Slashdot Mirror
America's Worst Christmas Parties
Ant writes "Slate Magazine asked its readers to submit reports of horrible office Christmas parties, gifts, and bonuses. Of nearly 200 submissions, they've chosen quite a few tales for The Corporate Scrooge Contest Results ... and they're not pretty. From the article: 'A contract consultant sends word that the company to which he is currently assigned recently sent out an e-mail to some 2,000-odd consultants. The company would give away two $100 gift cards--to two of the brave souls who would commit to work 80 hours between Dec. 18 and Dec. 31. As our correspondent noted: "Hey, if you work Christmas, we'll put you in a pool of 2,000 other folks to maybe win a hundred bucks."'"
HP has to be up there. In the four years I worked there, not only was there no bonus, they shut the office down that week, forcing you to either go without pay (even if you were salaried, your pay was docked) or take sick days.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I worked at Citibank operations, and they made ALL of us peon minions come in and work the ENTIRE night shift, even if we weren't scheduled for that night anyway, just because the stupid stooge suits were paranoid about the overblown Y2K hoax. Under threat of getting fired. Not surprisingly, nobody above the level of floor manager had to be there watching nothing at all happen. That's OK, we enjoyed the evening anyway. And if any of you pointy-haireds are reading this, that pungent stench in the back of the server room actually wasn't a case fan that burned out and had to be replaced.
I work at a daily newspaper as an artist and web developer (primarily) - high stress, low pay.
We got $20 Chamber of Commerce gift certificates. Woo. I actually wouldn't care if my hours were decent - while I am supposed to only work 8 hours a day (and regulations state that I can't work more than 6 hours without a break), I have many days where I end up working late when everybody else leaves.
Take, for instance, the day before Thanksgiving. It started at 9 AM, and went until about 12:30 AM Thanksgiving morning, with no break. 15.5 hours. The overtime sucked, too (thanks to taxes).
This friday everybody in the office was told that they could leave at 3 assuming the paper was done. Of course, this means that hourly employees lose a couple hours work. Thankfully, though, my day wasn't done - not even close - at 3 PM. Most people left - one of the artists stuck around and helped for a while, but there wasn't much she could do, so she left too. I got home about 7:30 PM.
Of course, since I'm just a 5 minute walk from the office (I couldn't afford a car and gas, anyway), I'm the one who gets called in whenever something needs to be fixed before the paper can print.
Hooray. $20 that can only be used locally at select places. That makes me feel really valuable. Sad part is, corporate actually has a policy against Christmas bonuses.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
I work for Big Oil, and this year every employee in the state got a gift worth $450, after taxes. Yep, they paid for the gift via our paychecks, deducted taxes from the additional money (it was like $620 gross) and deducted the $450 after taxes for the gift. I.E. the paycheck was no larger than normal but you got a $450 gift with taxes already paid. I thought that was pretty nice.
We also received 'end of the year' checks for $1,000 after taxes and our bonus is usually around 10% of our yearly gross (so anywhere from $11,000 to $20,000 for most employees).
When I take a second to think about it, I really consider myself fortunate. I love this company.
TLF
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
When advice on to how to deal with the current state of the employment market is summed up as, "Don't expect anything and you won't be dissappointed", perhaps it is time for workers to get pissed off, and start doing something about it.
Where I work the christmas party is $35. This year the ticket count was so low that one of the people in charge sent a company-wide email telling people it was in their "best interest" to attend.
Did I mention we get nothing in terms of bonuses, etc?
Our office Christmas party is typically a potluck lunch in the conference room on a Friday afternoon. The feast consists of meatballs, crappy beer, and way too many pumpkin pies. Each year management offers up a handful of door prizes to keep people from leaving early. This generally consists of pens, tote bags, day planners, and other items all proudly sporting the corporate logo. They sometimes throw in a $25 Starbucks gift card for good measure.
:-)
A few years back I made the mistake of bringing my wife to the party. One of the prizes that year was a company calendar. During the drawing our boss quipped that it was a calendar from the previous year. Well, my wife won, and turns out it *was* a leftover from the previous year. The office admin promised to order a replacement, but of course it never came. My wife left the calendar on the conference room table in protest and vowed to never attend another company event.
This year was the same meatball spectacular but families weren't invited. Wait, I just thought of my New Year's Resolution!
Happy Holidays Everyone!
Forty bazillion bucks per quarter in profit, making more money per quarter than any other entity in the history of Capitalism, and they gave you $450?
--chuck
well, folks, that's the reality of it...I work for one of the companies (think really really big U.S. bank) which tends to be on the cutting edge of cutting (costs, morale, etc), and can tell you that as of the last couple of years, holiday parties and year-end bonuses and gifts are officially outlawed. Not discouraged, not backburnered until things pick up, they are by policy not allowed. Granted, if a group want to get together and have a (dry) potluck and white elephant exchange on their own dimes, the larger corporation will turn their backs on it, provided local management are on board. Them's the brakes, and that's the way the other large corporations are moving on these types of topics: (wholesale expense reductions) > (warm, fuzzy morale muffins)
My debut novel AMITY now available: http://jeremydbrooks.c
My company laid off 1/3 of their employees (including me) 11 days before Christmas.
Kind of like Ebenezer Scrooge, but without the repentance at the end.
I work for a fortune 500 company and am union in IT. I don't have many complaints and the money pays my bills and I have enough left over for toys.
Each Christmas my immediate supervisor has gotten everyone in my workgroup something, either jackets, small tools, gift certificates, or something useful. For a few years I worked at a division office and the main department management never gave us anything, but they didn't owe us anything either. Since moving home the local manager of the main department sees to it that we get one of the same things they give the members of their department. Again, he doesn't have to do it, but it definitely makes a person feel appreciated.
However, we don't have anything like Christmas parties and such, though, we do get plenty of paid holiday time this time of the year which is nice. Being union means that their are no performance bonuses for anyone unless everyone gets them and then it would be the same amount. While a sizable bonus would be nice, I'll take steady work and sane hours and good pay throughout the year instead.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over again expecting a different result."
When I worked for a division of the world's largest media company, bonus money was given to middle managers to divide up amongst their staff, including themselves. A few years ago, I saw the email announcing the amount. My manager was given $9000 to divide amongst a department of 11 people. We received half gallon jugs of maple syrup from her parents' farm, she received $9000. The best part was that she failed to notice the stamp across the label that read "Quality Control: Rejected". The next year, it was certificates thanking us for a $10 donation to a local soup kitchen. Apparently, she thinks she's the only one who watched Seinfeld.
Someday a real rain is gonna come...
Last year, I worked for a telemarketer. On Thanksgiving, they gave away turkeys, like good 15 pound turkeys, which is a pretty darned stand-up thing to do. For Christmas they promised all employees in our section a dinner, paid for by the company. The big day comes around, and what do we get? $5.00 certificates for the Italian place in the food court of the mall (the telemarketer's office is in a mall). Bastards.
At my current programming job, they give gifts to employees yearly. The CEO had us all up to his office for snacks and drinks. This year he gave out what I'm wearing now, which is a rather nice bathrobe (company logos, etc., but they had to specially order them), probably worth well over $75.00. Last year, the employees got jackets. Total cost to the company? Maybe a couple of grand. Increase in morale, including myself? Priceless. See, I don't mind being told "No Christmas bonus/gift because we can't spare the money," I'm totally fine with that. But don't insult me if you're going to give me a gift, I appreciate knowing that the company somewhat cares about me, and isn't just placating me with some meaningless token that they probably got on the cheap because they felt the need to placate the employees.
I'll be honest, we're throwing science against the wall to see what sticks. -Cave Johnson
One company I worked for declined annual raises, then management gave themselves leased Mercedes SUV's as year end bonus. We got calendars.
Myself and a few others quit the day we heard about the new vehicles.
...and even though i'm just a lowly warehouse monkey that's only been working there for five months (hey, they let me work around school as I need, and it pays pretty good), I got $1500+ in stuff: A $400 xmass bonus (grossed up for a $400 net, just like yours), $350 in free gas (given as a credit at the companies cardlock), a $250 gift certificate to a grocery store, a hoodie, hat, mug, and a $500 end of year bonus. Hell, the new guy who'd been there exactly FOUR DAYS got a $250 cheque.
Insanity, but there's just that much fucking money in oil that they can afford to do that.
True, but it gets a little tricky. If you're an hourly employee, and you get your hourly pay (including any required or agreed-upon overtime), it's time to STFU. But salaried folks are a bit different. It's often expected (not without reason, depending upon the particular position and its responsibilities) that a salaried employee would put in some unspecified amount of time beyond the basic 40 hours (or whatever that is where you are.) For example, in my job I generally just work my regular hours, but it's expected that if a problem occurs or there is some other transient need that requires extra effort that we'll all pull together and take care of it. That's only ethical behavior on our part (don't want to leave a customer hanging in the wind) and the company is careful enough not demand that kind of plus time too often.
... yet it does! That's the amazing thing. Some of these guys honestly don't understand why their people would resent working 80 hour weeks, especially when the managers leave on time every day. The problems start when corporate types begin to see their underlings as "lucky to have a job". Things usually go from bad to worse at that point.
... and that's only rational behavior because they know that, with rare exceptions, employers cannot be trusted any longer. Corporate America got what it wanted: a ruthless generation of management that considers people to be replaceable components of limited utility, all in the name of more efficiency and lower costs. And when they discovered that we could be replaced with foreign labor at even greater (apparent) savings, they jumped at the chance. The irony is that they screwed themselves too, and we're all paying the price for their inhumanity
But yeah, when a company tries to save payroll costs by squeezing its staff too hard, management has no right whatsoever to expect anything resembling loyalty from said employees
And once that kind of corporate behavior becomes widespread (which it most certainly has here in the U.S.), employee loyalty drops and turnover increases. Workers feel no particular involvement with the success or failure of their employer, and will leave at the drop of a hat
There are a lot of Carly Fiorinas running the show nowadays: the work force is expendable.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I think that it was a serious, albeit overemphasized, considerable reaction to being treated as a simple device. Now, I'll personally say that a job that becomes this antagonistic isn't one worth keeping, but in such an environment, where you're being treated as a nothing more than a work machine, what motivation or obligation should you have to act as more?
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
Yep. It's all about replaceable parts. Unfortunately, the parts also realized they could replace themselves.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
You received two cookies. I was promised two cookies. I am not joking. My boss asked if I had any push pins around, I told her I would give them to her for a freshly baked cookie. She said since it is the holidays she'll give me two and that I'd have them the next day.
$fortune
Tomorrow has been canceled due to lack of interest.
Part of the compensation package is a maximum of 4 weeks salary every March. Basically, come tax season, they need to spend all the profit they've racked up so that they can retain their not for profit status. It's almost like government at end of the fiscal year, spend spend spend! Anyways, it's expected and I don't really look at it as the company doing something nice for me. It's just part of the package. Now the surprise was a $25 Regal gift certificate + $10 Chili's gift certificate. Dinner for one and a movie + snacks for two. Not a bad deal. *shrug*
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
"If you never do anything more / work a minute more than what is expected of you I would like to ask you if you tend to shop at stores that fulfill the simplest of obligations or the ones that have employees which go out of there way to help you?"
As a consumer I would rather go to a store that gives me good service. But I am not speaking as a consumer. I am speaking as an employee. As an employee in a store since I am being paid hourly I would rather you go to another store so I can get paid for not helping you.
"The only saying that hard work is its own reward might be a little bit bullshit, but let's face it, you feel better when you do a good job over doing a poor one."
That's because I have been brainwashed by companies who want me to work as hard as I can for them for no reward.
"The people who view the boss-employee relationship as an antagonistic one seem less happy than those of us that want to be productive but realize we aren't family and that yes, no one is irreplaceable."
Hey you want to know a secret? Here lean in close and I will let you in on it. Here it is.
Your boss sees your relationship as an adverserial one. He is trying to figure out how to get rid of you and replace you by a lower paid employee or a machine. In the mean time he is trying to figure out a way to make you work for him free.
evil is as evil does
I used to work for a manufacturing company that promised profit sharing if profits were above a certain amount. For years, they never had to pay out, but it was always mentioned by management as an incentive. Then a really good year came along, and we crossed the profit sharing line with several months to go before the end of the year. Every month, the profits were tallied, and the profit sharing pool grew, and grew.
December hits, and our company buys another company for 8+ million dollars, in cash. Two weeks later, they pay off some big loans with cash, eating almost a million dollars in pre-payment penalties on top of the loan amounts. The profit sharing pool drops to zero on the last week of the month.
Christmas comes and they pass out $15 gift certificates for Safeway as appreciation for all of our hard work. Most of the certificates were collected and given to the local food bank as a mass protest. I haven't paid attention to bonus programs or incentive programs since.
I agree with this. I'd prefer to be paid what I am worth through the year rather than have part of my salary withheld to be given to me as a "gift" at the end of the year. I used to work at one place where the Christmas bonus was an open bar at the company dinner - not worth much to someone like me who doesn't drink.
My poor father has it pretty bad. He is an architect and puts in around 80 a week (not as an option) and for the second (or is it the third?) year running got a $100 gift car. Not any gift card, mind you, but a gift card to the luxurious Ralph's supermarket.
It is more of an insult than a "thank you for your team effort". A simple handshake would be better.
Here is my fathers work
Bless my Pops. and curse his boss
How's this for a non-bonus, bonus.
Working for a fortune 250 company our bonus was based on performance. One year our objective was 32% gross margin. We finished the year with 32.4% gross margin. That meant we made or objective and qualified for a year end bonus. A good one too, like 10% of annual pay.
The rub. The bonus was considered an expense. To pay the bonus and add it to the B&E would drop us to 31.8% gross margin. So, although we busted our collective asses that year and met our objectives, they wouldn't pay the bonus because to do so would drop us below our objective.
It gets better.
Then came a brilliant idea from the management. What if they only paid the exempt managers? A percentage of the managers bonuses were paid from a corporate account. Wa-la. That would only drop our numbers to 32.1%.
I'll let you guess what happened that year. It was also the year I learned the meaning of corporate.
-[d]-
This is why I'm quitting to teach at a community college.
It usually starts as "help out the company", get the project done on time... then devolves into you MUST do X amount mandatory "free" work or you're not "dedicated". As soon as the employees start giving out "free" work to get themselves caught up, the corporation immediately will rely on them to do the free work again.... and again... instead of updating their resources for the increased needs they have. I worked one place that pushed that to the limit.. I ended up leaving, but I wanted to "help out" with stuff not my specialty, then it just became "assumed" I would do it whenever with no more pay... or at least the "no more pay" gets forgot about when you go to say the "extra" stuff's not working out and you need somebody else to fill in a while... then it becomes "lazy employee's" fault for failing, "helping out" is almost always PUNISHED, never truly rewarded because it's not what you were "hired" for and somebody "hired" for the position you "helped" in will always do it better than you.