341–348 of 348 posts
My wife is a registered nurse and the facility she works for had a Christmas party "to recognize all the hard work" everyone did. At some point they did a raffle and handed out a total of 8 gift cards among the 200 employees at the party. Whatever. Her next pay stub had a deduction for $35 to cover the cost of that party and the "gifts" that were given.
We need to find a name for a gesture so small in its generosity that it ends up being offensive. No bonus would have left me disappointed, but a $50 bonus would have made me angry. Like when Delta gave a food voucher to make up for a 5-hour delay on a 30-minute file. The voucher was for $3. Fuck Delta.
When my entire engineering team was laid off, work organized farewell drinks for us. Except they didn't actually budget for this. Their idea was that the whole office would go out and... celebrate? Us being laid off? And pay for it ourselves?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Call me ungrateful but I can't think of anything I'd less like doing than being forced into a dinner with coworkers that I already spend more time with than my family or friends. Get the money, then go home.
You better not let this attitude shine through in a job interview, though :D
At the end of a project death-march (at one point I turned in a >100 hour timecard), the division director had a celebratory thank-you dinner for all the managers involved in the project. My direct supervisor was at first puzzled as to why I wasn't coming with him to the dinner at the end of the day, and then he was quite appalled - I think he later had words with the director about the whole thing.
Call me ungrateful but I can't think of anything I'd less like doing than being forced into a dinner with coworkers that I already spend more time with than my family or friends. Get the money, then go home.
Not a counter point to this article, but a counter point to the efficacy of monetary rewards. > "Study showed that monetary incentives are great for routine, mechanical work. But how does it play when talking about cognitive, advanced tasks? Not well at all." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgKKPQiRRag Counter-counter point: If anyone ever points you to this for evidence _you_ shouldn't get a bonus/monetary reward sy…
Considering how expensive staff are, I've never understood the culture surrounding penny pinching the stuff that would keep them happy/improve moral/improve retention. Forget the moral arguments for a second, even in purely financial terms it would likely pay for itself in recruitment savings alone, let alone brain drain/efficiency, training costs, and so on. Even a "cheap" employee in a white collar job, is likely c…
I'm always reminded of the addage: "The elves are leaving middle earth" when it comes to such penny pinching: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...
> My then manager once closed a team meeting with the words, (literally): "Thank you, and whatever other motivational stuff l'm supposed to say".
Months later we were having one of these kick-offs. He stood up on stage, started his slideshow, and offered a few pictures of sunny places where he was having fun playing that sport. Most people in the room knew what they were doing while he was having fun. One of the worst examples of leadership I've witnessed.
That person was let go several months later.