I saved a hotel chain millions during an outage. I got $1,000 bonus.
The second time, I got a pat on the back and no raise that year.
Fuck corporations
When my huge, multinational company announced one year of total grind for everyone, they said there would be rewards to make up for it.
Fast forward one year and the #1 top performer received… a diner with the CEO. And nothing else.
I wish I was joking.CEO probably has main character syndrome is he thinks his presence is enough of a prize.
At always was a scam.
We should start co-ops, and spread them out, to save everyone!
And this is why you should always consider any bonus structure that isn’t in writing to be completely worthless. If it’s not in writing, it didn’t happen.
Would be funny if the CEO got the shits later.
Yeah cause they put eye drops in their water.
Ah yes, my leadership told us we’d all be managers.
A few months back, over half my team was laid off instead. They’re now replacing everyone with AI.
Technically, they’re managing to stay alive without a job now.
I’d consider it rewarding to have him alone for that long, but not for the reasons they did.
I can’t even enumerate the times I’ve saved my company from turning into dust
I was the single person responsible to ensure our database had no issues deploying by writing end to end tests that used real workflows, guess what ? surprise ! lots of database locking issues, issues with database transactions, issues with the application straight up crashing.
Fixed that days before our live deployment to a handshake.
TBH eventually they did give me a huge raise and at the moment of writing this I do think I’m being paid accordingly, but back then I was like damn shit is cringe.
Bonuses are bullshit because they don’t touch your salary, and they get taxed extra. When I got mine, I was far more insulted than happy. Same situation as you, they didn’t give me a raise that year.
Where do they get taxed extra? To my understanding, it’s considered regular income in Canada and the US.
The US handles it in an incredibly stupid way. Bonuses typically get a larger amount withheld as tax and the government pays you back when you calculate your total income at the end of the year.
So true, I worked hard, received recognition and praise. Got the exact same pay raise as those who did the minimum. The management all received substantial raises and huge bonuses for the work that they didn’t do. Not anymore unless there is clear promotions, raises, or bonuses for work done I am just the minimum guy now on.
I’m in the same boat. Years of 1-2% pay raises have been given in blanket form to my entire team, regardless of performance.
Every time we get these, inflation is higher, so we’re actually losing money every year.
I have one of these moments at every job. I always start overachieving, then something happens that turns me into a minimum effort employee.
At my last job I saved the company while working 70 hour weeks during crunch time, then on my performance review my boss blasted me for not being willing to work overtime, despite me having proof of his boss thanking me for all the overtime. When I objected he removed it and added three more false bad things instead.
At the previous job, I volunteered to come it at midnight to help the inspector process some units coming in late which needed to be shipped out by 2am. In a meeting of upper managers and me, I was congratulated for going above and beyond, and my direct manager said “Don’t thank him, he only did as he was required by his role.”
Brah, what a bunch of dicks. Hope you didn’t stay for much longer after these events.
Longer than I should have, unfortunately.
Heh, back in the day my workplace was abuzz about the very loudly proclaimed bonus that I got for some allegedly multiple million dollar save. They recognized me very publicly, but left the bonus vague, leading to speculation about if I would show up in a nice sports car or maybe even move into a house with the bonus…
It was a 100 dollar gift card to an area restaurant.
That’s some “set the break room on fire” shit.
I bet it got out, too. That’s the kind of shit that demoralizes an entire workplace.
Working hard just makes you seen as a dependable asset for a single position. Managers see that as one thing they don’t have to worry about anymore. By moving you to a higher position they could be risking a dependable asset for an asset that could be potentially out of their depth.
People move up the chain mostly by interpersonal relationships and by being generally competent, but not being irreplaceable. In corporate America it’s always been who you know, not what you know.
I did a massive project back five or so years ago. Put in a lot of work, and since the work is something I’ve done for 20 years, the work was flawless.
I got a one time bonus.
The same year I didn’t get a cost of living increase. And every year I did get one since then, it’s been half or less of inflation.
Everyone is treated this way at my company. They recently installed AI-based Spyware on all computers that takes regular pictures of the screens and monitors all clicks and mouse movements. I guess everyone is demotivated, so this is how they are handling that. Few people know about this, it was done secretly.
I will never work hard for these people again. I don’t think I could even if I did try at this point. There’s zero trust, and a pattern of exploitation.
Same. Had a supplier unexpectedly close down. The company makes medical devices, and the design on some components was quite old. We’re talking hand drawn designs, no CAD files. I got new sourcing for roughly 500 components. Long hours, saved the company from having any production stoppages. I busted my ass and kept the multi-million dollar per day revenue generation production line going. As a thank you for my efforts, I got some points equivalent to like $500 on a company incentive site where you can get gift cards and shitty TVs and household goods. Annual review came up. 2.5% raise. Fuck right off.
As a thank you for my efforts, I got some points equivalent to like $500 on a company incentive site where you can get gift cards and shitty TVs and household goods.
This sounds like a parody you’d see in fiction, but here we are.
I bet the poor souls who made that site were underpaid, too.
The moral of this story is clear: if you’re given an opportunity to save the company, first ask yourself whether it would save you.
Cuck. Except the cuck gets a chair.
Maybe the company incentive site has them?
They cost $501.
100% agree
Good job not being a mark again!
Worked hard. Took on extra projects, went above and beyond, trained new employees. Then I was passed over for a promotion. The 19 year old with 0 experience beat me out. I have 10 years management experience and 30 years customer service and 2x experience in that actual department. Perfect attendance, always on time, never been written up.
It’s all a lie, don’t believe the hypeYup, had that happen almost exactly the same one time. Also got turned down for career development training without a reason … eventually found out from another department’s manager it was because I’m a woman.
My job title had simply been “technician”, after I left the guy who I’d trained and took on my responsibilities got the job title of “lead engineer” :-/
Stories like that aren’t surprising yet they continue to be infuriating every time
Agreed, this shit is systemic worldwide
I literally saved my company twice. We were a small company providing contract programmers to a huge cable company (rhymes with Bombast), producing their mobile apps for them for iPhone, Android and Blackberry. When I started, we had just lost the Android gig because of the sheer ineptness of our offshore team (ironically enough, the gig was given to InfoSys who managed to do an even worse job). We were about to be shitcanned completely because we unable to produce a working TV guide-type application for Blackberry, thanks to the fact that no built-in control for Blackberry was able to handle a moving grid like a TV guide app requires. I produced probably the best mobile app I’ve ever written because I had experience with using Graphics classes for Java and was able to write an entirely owner-drawn control for this.
Unfortunately this was in 2011 as Blackberry was going through its death throes, so this really achieved nothing other than making Bombast want to keep paying us to stay around. A year later we faced getting shitcanned again because we were way behind schedule on the iOS app, thanks to an estimate that I had nothing to do with (our company very intelligently never involved actual programmers in these schedule estimates). I spent an entire week literally living in the Bombast building, coding all day and most of the night, sleeping a couple of hours a night in my George Costanza setup underneath my cubicle desk. We barely made the release schedule and Bombast kept us on again. The vulture capitalist who originally funded us had been ready to stop operations and fire everybody for some time, but this was put on hold.
Shortly after this, we were acquired by a west coast tech giant and us programmers were all laid off. The C-suite got millions in stock options, and I got … a very nice letter of reference when I applied for my school bus driver job. I’m thankful at least that I never had to deal with AI.
Exactly you didn’t do them a single favor, they would have gladly let the company shut down and move on to the next scam. If anything by working incredibly hard and creatively, you just made it a little awkward for them. “Wdym comcast isn’t firing us? That kid saved the contract?? But I already started on the next scam!”
Im in a similar position we’ve been borderline bankrupt for two years now and everyone above me is less concerned that I am because i work with the hourly people and don’t want them to lose their jobs. The ceo is really like ambivalent if it’s better to keep the company going. This is one of several businesses he’s involved in and the $300K salary is just walking around money for him.
Such a mark.
The stories here are crazy.
I’ve seen it (not personally, but observing) at the higher end of paid professionals too, like doctors/dentists. Outstanding work, treated like cogs, squeezed harder and harder. In one instance, the local monopoly who bought their group out literally committed fraud.
Come to think of it, everyone I’ve known working corporate got screwed.
…Feels like things can’t go on like this.
I worked hard until I got my dream job at a Fortune 500 company. I would have been perfectly happy doing that job for literally the rest of my life.
Then the accounting department took over the company, and started making decisions, and the next thing we know, our company had slipped from being in 1st place for 25 years, to fourth out of five major corporations in that industry.
The result was thousands list their jobs, including me. Not because I did a bad job, or because I had an attitude problem, etc. It was all because other people totally fucked up, and I paid the price.
So I thought “If I would work that hard to make someone else wealthy, and still get tossed out, why couldn’t I do that for myself?” So I started my own business, and I’ve never looked back. That was 30 years ago, and it hasn’t been easy. I never got rich, but I also never have to take orders from an incompetent middle manager, never have my work or credit stolen, my income is in my hands not some corporation’s, I can make my own schedule, wake up when I want, and nobody can fire me.
If you can’t get someone to hire you, hire yourself.
This reads like capitalist propaganda
Too bad there isn’t anything else to do but keep going like this until it ends the world.
Bullshit. I started my career in 1986, it didn’t work then either.
And when i look back at my father and grandfather’s lives, i have to say that only worked between 1939 to about 1970. That’s when all the factories started closing and they begin moving everything overseas.
1970 is when kissenger “opened” up china do all the manufactering it was all pretty my downhill for us manufacterering. especially for unique electronics/ or devices.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.
The greatest trick capitalists ever pulled was convincing the world that hard work pays off.
Never work more than you are paid. No company will ever reciprocate. They’ll just take your labor and give you a token “reward” worth almost nothing.
This is so 'Murican
In civilised countries, we see the way you grind yourselves into dust for the benefit of people who despise you and we see it as an illness
It’s a societal illness. Most of us are just paid slaves at this point. We can’t survive without the paychecks from these awful employers.
A single medical bill can break most working class families here. If you try to tell your employer you’re not happy, you end up being seen as ungrateful - you’ll be the first to be laid off in the next wave.
We’re not allowing this, it’s being done to us. And if we love our families, we will continue on.
When I first graduated, I worked for a series of small start-up companies. Most of them ended up failing, which is normal for a small company. But, at least when I was working hard there I was given stock options so if the company had done well, I could have shared in the success.
I’ve always wondered why that isn’t more common. I guess the answer is that some people are willing to work really hard even if they’re not given a slice of the ownership of the company. I never understood that. If I own part of this startup, I’ll work hard to make sure it succeeds because then I’ll get rich too. If you’re just paying me a salary, I’m fulfilling the terms of my contract and that’s it.
I’ve always wondered why that isn’t more common.
Because if the owner has capital he’ll keep all the profits and pay you as little cash as possible. Startups are usually run by younger people with not as much cash so they have to offer options to get people to work for them.
I can understand why an owner wouldn’t want to give away small parts of their company. What I don’t understand is why some people are willing to work as if they were part-owners when they’re just on salary. In a lot of start ups, the amount of extra effort people put in when they get options means the options easily pay for themselves.
Well, i enjoy data analytics for one so it doesn’t matter how much you pay me or don’t, when I do it, i do it to the best of my ability. But second, yeah id rather just take the cash salary and invest it in a sp500 index. Especially if it’s a startup, nine times out of ten those options are just worthless, like paying your employees in lottery tickets. For every google story there are a thousand startups that just die in two years.
And the remaining 30% are the boomers, that’s why it isn’t a 100% lol
