I got a $200 bonus my first year working that worked out to about $120 after taxes. I was like dude, thanks I guess but I'm not exactly going to be working very hard to get that bonus lol.
Contrast with my current place. I got $5,000 for Christmas last year, and will likely get that again this year. That's a nice vacation or a big chunk of a house down payment.
Burn it to the ground, fire everyone, collect tax write-offs, profit. Start again, only this time make your logo green cuz ur environmentally friendly now. Burn it. 🍋➡️🍸
Bonuses are also a way to exercise power over employees.
Only the employees that are present get the bonus. If there is a usual “Christmas Bonus” and you wanted to leave your toxic boss in October, either you have to tough it out, or kiss the bonus goodbye.
They don’t factor into base compensation. This affects things like retirement contributions, future pay raises, your next year’s salary, and so forth. I would much rather have a $3k pay raise than a $5k bonus.
The last job i had, the annual bonus was a fkn $300 gift voucher, for some adventure company thing that my company was partnered with. Which was insulting enough. But then you also factor in the fact that the packages that company sold all started at like $400+, and it basically meant we had to pay for the privilege of using the gift cards we were given. I worked there for three years. And every year i just got saltier and saltier that they gave us these things, and acted like we should be grateful for them.
Fast forward, and I'd quit that company and been working at a new one for almost a year now. One day, the boss puts a meeting in my calendar simply labelled "discussion." And to be honest. I kinda started shitting bricks. Because i knew that for the last month or two I'd been phoning it in pretty hard, and just coasting by on doing bare minimum. I immediately assumed my boss had noticed, and this meeting was about to be a formal reprimand.
I show up to the meeting, and he tells me to close the door. And then immediately opens with "so i just wanted to have this catch up to let you know in private that your bonus is going to be a bit higher than the rest of the teams this year, in recognition of the work you've been doing." I'm like "... Okay, cool cool. No doubt no doubt." while internally almost crying from the sudden relief i felt.
The bonus i got that year was just short of 7k. The stark contrast of going from the gift cards last year, to that payout this year, had my jaw hit the fkn floor when i saw that on my payment summary.
Still with that company now. Still getting those yearly bonuses, and grateful I'm out of that old hellhole, every year.
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u/Sawses 9h ago
I got a $200 bonus my first year working that worked out to about $120 after taxes. I was like dude, thanks I guess but I'm not exactly going to be working very hard to get that bonus lol.
Contrast with my current place. I got $5,000 for Christmas last year, and will likely get that again this year. That's a nice vacation or a big chunk of a house down payment.