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Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

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Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#461

Post by pinkybanana »

faeyanpiraat wrote: post #314
laurent92 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You really shouldn’t feel bad, because what happened has a low probability. It’s like saying I should’ve invested in X which got quadrupled in price last year. Most stocks (even very promising ones) didn’t achieve anywhere near that growth. So you choosing the right one among the many to “shut up and stick to it just a little bit longer” has a low chance of exceptional returns on your investment. You cannot see the f…

The problem is that people make lots of claims towards the direction of "stock options are always worthless" when they should say more like "stock options are often worthless but sometimes can be ridiculously valuable". Startup game just provides high returns to small minority, and some people after couple of negative experience seem to decide that everything must suck then and spread it around in here and other forums.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#462

Post by pinkybanana »

um_ya wrote: post #101
m463 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The problem is evaluating the size of the bid. Salary is only one part of the equation and people rarely get wealthy on salary alone. There are multitude factors when evaluating the "bid" of the company and to actually understand what is valuable and what is not is the difficult part.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#463

Post by loginatnine »

einpoklum wrote: post #427
greggman3 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, what's a reasonable solution for a small company (since it's easier to do thought experiments on a small company). You're a business owner. You hire 3 people. You pay them salaries. That year the company does really well. You want to thank your employees. You're not going to just give them raises because there's no guarantee you'll do as well next year It sounds by Netflix logic you should just keep…

Well, why don't you consult them? First set aside the amount of money you were thinking of paying. Now think of some options, e.g.: * Paying the bonus. * Improving office amenities. * Buying each employee an expensive present. * Funding a family vacation for each employee. * Making a sizable donation to a worthy cause (collectively or for each employee). * etc. Then have a meeting with them, and ask them which they w…

This. At a scale of a small company, everyone could benefit from it the way they want and you get transparency and include them in the discussion.

It doesn't really scale when you are bigger though.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#464

Post by twodave »

hellow0rldz wrote: post #393
faeyanpiraat wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the right to feel anything about anything for any reason. Whether you can renegotiate or not is not based on your feelings or morals, but how good you are at power games.

This a very one linear way of looking at the world. Sure, it might be about "power games" but feelings do matter and morals too and how one feels about it does give you the extra energy and drive to succeed at a (re)negotiation. So... how can one ignore all that? The original debate was if it's unfair. I think taking advantage too much during an initial negotiation is unfair but since the other side did agree it is a…

This isn’t really the situation GP was talking about. The company offered early employees stock. At some point obviously they have to draw the line and stop doing this. GP felt they were ripped off only after learning not that they missed the boat, but how close they were to being on it. The company wasn’t unfair to them, especially since GP agreed to a certain wage and the company was willing to pay that wage.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#465

Post by lr4444lr »

gonehome wrote: post #166
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…

Yeah, but your example is a little different than the OP's - I think part of this though is that the company is using the 'bonus' effectively as salary but with the idea that they don't have to guarantee its future. The company treats it like salary, the employees treat it like salary, recruiters probably mention it as part of comp like it's salary, etc. Then one day they decide not to do it, of course people are pis…

That's exactly what a bonus is: part of your salary that your company can at it's discretion not pay you. Marketing and HR has spun this into the sham that it's some kind of additional benefit, but it's not. It is directly at odds with the individual employee's end of the risk / reward trade off, and he should almost always reject it in lieu of some other form of comp.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#466

Post by IshKebab »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #430
jrockway wrote: post #40

> I remember being in shouting matches with our signal integrity team about among other things, how many capacitors we needed. I think the place where big companies go wrong is by having teams that are too specialized. If you're the Signal Integrity team, the only thing you care about is signal integrity. You should just say no to anything but the most conservative arrangement possible; you're responsible for Signal…

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.

Maybe hire more generalists, make it easier for people to move around the company, have a 2D team structure (i.e. maybe you have a signal integrity team and a PCB layout team or whatever, but then you would also have a subset of each working together on the CPU Card team). There's probably a name for that.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#467

Post by jac241 »

ipaddr wrote: post #305
barry-cotter wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel free to name any category of professional where working over 40 hours a week isn’t quite normal. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, professors. It sure looks like people who work more than 40 hours a week on average do better than those who don’t. This is not a claim about what I wish was true, but about what actually seems to be true. The actual research on this is scarce to the point of non-existence. It may actuall…

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 every other call, and on the weekend you'll have to round on all of your group's patients on Saturday and Sunday and operate if anything operative comes in.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#468

Post by inimino »

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…

> I guarantee you the vast majority of all hiring managers everywhere

You're qualified to speak for a majority of hiring managers everywhere?

Maybe you meant in a relatively small geographic area, in a relatively small number of companies? Maybe some of the same ones that colluded to keep salaries low by making illegal agreements amongst themselves?

The problem with most discussions on this topic is that everyone thinks their own experience is universal.

Incidentally, what you're assuming is that your internalized reality (of being allowed to resign at most twice per career) is real for everyone. It absolutely is not, which is why you're getting downvoted.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#469

Post by twodave »

froh wrote: post #238
twodave wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's literally a biblical parable about this (though sort of in reverse). I'll paraphrase it (it's from Matthew Ch 20): A man goes out in the morning to find workers for his vineyard, promising them each denarius for the day. Around lunch he goes to find more workers. During the afternoon, he goes to find even more workers. At the end of the day the man pays everyone, starting with those who arrived during the aft…

the parable leverages our feelings of injustice tickled by the very relatable narrative to carry one point home, the Heavens part. the other, secular reading, has a heavy taste of prosperity gospel, putting employers into God's boots to justify blatant injustice and better margins, fka profits. it is and remains unfair to offer different employees different wages for the same work. please don't use the gospel to just…

The idea that a software engineer being bitter about his still probably high compensation being an injustice is laughable bordering on insane.

We live in an age where you don’t even have to get out of your house in order to make a very good living and we have the audacity to call it an injustice when somebody else receives something that we didn’t instead of just being happy for them. As if the key to modern happiness is found in personal financial gain.

Re: Thanks for the Bonus, I Quit

#470

Post by Pet_Ant »

tjr225 wrote: post #285
ryandrake wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do really good can you take a year off? If not, then it’s still not unlimited. I’d like my salary and benefits be quantified in my contract rather than “manager discretion” which can go south in a hurry if you have a terrible manager.

In reality I saw employee #1 switch to a different project and take 3 months off. Seems reasonable. I was happy taking a Friday off here and there when I needed and taking weeks off when I moved. This was in addition to my regular vacations prior to the pandemic. Everyone anti-unlimited PTO seems to be completely missing the forest for the trees. It’s nice to be respected and trusted to do your work. It’s also nice t…

If you can’t do your job because it’s unreasonable and or the organization is dysfunctional it’s still nice to have time off to depend on.
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