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Company Christmas Gifts / Bonuses?
A wisely anonymous reader writes "Following my company's Christmas party on Friday, I found myself the proud recipient of... a bobble head doll of the company CEO! Needless to say I was PISSED. They didn't even comp. parking at the site of the party, let alone a bonus. yeah, yeah, times are tough. I should be happy just to have a job. but getting a damn doll of the guy who made 65 million last year just makes me angry. So... What did you get from your Company for Christmas?"
I don't know what I'll get (if anything), but what I *want* is an iPod. Go to the Apple Store and click on iPod....it seems Apple offers discounts on iPods for companies that give them as gifts! C'mon boss!!!!
Use it as a voodoo doll and stick pins in the wretched thing!
So what makes you think you shoudl have the automatic right to DEMAND a Christmas "bonus"?
What exactly have you done that is so special and above what you are paid to do that justifies your expectation of extra pay purely because it is december?
Genuine question.
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
We wont get laid off
Paint on some cuts, bruises and put a bunch of blood around the neck like he was decapitated. Then give it back to him.
Maybe he'll get the message then.
. So... What did you get from your Company for Christmas?
the shaft.
... and a new "tobacco water pipe". Of course, I am the boss. I just hope that I don't decide to start randomly drug testing myself.
a pink slip, and the second thing i got in the mail was my tuition payment request. Dammit, I could've been a drug dealer for better pay, and hours, and perks...lol...
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
I found myself the proud recipient of... a bobble head doll of the company CEO!
You work for Oracle?
Fully Vested Stock Options at $7 a share.
Now the stock is at 5.479
Guess what they are offering this year for contractors who work over 100 hours this holiday season.....
I Encrypt My IM's
2 Years ago everyone (elves and management) had a nice banquet. Last year the elves got a $10 allowance to spend on the meal of choice at a local eatery (Red Lobster) while management were given a nicer banquet (ritz carlton) with an open bar. This year the elves got cards (we did get those the last 2 years as well) while management had a summer cruise for their "early xmas party" and a fully paid for meal/open bar at the local macarooni grill. Things get better for management, not so good for the elves.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
You got a BOBBLE-HEAD DOLL OF THE CEO?! Dude, I would so quit that place.
Out of curiosity, where do you work? What are the benefits like? Would they pay to relocate?
It could have been a life size doll!
^]:wq!^M
It's hard for a leader to ask his followers to do anything that he isn't willing to do himself. How can a CEO credibily cut costs at the company when his own pay is $65 million and he's destributing bobbleheads of himself? Couldn't he live on the still-large pay of $45 million and reallocate the $20 million to softening (not eliminating, just softening) the blow to the rest of the company? Or have companies given up on trying to get employees to be loyal anymore?
- the company actually spends money on thousands of these promotional pieces of junk, money that could have instead been spent on the bottom line, or at least on something that isn't tossed, ignored, and useless.
- someone in the company gets paid to come up with the idea of the bobble-head doll, and other pieces of promotional junk that your typical employee ignores
I mean hey, a gift that shows that people in the company are thinking of you is nice, but these meaningless items reek of the "you are a number" philosophy. It seems like the bigger a company gets, the more likely that it is to generate this kind of landfill.who thinks that this is a totally made up troll of a submittal? I mean, a bobble head doll of the ceo? I find that extremely unlikely. Not to mention the ceo makes '65 million' crap that is added to try to make it even moer sensational. And if it's posted anonymously, why not a company name associated with it? Troll troll troll...
I got laid-off from AOL/Time warner. In the folder with the severance package paperwork, they had the audacity to put an AOL cd. I shit you not. I was really fucking offended by that.
Funny thing is, is this was just the kick in the ass I needed to get the hell out of the tech field anyhow. Sometimes you just hit your artistic and creative limits, and need to move on.
We had a potluck lunch and a coat drive, which is the exact opposite of what we had during the .com boom, which was a mega bash (rented a hotel, the whole hotel and boozed it up till the weeee hours) and a nice heafty bonus. So I guess all I recieved this year was my job.
in a few years, after the CEO gets indicted for securities fraud, insider trading, what-have-you, it might be worth a few bucks on eBay. :-)
I got free pizza when we worked all weekend. Oh, and we all got our pre-Christmas vacations cancelled.
WE RECEIVE 100% RAISE IN WAGES...FOLLOWED BY A 50% DEVALUATION OF THE RUBLE BY THE CENTRAL BANK
My point: You can bonus me $1.98 for the year if you feel like it, but nail it to some objective performance measurement.
Memo to management: You want better results? Give people something to aim for and then clearly explain what the reward is for exceeding goals.
(Now, having said all that, I have to add: The bobblehead thing would have had me sending out resumes in a heartbeat. It's one thing for management to lack clues; it's another thing entirely for them to be mean-spirited.
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
One year, right after the merger between UBS and SBC, we had to go to the post office to collect an item from the bank. It turned out to be our employee Christmas card... by registered mail... strange... then I opened it up: 30g of gold was in there! Two little bars from the previous two banks, and a 20g bar from the merged bank.
The London employees were pissed off... they got really tacky watches, blue ones for the men, red ones for the ladies...
Oddly right in the middle of the whole Nazi gold thing too... oh well... the Swiss are good folks but political correctness isn't always high on their list... and shown in both cases...
Is better than what this guy is gonna get.
My first year I got a nice christmas bonus. Mu send year I got a mini stocking containing various gift basket sorts of things (this was kind of weird). Each of these two years, we had a big holiday lunch. The next year (2000) I recieved a monogrammed foux-leather business card holder and a gift certificate ($10) to BestBuy. In subsequent years folks got nothing at all (or nothing that I remember - there may have been a few holiday lunches paid for by various departments).
I now work at an academic institution where I've been attending various holiday parties every day last week and there are a few next week as well. I'm not sure if there are holiday bonuses or other things to come.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
I got as much toilet paper and office supplies as I could carry!
Ugh... I have been going downhill since 1999.
1999: Bonus was 120% of my annual salary(yes, times were great)
2000: Bonus was 75% of my annual salary(yes, times were still pretty good)
2001: No bonus; I was laid off, but got 6 months severance (Not bad, considering...)
2002: No bonus; I was laid off and got nothing at all. (This is the Grinch Christmas)
I guess 2004 will have to be better than this.
P.S. Need a Net. Admin.? Look at my resume: Resume for Patrick Anderson
Pink slips, my manager gave me one but I refused to wear it for him. A guy's got to draw the line somewhere.
?-|||-----x<*))))><
In essense, he said, "The worst thing you could ever as a company is to start giving out a Christmas bonus. Once you start giving them out, you can't stop without coming off as a total schmuck."
He added that if a yearly/periodical bonus *must* be given, it should be [phychologically] tied to some other, less-prominent holiday like Thanksgiving (in the US) or some summer holiday, etc.
Once people get used to getting a "gift from Santa" it is very easy to miss it and get all pissed because they are somehow being robbed of something they deserve.
Quit. Seriously. If they don't appreciate you, find someone who does. Life is way too bloody short to work for someone who does not appreciate you. Believe me, I've done it.
My very first boss appreciated me, only paid me $6.00 per hour, but thanked me every day. I appreciated working for him. I think of him as my teacher. He passed away after about two years.
My second boss and third boss did not appreciate me. My fourth "boss" (a medium-large corporation) appreciated me about as much as a corporation could, so they were ok, thinking back on it.
My fifth boss(es) appreciated me, but the company was bought out by people who did not appreciate me. I left there too.
Believe me, it's not worth working for those who don't appreciate you, period. So find someone who does and quit. People are a corporation's number one asset. A company that treats its people poorly is a company that is not making half the money it could. Happy workers attitudes flow through to the customer who are then happy to do business with the company.
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
I don't take the posters comments to mean a bonus was expected. Rather that the gift was insulting. I would be insulted by that gift. Consider that the company had to spend money to buy the things to give to employees. Personally, I'd rather have the cash or nothing.
Might as well make it useful.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
No one needs 65M a year, and taking that much for herself just shows he's not as loyal to the company as she should be to be the CEO.
"Loyalty to a company" in just about any company over fifty people or so is a sweet-sounding nonexistant Grail. It's lovely material to feed a worker to make him more productive, but it's silly. The company has no particular loyalty to you -- to HR, you're just another statistic that might potentially be sucking down money, and if you ever become a liability instead of an asset (after, of course, factoring in the cost of firing you and the effects on your coworkers of doing so, and considering your future potential value), the company will drop you like a hot potato. The company has no loyalty to you -- why should you to it?
Now, that doesn't mean that justifies things like stealing from the company or trying to shaft it (as some people seem to feel) -- things like this frequently come back and hurt you far worse than any possible benefit. However, whenever you get stuck in your head that the company you work at is a kind, loving father or something, instead of a cold, profit-seeking institution, you're running the risk of painful dillusionment.
I see people post here ever so frequently that "I gave 80 hours a week of work to my company and they didn't give me anything back" or "Times are tight, so my company is firing because it's best for all of us, but they really don't want to fire me". Bad mental state to be in. Don't come to rely on your company for more than they signed on for in your contract, and you won't have any nasty surprises.
This wasn't all aimed at you, more of a general feeling towards Slashdotters complaining that they didn't get what they expected...
May we never see th
Maybe not every company can afford, and not every employee would deserve, extra on their paycheck every holiday season. But that doll was pretty stupid.
I suspect most of that company's employees would've been happier skipping the doll and not having had to pay for parking for the party.
I am on salary where I work and I was told I would get Quarterly bonuses. I have yet to receive one of theese mystical checks, None of my co-workers have recevied them either.. I have been promoted 2 times in the last year, I guess I am doing a good job, Yet no bonus!
One of our managers slipped up one day when a computer was stolen and stated "Damnit! that's going to come out of our bonus again" This leads us to believe only upper managment is receiving a bonus although we were all told we would be getting a bonus quarterly..
We commonly hear " You guys need to get sales up or we will not have a bonus this quater " Then we hear nothing!! Not even hey we didn't make enough to give out a bonus this quarter, nothing..
Yes we should ask about our bonus, but honestly I think we all fear our current economy and don't want to make any waves, But is it not wronge for them to simply dismiss something we were told we would receive? When I took my job I figured in my salary + my vacation + my estimated bonus.. All the sudden I feel robbed when I reflect on it. Especially when I am praised for the great work I am doing, if I want lip service I will go on a date.
Let me close by saying, I like my job. In fact I have turned down higher paying positions simply because I like my working environment. But when times get tight I start to ask myself if I should be looking for employment elsewhere.
Slashdot taught me how to use the preview button!
I got a monetary bonus, a BioWare coffee mug, a NWN collector's edition, and personal thanks from Ray and Greg, the owners and CEOs (just like everyone else did.)
Besides that, however, I have the satisfaction of working at an incredible company with brilliant people. I'd do it all without any of the stuff I got this year.
Job satisfaction is the best bonus of all. If you get a bobble-head doll, and feel like you need more of a bonus, you don't have the job satisfaction that you deserve. Move on.
Exactly. The company I work for has a habit of giving out "gifts" during Employee Appreciation Week, which of course are typically cheap, plastic, and not really wanted. One year they gave out license plates with "(Company)'s Employees are the Best!" printed on them. Another year we got these little clocks that are supposed to look like those fancy executive-type desk clocks with the stands and "minimal" black design, except these were plastic and tend not to keep very accurate time.
This past year we got roll-up blankets, which from what I hear is the best Employee Appreciation Week gift ever. This must be a techie thing: I know some people probably get off on stuff like this, but I could really care less. You want to "Appreciate" me, give me a half-day off or something.
This past year, I swallowed my pride and joined a local ISP while I waited for my dream employer to come out of a hiring freeze. After about eight months with a really nice group of people but no real challenge or pay to match, the freeze ended and I switched companies, to the disappointment of the ISP.
.com days, but the fact that it was offered at all, to an ex-employee, was probably the nicest thing I've ever seen a company do.
I was very sad to go, and I felt more than a little guilty about the fact. Last week, my wife and I received some very persistant invitations to my former employer's Christmas party; my wife went, since I was out of town, and received a prorated Christmas Bonus and a lot of general good will from the owner of the company and the staff.
Usually when an employee leaves a company for a bigger position elsewhere, an undercurrent of nastiness follows: the company and its people resents the loss of the employee. This company, though, insists on keeping a very friendly relationship with me, including repeated open invitations to stop by and mooch coffee.
The bonus was pretty meager, compared to what I remember from the
Weapons of Mass Analysis
Last year my Christmas bonus was $11,000. I paid off my credit cards and bought a TiBook.
This year, I'm a lowly contractor and if I'm lucky they'll renew my contract in January.
Last year I was working for the spawn of Satan, and had been actively looking for something, anything to get me out of that hell hole for months.
This year, I'm doing interesting work in a less stressful and less fucked-up environment.
You can keep the $11,000.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
> What did you get from your Company for Christmas?
Nothing. But it's OK; I didn't get them anything either.
Chris Mattern