a controlled way so that people don't rely on an SLO that is there by mere chance. Maybe companies should do "bonus tolerance breaks" for the same purpose.

Considering typical turnover that's not possible unless you pay out the bonuses on a much more frequent than annual schedule.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#535

Post by emodendroket »

kblev wrote: post #501
anonu wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sort of the deal on Wall Street. You get a "discretionary bonus" and its more mysteriously tied to the performance of the firm. This is the secret, you can't give people too much of a formula. Bonuses have to be conjured up in a nonsensical way, otherwise stuff like this happens.

It seems odd to me why bonuses are tied to the performance of the company rather than the employee's performance.

Well 1) no money to pay the bonuses out of if not 2) supposedly it's incentivizing you to act in the company's interests.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#536

Post by jartelt »

kgwgk wrote: post #445
Salgat wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a tax break for the employee, since the net effect is still less money. Unless you consider losing your job and having no salary to tax also a tax break.

It’s not “still less money” compared with the situation where the employee gets the money AND donates the money. Of course if the employee was not going to keep the money not getting it is a net loss.

People were mainly just annoyed that rather than getting a free phone or some cash as a gift, they instead got the ability to choose a charity to receive a donation from Google (which has "value" but not monetary or physical value to the employee). The expected to receive a phone/cash so it felt like less compensation/bonus when they didn't receive it.

I doubt anyone was thinking about donation related tax breaks or anything like that. It was simply "sure I will have Google give $500 to this food bank, but why don't I get a new phone or cash bonus?"

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#537

Post by emodendroket »

rorykoehler wrote: post #382
hinkley wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of a few companies where the pay isn’t quite competitive without the bonus. If you lose 10% of your income with the same or greater responsibilities (life often gets harder when the money gets scarce), your finances and plans don’t give a shit what you called it, they just know it’s gone.

It is foolish to include you bonus in your financial planning.

In many cases your variable comp ends up being like half or more of what you're paid which makes it hard to really adhere to that in reality.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#538

Post by soulbadguy »

forgingahead wrote: post #518
kaba0 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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. I do agree with you that not only technical abilities are considered, for good reason. But not standing up for ourselves and letting us being bullied and exploited by higher ups is not an attitude in my book. We may ha…

Certainly, there are plenty of exploitative bosses and we should definitely encourage people to stand up for themselves. I provide new hires with several books, one of which is a book on personal finances that includes a chapter on negotiating a higher salary. It's important to me that people are empowered in their work and their lives. But this is not the story of the comment I was engaging with. The original commen…

You seems to have a very 'personal' view of the employee/employer relationships. But i think the core of the issue is that for the last 40 years, corporation in general, have work very hard to "depersonalize" this relationship to the point where most employee have lost any sense of loyalty. So the way to see this is as a legal business relationship where every party maximize they own interest and they is nothing wrong about that. An employer should'nt takes is personally. I see this weird dichotomy every time on asker news or in corporate america : Companies treat employee like a resources and try to extract maximum value out of them (like promising a vague bonus and giving only 30% of the target without clear explanation) and get confused when employee do the same.

> But to threaten to resign if he didn't get it, and then resign anyway once he did get it, is just poor form

No the bonus was paid for service rendered. After that his continue employment was subject to renegotiation. Let's not forget that the employment term were probably "at will" on the demand of the employer. OP felt that his employer broke his trust ? Would you work with someone you don't trust ?

> That should not be a controversial statement.

I honestly think it is. And i think your statement are really pro employer and doesn't reflect the current state of the average modern employer/employee relationship.

> One can't be unreliable in a company, and expect that not to be a problem for future job opportunities.

That OP did meet his requirements meant he is not unreliable. If OP wasn't providing value at the company , he would have been fired a while ago.

Reliability, as everything has a cost, in this case it was paying the full amount of the bonus...

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#539

Post by emodendroket »

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…

> Often the individual isn't really that badly off or, if they're children, the money is being skimmed by adults.

This is a comforting thing to tell oneself but I don't think it's true.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#540

Post by emodendroket »

bsder wrote: post #359
hibbelig wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, if someone actually asks for food, I'll probably help them out--certainly if I'm holding it in my hand. That's only happened once in all my years of walking around cities (and I generally walk a lot wherever I live--which is why I recognize all the habitual beggars). For almost a half-dozen of my too sympathetic friends, I have introduced them to the local beggar population that they wanted to help by saying: "…

Supposing someone didn't want food, I don't see that it changes the fundamental reality that they are homeless and begging. In fact it's hard to blame them for wanting a drink in that situation.
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