Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

madned.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

661–670 of 684 posts

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#661

Post by rhines »

pdimitar wrote: post #653
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…

> what is to stop me threatening to resign every time I don’t get my way? To which I calmly explain that he didn’t have to pay (Ie. I could just quit). This might be my English failing me but I can't understand your answer; it doesn't seem like it's actually addressing the question that was asked to you. Could you elaborate a little further? I was met with that question before and would like to learn how to handle it…

It's just pointing out "yeah, if you're worried that I'll keep doing this, then feel free to just let me resign - but if you want me to stay, you'll have to live with the risk that I'll do this again". It's not assuaging the manager's fears at all, because there's really no way to do that.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#662

Post by alex_anglin »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #584
onemiketwelve wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. This is like being dealt a horrible set of cards in poker and kicking yourself for folding. Let's say you got 2,7 and then found out the cards on the table turned out to be the rest of the 2s. Folding was still the right move

You're right as an analogy, but don't take this as exact poker advice. Poker isn't just about the cards you're dealt, but also the the players you play (with). I wonder if there is a similar idea/point about startups?

I'd suggest that, unlike poker, it's best not to look at a career as zero-sum.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#663

Post by pdimitar »

rhines wrote: post #661
pdimitar wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what is to stop me threatening to resign every time I don’t get my way? To which I calmly explain that he didn’t have to pay (Ie. I could just quit). This might be my English failing me but I can't understand your answer; it doesn't seem like it's actually addressing the question that was asked to you. Could you elaborate a little further? I was met with that question before and would like to learn how to handle it…

It's just pointing out "yeah, if you're worried that I'll keep doing this, then feel free to just let me resign - but if you want me to stay, you'll have to live with the risk that I'll do this again". It's not assuaging the manager's fears at all, because there's really no way to do that.

I like that a lot. Thank you. (a) be honest and (b) remind them that you got them by the balls if crap hits the fan.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#664

Post by jboy55 »

Cogito wrote: post #575
castlecrasher2 wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be frank, it doesn't matter how much sense it makes in theory when in practice it has obvious downsides.

I think it makes sense in practice too, if you accept some incentive scheme. Perhaps no incentive is the best incentive, but I don't know the data on that. In my experience there was never a huge disconnect between an individual's performance and their expectation of their bonus. Your starting point was based on your position - say 5% for junior positions and 10% for senior positions. The thing you had control over w…

The issue with the scheme was that,

a) it was overly complicated and huge individual performances were just washed out in the larger mix

b) It had the appearance of giving a great deal of control to the employees in driving their 'bonus'. However, in the end, the decisions made at the highest levels made the entire process moot. For example, A goal for YoY rev increase of 100%, was a failure when it hit 80%. The hiring and spending required to try and hit that 100% growth target, made profit a 2nd priority.

As a manager, all the personal goals were interesting behavioral levers, but all that was lost when the bonus kept not being paid. "We're tracking all of this for our Goals, which informs our bonus, but our bonus never gets paid because the ceo says its ok we shouldn't be making a profit now cuz we're growing."

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#665

Post by minitoar »

unishark wrote: post #247
minitoar wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 dozen krispy kreme glazed donuts is like $8

Isn't that a bit like evaluating the cost of coffee based on starbucks prices? We also don't know how recent this story is. When I was a kid, in the days before gentrification and gourmet-everything, there was a doughnut shop nearby that was like $2 for a dozen. It was way cheaper than regular fast food. I remember thinking what a great discovery it was until I found I couldn't handle more than a couple of them befor…

I don’t think KK is quite as pricey as Starbucks. A Starbucks brewed coffee is about 2x the price by volume of McDs. As long as we’re talking about standard kk-sized donuts I think it would be difficult to find them for less than $6/dozen.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#667

Post by jjav »

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…

Bonuses are great if they are very transparently tied to external events (exceeding revenue goals etc) and not any internal politics. Worked at one company where one could take the annual report and apply the published formula to come up with your bonus. That was great.

Making it unpredictable and secret is super toxic though. At one SV hardware company we had a great fiscal year, exceed everything and then they announced that based on their super-secret bonus formula, it came out to 0.05% of target. They actually paid out that 0.05% which felt more insulting than just calling it no bonus this year. I did quit the place after that incident.

A much better way to handle it was at another SV hardware company I was later. Same scenario, best fiscal year ever, etc. But bonus computation based on secret formula came to zero. This company had actual decent humans in charge (based on many events not just this one) so they acknowledged that the formula needed fixes and retroactively changed it to account for the exceeded financial targets. Sadly they still kept it secret but in subsequent quarters it did seem to track financial goals pretty well.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#668

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

projectileboy wrote: post #274
MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I'm in total agreement with this. I see many people here who get absurdly passionate about programming that they forget a lot that management is not as much. The business world is brutal so you gotta hedge the odds in your favor. Busting my ass for the potential to make a significant bonus isnt worth it. As is going above and beyond. Just game the system and wait for management to figure it out. And if your manag…

The Gervais Principle changed my life. Not all for good, but it did open my eyes wider, and it also helped explain some things that I couldn’t understand beforehand. (For example: I never understood why I found LinkedIn to be so depressing, until I saw that it was dominated by what Rao calls “the clueless” engaging in what he terms “posturetalk”. Many, many useful mental models in that book.)

For me it was the realization of being a loser, but being the difference between being a loser that busts your ass (dwight) and a loser that "gets it" (stanley).

It opened my eyes and I stopped caring about getting fired at my low paid office job. And guess who never got fired even after slacking hardcore?

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#669

Post by sjwright »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #357
sjwright wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The perk is your charity gets the money, the point of giving to charity isn't the tax benefits...

Again yes, that’s exactly my point. They are double dipping on the good will; first as an employee perk, second on their corporate annual reports.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#670

Post by Thorrez »

Lev1a wrote: post #658
Thorrez wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't saying whether it was moral or immoral or good or bad. I was just giving an example. I'm curious, would you say it is better for them to have a $1 salary, a $100k salary, or a $100M salary?

It would be nice first of all for them not to be tax dodging assholes, who like in the case of ActiBlizz not only didn't pay tax to the US but also manipulated the tax system to get tax credits to the tune of hundreds of millions of Dollars in just a single year¹ while also kicking out hundreds of their employees for short term gain. And if their companies already use the tax system as nothing other than toilet paper…

I agree there should be less tax loophole exploitation. I think the best way to prevent it though is through law changes to remove the loopholes.

To compare against Blizzard's 2018 numbers, I checked out Google's 2018 numbers (full disclosure I work at Google, but my words are my own). I could be misinterpreting the document, but it looks like Google paid $14.5B in corporate income taxes in 2017 and $4.2B in 2018.

https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/2018Q4_alphabet_earnings...

Post reply on HN