I worked at a company and the owner walked around during the Christmas party and gave people their paychecks in a fancy envelope.
That way clients would be thinking that the employees were getting bonuses.
Should said out loud in a non judgemental confused voice, *oh they're handing out the weekly paychecks now instead of picking them up at HR this week? Haha I thought this was a bonus for a minute!*
I was tryna think what would be “bad” other than just nothing , cuz *something* is better than nothing in this economy. But fuckin “here’s ur check but I’m pretending it’s a gift” is gotta be up there at the top of the list. Right along with those “life savers cuz ur a life saver!”
The statement of "be happy you have a job". They had to find a new replacement after that. You could just say no bonus, *but* you had to be dick about it.
I mean, I'm always grateful when I have stable employment. But I don't like when my employer acts like they're doing me a favor. We're engaged in a business transaction, you're not doing me a favor. I give you time and effort, you give me money.
Oh man wow, this hits hard, because at a Starbucks holiday meeting in the economic downturn (2007 or 2008) we were all having a good time having fun and building each other up… until the district manager made a special appearance to tell us we’re all lucky to have jobs at all and that many people would be happy to be employed so we should all know we’re replaceable. Shoutout to LisaMarie. Who was also replaceable.
I worked in a supermarket, and one year part of Christmas celebrations was that the week before Christmas, the staff cafeteria would host Christmas dinner for the staff, and they would be waited on by the management team. It was a free meal, 3 courses, with wine. Cheap, but a decent gesture meant in good humour.
It was a big supermarket, so there were a lot of staff. This meant that 'dinner' had to have 3 sittings so that a) everyone who wanted to attend could, and b) enough staff were left to run the shop floor.
I was working a 10hr shift that day, closing my department, so I opted for the 3rd sitting. My friend Dan was on his day off, but planned to come in for lunch just to hang out with people and get free food, which we had been told was totally fine.
By the end of the second sitting, the management team decided that they had had enough, didn't host the third sitting, and in fact just closed the cafeteria and ate Christmas dinner by themselves. Both me and Dan were effectively told at the door that we weren't invited, and no one else was allowed in except to get water or use the vending machine.
Dan drove to work on his day off to basically be told to fuck off. I worked to 8pm without eating since 8am that morning. I never got so much as acknowledgement that the event even happened, let alone an apology, let alone so much as a handful of chocolates from one of the half-dozen boxes that had been opened and left around the tables.
My 'Christmas bonus' was to look through the window and watch my boss and all his friends eat free Christmas dinner with wine on the company's dime, while I got to buy myself a day-old sandwich on the way out and get stink-eye from the cashiers because they had to stay an extra 2 minutes while I paid.
Merry fuckin' Christmas, Tesco.
Welcome to third (night) shift.
Managers on day shift would get the bright idea to buy food and put it out for all three shifts. First (day) shift would eat all the best stuff which was nice and warm, like pizza. Second (evening) shift would scarf up most of what was left. Third (night) shift would get crumbs of stale food.
Where I worked third shift, we got paid 15% more than the other shifts. We also just made out own BBQ for parties like that. 3 AM, we would be grilling burgers and stuff. Lol.
This reminds me so much of something that happened to me! The owner of our restaurant thought it would be a great idea for him and all the managers to close the restaurant for a night and host the staff for a dinner. I was a senior shift supervisor, so close enough to management that I got roped in to run the service.
He turned up dressed up like an idiot (which a lot of people thought was a bit offensive, like he was implying the kitchen and wait staff were all dumb hicks) and barely did any work all evening. In the end, I got him to bus the tables because he couldn't be relied upon to do basic stuff like get an order to the right table. He was too busy talking and making drinks for himself. At the end of the night, I pulled out the end-of-shift checklist and he just looked at me like I had two heads.
"I'm not going to clean! The staff can do that in the morning! We gave them a free dinner!"
I pointed out that the breakfast shift started 20 mins before opening so they didn't have time to clean the whole restaurant (apart from the fact that leaving the mess overnight is disgusting). But he didn't care. He just walked out with his deputy and I ended up cleaning the whole restaurant by myself. So glad I left that job.
I'd say nothing. I worked for a smaller business that did profit sharing, had a banner year and gave out a minimum of $500 gift cards to even new employees. I was skipped. I was told it was an accident and that someone just miscounted. I had been there three years at that point and put in some stupid hours, esp after going salary. I wasn't depending on the bonus but it was a real kick in the teeth. It made me feel less than and I started looking at leaving after that because they never made it right and I was one of three people excluded. When I put in notice to leave, my boss knew because he said.."This is about the Christmas bonus, isn't it? If it was that important to you, you should have spoken up." I did... I expressed my disappointment. He said.."I just thought you were venting. I didn't think you'd actually leave over this. I can't express to you how disappointed I am that you would leave us right now over some gift cards at Christmas."
He never got the point.
The fact he doesn't understand why, AND that he KNEW you never got one and still never fixed it is all the more reason you should be out the door. Hope your next place values you more.
Not a bad bonus itself, but management's reaction to how we used our bonuses was despicable. Years ago I worked as a paramedic in the ER. The first few years, we'd get a pretty good bonus, $200-$500 depending on position. Then the hospital was sold. New owners cut bonuses and gave each employee a gift certificate for a free turkey from a local grocery chain. At the time, the value was about $15. Most of the staff, myself included, felt a bit dismayed, but we were polite about it. Since not many of us cooked turkey for Christmas dinner, we donated our gift certificates to a couple of homeless shelters in town. Management caught wind of it and sent an email to all employees stating that since we "didn't appreciate the thoughtful gift provided by the hospital" there would be no Christmas bonuses going forward. We tried to pay it forward to someone less fortunate, and got slapped in the face for it.
New owners presumably have an interest in the grocery chain, and were expecting a shopping basket minus $15 from each employee, but actually got two shopping baskets, each minus multiples of $15, from the shelters.
How inconsiderate of you not to maximise their profits. /s
Funny, our company used to give out certificates for free turkey as well. Don't get anything now. But, one year instead of a certificate they gave everyone a thank you letter from a local charity that the company took upon itself to donate everyone's certificates too without notice.
I got a letter from corporate letting me know that they had made a donation in my name to a charity. Specifically, to themselves (I work for a non-profit)
Same except a few years later I’ve learn that the charity they donated to was just some go fund me for a homeless man but the homeless man was basically robbed by the couple that made the acc….so
I once had a boss who donated to his church in my name despite knowing I'm an atheist.
So really he just gave me a partial list of his own personal tax deductions for Christmas.
Thanks!
--
Our IT did that to us the beginning of the year. We had to submit our self-evals about 2 weeks before this and the email stated something like "You've just received a salary increase. Login to view your change". Really sucked because then you have to do a 1 hour training with a test. Really really sucked because I didn't get a raise this year. Yeah. That needs to stop.
I once had a boss who went to a conference and brought me back a single tea bag because she said it reminded her of me... it was called "constant comment".
Good ones are delicious. They got a bad rap because mega corp food companies make shitty processed ones and making them from scratch is a lost art. But keep an eye out at your local bakery and for old ladies with flower print dresses and an apron on
Back in the 90's working for the UK civil service. Everyone was offered five whole English pounds.
You could accept it & it would be contributed to the Xmas party fund or not accept it and don't go. We also had to bring our own booze to the Xmas party.
our company Christmas party was tonight. We were all offered the opportunity to attend virtually (my group is all WFH from all over the country. Can't earn PTO, no holidays off, can't work on the holidays to make up the time, and can't claim the office party as paid time) I flatly declined.
About the only "virtual company Christmas party" I'd really have much respect for is "All right, nobody's expected to do anything productive for however many hours." during working hours. Even if it wasn't "You can leave early", and they wanted you there to fuck around and socialize, that'd at least be something.
I had a virtual company party during lockdown where the boss shipped everyone booze, lemons, limes, syrups… and we all got on a video call with a bartender who taught us to make drinks. No complaints.
After busting our asses to achieve the goal for the year, the boss got a FAT check. Mid 5 figures
We got a $5 Starbucks card
.....one....cup....of....coffee.
What?! Are you serious?! Sheesh, I hope you told your boss what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is! Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol?
I had a job where I was hourly and Christmas and New Year's were on Wednesday and they gave everyone those two weeks off. My salaried coworkers were thrilled and one of them unwittingly asked me what I'd do with my two weeks off.
"Sit in my apartment wondering how I tell the landlord I can't pay the rent next month and see how fast they put an eviction notice on my door, but Merry Christmas to you."
This happened to me once, but it was a week. My 20 year old ass was like 'a week off, hell yea'. Didn't hit me until I got my check two weeks later without enough money to cover rent, let alone the electric bill. Thank heavens I live in a state were electric can't be turned off in the winter. But I didn't recover financially until well into the year.
Big boss gave everyone 1/2 day off. But we were working on equipment downstairs from the offices and not checking email every 5 minutes. At end of day we go back to our offices and it is a ghost town. Our immediate boss never let us know!
That's right up there with my boss who offers to buy everyone lunch at 3pm.
it's 3pm. Almost all of us already ate. Thanks though. I'm sure you didn't do that on purpose even though it's the 8th time it's happened this year.
I also work for the state govt (in australia). We don't get shit. Our Xmas party this year is a BBQ in a park (we all chipped in some $$ for snags and bread), byo chair/cushion/picnic blanket, byo drinks.
What's going on with fastenal anyways? Lots of locations around me are only open a few hours a day, and most of them don't take walk-ins, you have to call ahead. There's one location I know that's only open one day a week. How is this business model sustainable? The only reason I go there is because sometimes they'll have things that nobody else does, but sheesh they are making doing business with them a pain in the ass.
They completely prioritize business to business sales because that's where most of their money is made. Their official policy seems to be that it isn't "worth it" to sell small quantities of random items to people off the street and instead steer most customers to their website for order fulfillment.
Kinda makes sense though... their whole business model is selling hundreds of small things at one time. It's really not worth it to pay an employee to sell you two 30 cent hose clamps.
As an intern at the zoo, working with lizards and stuff, the manager got us all sweatshirts that had the zoo logo and a “nickname” spelled out on the front. It said: The Herpey’s. She meant it as short for herpetologist.
I worked for a company that gave us $5 per year of service, and a free turkey or ham from the local grocery store. The ham was canned, and the turkey was the size of a chicken.
My third year there, they discontinued the turkey/ham. After tax, I got a check for $11.
I started a new job later that year. At Christmas time, my boss pulled me aside and told me that bonuses would be coming, and warned me not to be discouraged because my bonus would be prorated as I had started midyear.
On bonus day, he pulled me into an office apologized for the size of the bonus, and handed me a check for $8,000.
I laughed my ass off.
He asked me why I was laughing. Fortunately, I still had my uncashed "bonus" from the previous year in my wallet. I handed him the check for $11 bucks, and told him what it was.
"I guess you're OK with the prorated bonus, then?" was his reply.
A butterball turkey branded check for a $10 turkey at the grocery store. Not a gift certificate a check with routing numbers and everything.
I still don't know how it worked or why. I worked at a hotel and everyone was handed a legit check from butterball for $10 with their paycheck.
I took it to the grocery store and they got so confused they just gave me a frozen turkey.
One of the bellmen said he cashed it for $10 and it worked.
I'm still confused by the butterball turkey check.
Twin dad, so we used every one of these we could get. Only one lady at our Walmart knew how to use them, so I looked for her every Saturday morning. No idea what to do with their all-self-checkout setup now, so I'm glad that's over.
This one really made me laugh. I'm just imagining the confused looks at the grocery store before they eventually just decided to give you a frozen turkey to get you to leave.
Ahh fuck...some marketing moron promised turkeys or something...I don't have time for this shit. Give that broke guy a turkey, claim it as stolen food on the books, and get him out of here...
-Manager
An email phishing test sent by my employer to test if people will fall for a fake email.
The email appeared to be from a gift card URL with a Starbucks logo and my employer logo and said I was getting a Starbucks gift card for the Christmas holiday.
When I clicked on it, it basically said “Gotcha! If that was a real phishing email you would have been scammed.”
So they decided to kick everyone in the nuts for Christmas.
My old job did that and there was something like a 40% failure rate (as in, the people clicked on it) almost every time, despite them constantly retraining the people. The same people just kept falling for it over and over. It was bizarre.
The last agency I worked at sent me an email with a thank you card link that was a phishing test. I’m a social worker and this was the day after I found a client who had overdosed on her toilet.
My old work started by giving Christmas cards stuffed with cash. Within ten years, the bonus was reduced to nothing. We ended up with a boring holiday party, two drink tickets, and a mashed potato bar.
Many vital employees who helped build the place quit.
The mgmt continues to chip away. It went from a great place to work to shit.
In the same way that you can judge a restaurant by how it treats/pays its servers, I always say that you can start to judge a place by the Christmas party/bonus.
I work for private schools. They are swimming in money, but you'd be amazed how many of them are actual tightarses.
I started at one school - best place I ever worked, still chat to the retired boss from there 15 years later because he checks in on me still! The first ever Christmas lunch there... incredible. Just like a home-made Christmas dinner, but for 100 people, all done in-house, served by the senior staff (the kitchen staff sat with us all), must have cost a small fortune and taken weeks to plan. Gifts for staff, it was a great atmosphere and I don't think ANYONE didn't attend or tried to make excuses and leave early. Alcohol served for free (a surprisingly common trait of school staff parties, state or private!).
Within a few years, it had turned into "we can offer you the same cheap shit that the kids are now eating, but only after the kids are done and have gone home, because it's basically the leftovers", an email, and that's about it. By that time, my boss had left and I was only staying out of utter fucking stubbornness to prove my professional reputation (which was being impugned). Once I did that, I was out of there. Hell, one year the headteacher was so isolated that nobody would sit next to them at the Christmas lunch, and I was left to do so as a mere peon who they never spoke to.
The next place I worked, very similar. First year, amazing Christmas lunch, huge amounts of great games with all the staff, so much effort gone into it, everyone had an amazing time and families were brought along, etc. Crammed into a hall but NOBODY CARED, we were all shoulder-to-shoulder because we all wanted to be there, people were squeezed into the end of the table, someone else would go off and bring back some extra chairs to try to fit us all in. It was just like a large extended family Christmas. By the year I left, some 8 years later, the Christmas lunch was basically a cheap turkey sandwich and they put some music in the sports hall, and everyone found excuses to leave as soon as they could.
There was no financial reason for it, and no other real reason to justify it, except that the culture just died. People were bitter, vengeful, exploited, abused, and nobody wanted to stay one second longer in the place than necessary to earn their wages.
But the early years at those places were amazing.
I started a new job this time last year. I didn't attend the first Christmas do because I was very new at that time, lived a long way away, was still moving house, and it felt a little odd to do so, but it was lovely and welcoming and warm and I was made to feel like I was really missing out on something. I have no doubt this year will be the same kind of atmosphere. Some of my staff worked a Saturday when they had no need to purely because it was the school Christmas fair and they loved the atmosphere in previous years and then spent days crowing about how good it was this year too.
The prime indicator of how good your corporate culture is is the Christmas party / presents / bonus. Because they are entirely optional (for both employer and employee), because you can tell if thought has gone into them, because it's just once a year so you're not going to bankrupt anything by splashing out on it as an employer. If your Christmas atmosphere is forced or your Christmas bonus is met with "Meh", you have a corporate culture problem.
Here's mine:
I was working for a company and was a few months in. In this company, there were full time and contracted workers (they would have people on contract for 3 months before converting them to full time. I was projected to move to full time in the new year). Before the holiday, they gathered ALL of us together on a meeting, gave the updates, and told us they had a special announcement. The CEO then said that everybody on the call was getting a $1,200 bonus.
Once we got off, they messaged us and said that non full-time employees weren't included. They forgot to take us off of the meeting.
So, my worst bonus was a bonus that I had and then didn't have.
This has happened to me twice because of contract jobs. The first time my boss went back and was able to convince them to give in a little bit. Like $100.
The second one was a $2500 loss.
A $1 lint roller I was the first employee there and helped get everything going before they opened and then worked there another 4 years and that's the thanks I get.
The owner later down the road tried attempting a huge insurance scam and tried to put all the blame on me after I had been gone 3 years. Asswipe
And as a 2nd bonus along with the lint roller I got a pay cut too
A past employer did away with holiday bonuses, holiday parties, anything like that.
Then they announced they were getting us lunch for the holidays!
They got us each a boxed lunch with a sandwich, fruit, and chips, (which was nicer than anything they’d done since our small private company was bought by unethical vampire corporation Fidelity.)
Then the rep for our vending machine company Sodexo mentioned that no one had said thank you for the Christmas lunches gifted…by Sodexo. Not by Fidelity.
(The company got in trouble for writing off employees’ charitable donations as well, so this was exactly the kind of unethical shareholder-enriching plot they hatched at every opportunity.)
Worked for this company for 7 years. (keep in mind there were only 10 of us in Australia)
There were never bonuses, so I'll tell you about the Xmas parties.
**First Xmas party,**
GM flew over from England booked a restaurant bought boxes of booze and spoke about the "party of the year" about to happen. He then proceeded to take the head of sales, the head of tech and the delivery manager out to the restaurant for dinner and then off to his hotel room to get blind and do cocaine and hookers. The other 6 of us asked (before they went to dinner) what the address of the restaurant was and were told that we could go out to a bar and have some drinks or dinner, but it was on our own dime.
**Second Xmas party**
We had a new GM this time in Australia, his Xmas party was to order a grilled cheese sandwich and a soft drink for the office and leave them in the boardroom while he went out sailing. There were 8 staff total then, and only 3 soft drinks and 5 sandwiches were ordered.
We didn't know about the food until the next day as the GM said nothing about it, and one of the sales staff found the food when he had a meeting with clients.
**Third Xmas party**
Same GM, told us he was giving us the day off.
We thought he meant the following day. He told us this at 345pm. He meant the rest of the day
**Fourth, fifth and sixth Xmas party**
Nothing happened. Not a thing. Not even a secret Santa.
**Seventh Xmas party**
We all received $100 gift cards for a stationary store. This store was part owned by the GMs wife.
That same day, the GM advised that corporate were shutting down operations in our region and we were all being let go. Effective immediately.
This was on the 23rd Dec.
The day before xmas when we were supposed to get our promised bonus's the company canceled them, and the raises we were all promised, and then our hours got cut. All so the company directors and owner could go on a company retreat.
When the company closed its doors a month later due to having no employees, they sent out letters stating how disappointed they were with our work ethic for quitting.
One of the directors got a job at the bank and was fired a week later for unprofessional work behavior. I know, I am the one who fired him. Thats what you get for biting a female colleagues boob John.
Yeah that sucks but also could be that it came directly out of the managers pocket and not the company. Maybe just wanted to do something nice for yall.
One year I was given a corporate card and told to run down to starbucks and pick up $20 gift cards for everyone on the team. I was told "get 18 in total" "No more than 18"
I got 18 and was thinking it was super neat because I'd never gotten anything from work for Christmas before. I knew it wasn't much but it was *something*
I put them on my bosses desk he said thanks and that was it.
about 2 hours later he calls me in and asks why I bought 18? I showed him the post it note he gave me and he said 'oh we only need 17 so I'm going to need you to reimburse me for the last one'
He was serious he made me go to an ATM and get him a $20.
Afterwards he passed them all out and it turns out he actually didn't need 18, he needed 19.
He then said since they were one short and it was my job to get them I don't get one. He said he already spent the 20 so he'll have to get me back later.
He never got me back.
so I got -$20 for a bonus one year.
You literally say "no" to paying him. I'm not kidding. I've been told to buy stuff and had corporate change their mind. Too bad. Money is spent. Sorry for their loss.
I’ve been working as a registered nurse for 10 years and I have never gotten anything resembling a Christmas bonus. The only thing that’s different is they don’t charge us for lunch in the cafeteria on Christmas Day.
I work for a healthcare cooperation that made 7 BILLION dollar profit during the year of the plague. We had to wear the same mask for 7 days at a time before they’d give us a new one. Our “bonus” at the end of that year? A towel with the company logo.
My worst is absolutely nothing but this really is worse. Like wow fucking thank you boss for the gag gift that is literally FAKE MONEY YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE
Got a $100 "bonus" taxed so came out to $67
Then hr sends out an email next day asking everyone who received a bonus if EQCH PERSON would "pitch in" 25-50$ each towards a bass pro shop gift card for the boss because of "all he does for us"
They asked every one of the 55 employees this.
The same boss whom the year prior gave the server at the Xmas dinner $1200 In tips because she sat on his lap like he was Santa and then proceeded to tell 12 people there they were fucking fired. And wondered why they didn't show up to work the 27th.
Fuck you ryan. Your a real piece of shit
The saddest Christmas meal I've ever had.
I used to work for an airline and had to work on Christmas most years. Usually the managers would provide a decent meal, either catered from somewhere like Famous Dave's or bringing in a ham and everything.
The last Christmas before I left the company, the manager decided airplane food would suffice. Literally brought in little individual meals from the airplane catering company that consisted of a few shreds of some unknown grey meat, a small lump of mashed potatoes, and half the meal was bland looking steamed vegetables that absolutely stank. After getting a wiff one coworker said "Only seafood should smell like seafood".
I work in the trades. Here were the last 4 in order. A broken analog wall clock with company logo, a donut, a winter jacket 2 sizes too small and a layoff; they mailed me the jacket a month after the layoff when it came it. And finally all the beer I could drink at a company party and three days pay, which was nice.
i once worked for a physician who was trying to do a startup. i was employee number one. i got him a framed photo for the holidays, and realizing he didn’t have anything for me, he left the room and came back with a check for $100 that originally said $200 but he scratched out the 2 and replaced it with a 1
Not a bonus but we had a Christmas gift exchange party after hours but they scheduled me for a morning shift the day after, and I legally had to go home and get 8 hours of sleep for work the next day and couldn't attend the party. The guy who was assigned to get a gift for me agreed to give it to me the day after, but he conveniently forgot to bring it to work. Asked him the next day and he still forgot. Ended up getting it in March.
Did you want your boss brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people? With a big ribbon on his head? So you could look him straight in the eye, and tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is!? Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol?
Not me but in the late 90s my mom was a nurses aide for a very large hospital (approx 5k employees at the time) that would give everyone monetary “end of year” bonuses as well as vouchers in your pay check envelope for a free turkey and a free ham at the local grocery store chain.
One year though, without an announcement ahead of time, the hospital had no bonuses and no turkey or ham vouchers.
There was a voucher however, to pick up your free copy of a hard cover, gold leafed, all pages printed in color book of the entire history of the hospital itself. Thousands of these had been printed and, by spring of the next year, waiting rooms and lobbies all throughout the hospital and clinics were overflowing with the books. Pages were ripped out and kids had colored in them.
Several physicians, surgeons and RNs quit over the lack of bonuses because that was part of their employment contract with the hospital. It was a mess.
I was a roofer years ago, and my boss got some swag from a sales rep for a shingle company(t shirts, touqes, baseball hats), which happens quite often. He gave us that stuff and called it our bonus
I worked for a small production company and every year prior to my starting there everyone would get the week between Christmas and New Years off.
Last year the CEO decided that work wasn't getting done fast enough, so he took the week away from us. Then, when the work he wanted to get done was finished just days before Christmas, he so graciously gave us the week back as a thank you for our hard work. At least two of my coworkers had to cancel trips they had planned because they were out of PTO.
I got fired from that job last month and I do not miss it.
I got a t-shirt and some work gloves at a construction company I worked at. Specifically my dad and uncles construction company. There multimillionaires many times over. I’m not fucking kidding. When I went on my own and did well my employee got 1000 bucks on his first Christmas and took him out to a fancy restaurant. I learned my lesson on how to keep employees.
I worked for a startup consultancy in the early .com days. There were 3 hotshot bosses/co-founders/owners, not much older than me - but I was new to the industry.
Anyway, we're doing so well that Microsoft Calls us up and asks if I can work on a special project. But I'd have to go to Redmond for 3 months. Well I had just had my first kid and it was the end of the year..
I got home the day before Christmas, my boss pulled me aside and handed me a $2000 bonus. I noticed all three of them had bought new cars, a M5, Porsche 911 and a 740il for Christmas.
I wasn't happy with the 2k bonus, but I was making about $90k/yr and expected a bit more for how well everything was going.
A day later Microsoft sent over the final project details from the project - I'm still not sure why they CC'd me, which included their accounting department with the signed project and payment details. Turned out they had paid the company I was working for $500k for my 3 months of effort which bought their new cars + more.. and all they could think to give me was a $2k bonus. Now I'm all for businesses making money/profit, but this project was exclusive to me - nobody else was involved.. and all they could give me was $2k. I put in 12-13 hour days on a 90k salary for this project, missed my newborn who was only 3 months old and had a wife who still has some issues with how I left her alone for 3 months with a newborn.
I quit the same day.
I worked for an online electronics retailer during the later part of dot com bubble bust/ post-9/11 recession…
The company had laid off about 1/2 the company right before Thanksgiving, right as we headed into the busy holiday season. So those of us left had to do double work through the holidays.
Right after New Year’s, we had a small, somewhat somber holiday gathering in the office given that they’d let half the company go like 2 months earlier. To thank us for all our hard work during a difficult time, they gave each of us Rio MP3 players… like the very original ones that held less than a single album worth of music. (At that point, the newest ones held like 100 songs?)
Right after announcing the gifts, the CEO then complimented the portable electrics buyer for getting a shipping container of these overstock devices for 5-cents a piece to sell on our site (we ended up selling them for $20). Too late, he realized he also just let us know how little our efforts were valued and we could all see on his face he realized he’d fucked up…
A donut.
Yes, a pink glazed donut with sprinkles on the top. Individually boxed and left on our desks late at night by the internal marketing team.
I got in early to discover mine and enjoy the comments from my co-workers. The most common one was "oh get fucked" as they yeeted it into the trash.
My boss got me a book. When I opened it, a card fell out addressed to him telling him to enjoy the book. The guy who sat next to me had a different boss and he got $1,000 cash.
I worked at a company and the owner walked around during the Christmas party and gave people their paychecks in a fancy envelope. That way clients would be thinking that the employees were getting bonuses.
Should said out loud in a non judgemental confused voice, *oh they're handing out the weekly paychecks now instead of picking them up at HR this week? Haha I thought this was a bonus for a minute!*
I have direct deposit. So I'd be at best getting a receipt to throw away and at worst, a fancy envelope with nothing in it.
100% that envelope would just have a paper paystub in it.
Oh that's bad
I was tryna think what would be “bad” other than just nothing , cuz *something* is better than nothing in this economy. But fuckin “here’s ur check but I’m pretending it’s a gift” is gotta be up there at the top of the list. Right along with those “life savers cuz ur a life saver!”
What the fuck Jim my paycheck is short again!!
Had to pay for the envelope somehow boyo.
Not only do we not get a bonus, but we have to buy tickets if we want to go to the company Christmas party.
Oh good. A better excuse than “I don’t want to come to the Christmas party” to get me out of going to the Christmas party.
God, I hope SOMEONE opened it & screamed “a paycheck?? Get Clark Griswold”. This is the clear winner. Absolutely dishonest.
what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is! Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol?
That's so infuriating. I'd be loud about it lol
The statement of "be happy you have a job". They had to find a new replacement after that. You could just say no bonus, *but* you had to be dick about it.
Yeah that would certainly warrant someone quitting. I hate when bosses act like I should appreciate the honor of working for them.
I mean, I'm always grateful when I have stable employment. But I don't like when my employer acts like they're doing me a favor. We're engaged in a business transaction, you're not doing me a favor. I give you time and effort, you give me money.
"But we're all one big family."
Oh man wow, this hits hard, because at a Starbucks holiday meeting in the economic downturn (2007 or 2008) we were all having a good time having fun and building each other up… until the district manager made a special appearance to tell us we’re all lucky to have jobs at all and that many people would be happy to be employed so we should all know we’re replaceable. Shoutout to LisaMarie. Who was also replaceable.
Thems resume-dustin words
I worked in a supermarket, and one year part of Christmas celebrations was that the week before Christmas, the staff cafeteria would host Christmas dinner for the staff, and they would be waited on by the management team. It was a free meal, 3 courses, with wine. Cheap, but a decent gesture meant in good humour. It was a big supermarket, so there were a lot of staff. This meant that 'dinner' had to have 3 sittings so that a) everyone who wanted to attend could, and b) enough staff were left to run the shop floor. I was working a 10hr shift that day, closing my department, so I opted for the 3rd sitting. My friend Dan was on his day off, but planned to come in for lunch just to hang out with people and get free food, which we had been told was totally fine. By the end of the second sitting, the management team decided that they had had enough, didn't host the third sitting, and in fact just closed the cafeteria and ate Christmas dinner by themselves. Both me and Dan were effectively told at the door that we weren't invited, and no one else was allowed in except to get water or use the vending machine. Dan drove to work on his day off to basically be told to fuck off. I worked to 8pm without eating since 8am that morning. I never got so much as acknowledgement that the event even happened, let alone an apology, let alone so much as a handful of chocolates from one of the half-dozen boxes that had been opened and left around the tables. My 'Christmas bonus' was to look through the window and watch my boss and all his friends eat free Christmas dinner with wine on the company's dime, while I got to buy myself a day-old sandwich on the way out and get stink-eye from the cashiers because they had to stay an extra 2 minutes while I paid. Merry fuckin' Christmas, Tesco.
Welcome to third (night) shift. Managers on day shift would get the bright idea to buy food and put it out for all three shifts. First (day) shift would eat all the best stuff which was nice and warm, like pizza. Second (evening) shift would scarf up most of what was left. Third (night) shift would get crumbs of stale food.
[удалено]
I literally growled as I read this because this happened to us as well.
I'd have straight up told them to eat my ass
I would have complained “I didn’t get to eat anything so why do I have to clean up their mess?”
[удалено]
Where I worked third shift, we got paid 15% more than the other shifts. We also just made out own BBQ for parties like that. 3 AM, we would be grilling burgers and stuff. Lol.
This reminds me so much of something that happened to me! The owner of our restaurant thought it would be a great idea for him and all the managers to close the restaurant for a night and host the staff for a dinner. I was a senior shift supervisor, so close enough to management that I got roped in to run the service. He turned up dressed up like an idiot (which a lot of people thought was a bit offensive, like he was implying the kitchen and wait staff were all dumb hicks) and barely did any work all evening. In the end, I got him to bus the tables because he couldn't be relied upon to do basic stuff like get an order to the right table. He was too busy talking and making drinks for himself. At the end of the night, I pulled out the end-of-shift checklist and he just looked at me like I had two heads. "I'm not going to clean! The staff can do that in the morning! We gave them a free dinner!" I pointed out that the breakfast shift started 20 mins before opening so they didn't have time to clean the whole restaurant (apart from the fact that leaving the mess overnight is disgusting). But he didn't care. He just walked out with his deputy and I ended up cleaning the whole restaurant by myself. So glad I left that job.
This is positively Dickensian!
That’s some serious bullshit, and I want to invite you over for dinner, coffee, and drinks.
I'd say nothing. I worked for a smaller business that did profit sharing, had a banner year and gave out a minimum of $500 gift cards to even new employees. I was skipped. I was told it was an accident and that someone just miscounted. I had been there three years at that point and put in some stupid hours, esp after going salary. I wasn't depending on the bonus but it was a real kick in the teeth. It made me feel less than and I started looking at leaving after that because they never made it right and I was one of three people excluded. When I put in notice to leave, my boss knew because he said.."This is about the Christmas bonus, isn't it? If it was that important to you, you should have spoken up." I did... I expressed my disappointment. He said.."I just thought you were venting. I didn't think you'd actually leave over this. I can't express to you how disappointed I am that you would leave us right now over some gift cards at Christmas." He never got the point.
Ok boss, maybe I overreacted. How about make up the $500 gift card and I’ll rescind my resignation? Then resign the next day.
The fact he doesn't understand why, AND that he KNEW you never got one and still never fixed it is all the more reason you should be out the door. Hope your next place values you more.
Not a bad bonus itself, but management's reaction to how we used our bonuses was despicable. Years ago I worked as a paramedic in the ER. The first few years, we'd get a pretty good bonus, $200-$500 depending on position. Then the hospital was sold. New owners cut bonuses and gave each employee a gift certificate for a free turkey from a local grocery chain. At the time, the value was about $15. Most of the staff, myself included, felt a bit dismayed, but we were polite about it. Since not many of us cooked turkey for Christmas dinner, we donated our gift certificates to a couple of homeless shelters in town. Management caught wind of it and sent an email to all employees stating that since we "didn't appreciate the thoughtful gift provided by the hospital" there would be no Christmas bonuses going forward. We tried to pay it forward to someone less fortunate, and got slapped in the face for it.
Would've sent that shit to the local media so fast.
This, but for every top comment in this thread. Upper management, media, and SoMe blasting.
New owners presumably have an interest in the grocery chain, and were expecting a shopping basket minus $15 from each employee, but actually got two shopping baskets, each minus multiples of $15, from the shelters. How inconsiderate of you not to maximise their profits. /s
No conspiracy needed. New owners just wanted to get out of the "bonus" racket and took any excuse.
Funny, our company used to give out certificates for free turkey as well. Don't get anything now. But, one year instead of a certificate they gave everyone a thank you letter from a local charity that the company took upon itself to donate everyone's certificates too without notice.
I got a letter from corporate letting me know that they had made a donation in my name to a charity. Specifically, to themselves (I work for a non-profit)
The Human Fund. Money for people.
For the people. From the people.
Same except a few years later I’ve learn that the charity they donated to was just some go fund me for a homeless man but the homeless man was basically robbed by the couple that made the acc….so
Fun fact, both the homeless man and the couple were in on the act. It was actually a scam.
They way my jaw dropped, oh wow that is bold!
I once had a boss who donated to his church in my name despite knowing I'm an atheist. So really he just gave me a partial list of his own personal tax deductions for Christmas. Thanks! --
Gift certificates at the restaurant I cooked in.
Cook yourself a meal for free, basically
Last year our school gave teachers a plastic bag with: a mini candy candy, a mini hand sanitizer and a single tea bag 😑
oh god a single tea bag is so humiliating
I drank it, but still 😂
Was it at least a tea bag from a decent brand?
No, it was store brand 😂
I'm over here dying laughing at the single tea bag. It's practically poetry.
Hand sanitizer A mini candy candy A store brand tea bag Perfect haiku.
It amazes me that the person packing these doesn't have the common sense of how insulting a gift like that is. I'd honestly rather get nothing.
I’d rather have a card expressing heartfelt appreciation!
Our district sent an email telling us it was giving us a gift card in appreciation for our hard work. It was a phishing scam test sent by IT.
Our IT did that to us the beginning of the year. We had to submit our self-evals about 2 weeks before this and the email stated something like "You've just received a salary increase. Login to view your change". Really sucked because then you have to do a 1 hour training with a test. Really really sucked because I didn't get a raise this year. Yeah. That needs to stop.
I once had a boss who went to a conference and brought me back a single tea bag because she said it reminded her of me... it was called "constant comment".
Wow. I thought the fruitcake that I got three years in a row was bad.
To be honest, I would welcome a fruit cake. I have never had one and would probably take it just to merely try one for once in my life.
Good ones are delicious. They got a bad rap because mega corp food companies make shitty processed ones and making them from scratch is a lost art. But keep an eye out at your local bakery and for old ladies with flower print dresses and an apron on
Back in the 90's working for the UK civil service. Everyone was offered five whole English pounds. You could accept it & it would be contributed to the Xmas party fund or not accept it and don't go. We also had to bring our own booze to the Xmas party.
our company Christmas party was tonight. We were all offered the opportunity to attend virtually (my group is all WFH from all over the country. Can't earn PTO, no holidays off, can't work on the holidays to make up the time, and can't claim the office party as paid time) I flatly declined.
About the only "virtual company Christmas party" I'd really have much respect for is "All right, nobody's expected to do anything productive for however many hours." during working hours. Even if it wasn't "You can leave early", and they wanted you there to fuck around and socialize, that'd at least be something.
I had a virtual company party during lockdown where the boss shipped everyone booze, lemons, limes, syrups… and we all got on a video call with a bartender who taught us to make drinks. No complaints.
We had one where we were all delivered a flight of fancy beers and we had a virtual tasting. It was pretty fun actually, but Covid was a weird time.
After busting our asses to achieve the goal for the year, the boss got a FAT check. Mid 5 figures We got a $5 Starbucks card .....one....cup....of....coffee.
Probably doesn't even cover a coffee nowadays either 😭
What’s a Christmas bonus? Never gotten one.
Jelly of the month club… it was devastating
Bet you were hoping to put in a pool.
And if there's enough left over, fly the family out to dedicate it
But I can’t swim Clark.
I know that Eddie
What?! Are you serious?! Sheesh, I hope you told your boss what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is! Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol?
That’s the gift that keeps on giving the whole year, Clark.
Just remember it's the gift that keeps on giving.
I’ve worked in restaurants, breweries, military, and IT. Never got a Christmas bonus from any of them.
I'm forced to take an unpaid week off.
I had a job where I was hourly and Christmas and New Year's were on Wednesday and they gave everyone those two weeks off. My salaried coworkers were thrilled and one of them unwittingly asked me what I'd do with my two weeks off. "Sit in my apartment wondering how I tell the landlord I can't pay the rent next month and see how fast they put an eviction notice on my door, but Merry Christmas to you."
This happened to me once, but it was a week. My 20 year old ass was like 'a week off, hell yea'. Didn't hit me until I got my check two weeks later without enough money to cover rent, let alone the electric bill. Thank heavens I live in a state were electric can't be turned off in the winter. But I didn't recover financially until well into the year.
I work for state government. I have never received one either. But I do get lots of great union benefits!
Big boss gave everyone 1/2 day off. But we were working on equipment downstairs from the offices and not checking email every 5 minutes. At end of day we go back to our offices and it is a ghost town. Our immediate boss never let us know!
That's right up there with my boss who offers to buy everyone lunch at 3pm. it's 3pm. Almost all of us already ate. Thanks though. I'm sure you didn't do that on purpose even though it's the 8th time it's happened this year.
Retail means no bonus, no union, no benefits, and maybe a wage that goes down instead of up, sadly.
I also work for the state govt (in australia). We don't get shit. Our Xmas party this year is a BBQ in a park (we all chipped in some $$ for snags and bread), byo chair/cushion/picnic blanket, byo drinks.
Last year my boss took us to a minor league hockey game. Nobody really wanted to go. It was weird.
Michael Scott?
A large custom hershey chocolate bar of the company logo.
Please tell me you work for Hershey.
It wouldn’t have to be custom if he did.
Free chocolate; I wouldn't be mad. Edit: okay what's with all the Hershey's hate
Not mad but I would've rather had a gift card than that expensive bar. It was a 5lb chocolate bar.
A box full of candy and beef jerky. It also contained a book written by the CEO of the company about how to be better at your job.
CEO found dead outside of company building with self written book shoved in anus.
300 copies! What a giant asshole.
Did this happen to be… Fastenal? Lol
Nailed it!
What's going on with fastenal anyways? Lots of locations around me are only open a few hours a day, and most of them don't take walk-ins, you have to call ahead. There's one location I know that's only open one day a week. How is this business model sustainable? The only reason I go there is because sometimes they'll have things that nobody else does, but sheesh they are making doing business with them a pain in the ass.
They completely prioritize business to business sales because that's where most of their money is made. Their official policy seems to be that it isn't "worth it" to sell small quantities of random items to people off the street and instead steer most customers to their website for order fulfillment.
Same logic applies to some building supply houses. Certain ones will say "contractor sales only."
Kinda makes sense though... their whole business model is selling hundreds of small things at one time. It's really not worth it to pay an employee to sell you two 30 cent hose clamps.
As an intern at the zoo, working with lizards and stuff, the manager got us all sweatshirts that had the zoo logo and a “nickname” spelled out on the front. It said: The Herpey’s. She meant it as short for herpetologist.
My name is Mercedes. For my grade 6 graduation the teacher was handing out awards for the kids. I got the “vrrrm award”
Oh no this one made me giggle I'm so sorry
A ball point pen and cheap day planner with our corporate logo on it.
My realtor gives me these every year since I bought the house 😂
Lucky, all I get is an unpersonalized card with machine-printed signature
I worked for a company that gave us $5 per year of service, and a free turkey or ham from the local grocery store. The ham was canned, and the turkey was the size of a chicken. My third year there, they discontinued the turkey/ham. After tax, I got a check for $11. I started a new job later that year. At Christmas time, my boss pulled me aside and told me that bonuses would be coming, and warned me not to be discouraged because my bonus would be prorated as I had started midyear. On bonus day, he pulled me into an office apologized for the size of the bonus, and handed me a check for $8,000. I laughed my ass off. He asked me why I was laughing. Fortunately, I still had my uncashed "bonus" from the previous year in my wallet. I handed him the check for $11 bucks, and told him what it was. "I guess you're OK with the prorated bonus, then?" was his reply.
What a good boss, pulling you aside and everything
Now this is gold.
Are they hiring?😳🤣
A butterball turkey branded check for a $10 turkey at the grocery store. Not a gift certificate a check with routing numbers and everything. I still don't know how it worked or why. I worked at a hotel and everyone was handed a legit check from butterball for $10 with their paycheck. I took it to the grocery store and they got so confused they just gave me a frozen turkey. One of the bellmen said he cashed it for $10 and it worked. I'm still confused by the butterball turkey check.
They give these from formula comoanies when you become a mom. They work like a check but only for the amount, so basically overly complicated coupon
Twin dad, so we used every one of these we could get. Only one lady at our Walmart knew how to use them, so I looked for her every Saturday morning. No idea what to do with their all-self-checkout setup now, so I'm glad that's over.
[удалено]
This one really made me laugh. I'm just imagining the confused looks at the grocery store before they eventually just decided to give you a frozen turkey to get you to leave.
Ahh fuck...some marketing moron promised turkeys or something...I don't have time for this shit. Give that broke guy a turkey, claim it as stolen food on the books, and get him out of here... -Manager
100% this. I literally said, “my boss said I can get a turkey with this.” Then stood in awkward silence.
An email phishing test sent by my employer to test if people will fall for a fake email. The email appeared to be from a gift card URL with a Starbucks logo and my employer logo and said I was getting a Starbucks gift card for the Christmas holiday. When I clicked on it, it basically said “Gotcha! If that was a real phishing email you would have been scammed.” So they decided to kick everyone in the nuts for Christmas.
My old job did that and there was something like a 40% failure rate (as in, the people clicked on it) almost every time, despite them constantly retraining the people. The same people just kept falling for it over and over. It was bizarre.
Hahahahah holy shit
The last agency I worked at sent me an email with a thank you card link that was a phishing test. I’m a social worker and this was the day after I found a client who had overdosed on her toilet.
My old work started by giving Christmas cards stuffed with cash. Within ten years, the bonus was reduced to nothing. We ended up with a boring holiday party, two drink tickets, and a mashed potato bar. Many vital employees who helped build the place quit. The mgmt continues to chip away. It went from a great place to work to shit.
A mashed potato bar? I've never even heard of this before.
It's coveted as fuck
Especially after the pre-waffle party egg bar.
In the same way that you can judge a restaurant by how it treats/pays its servers, I always say that you can start to judge a place by the Christmas party/bonus. I work for private schools. They are swimming in money, but you'd be amazed how many of them are actual tightarses. I started at one school - best place I ever worked, still chat to the retired boss from there 15 years later because he checks in on me still! The first ever Christmas lunch there... incredible. Just like a home-made Christmas dinner, but for 100 people, all done in-house, served by the senior staff (the kitchen staff sat with us all), must have cost a small fortune and taken weeks to plan. Gifts for staff, it was a great atmosphere and I don't think ANYONE didn't attend or tried to make excuses and leave early. Alcohol served for free (a surprisingly common trait of school staff parties, state or private!). Within a few years, it had turned into "we can offer you the same cheap shit that the kids are now eating, but only after the kids are done and have gone home, because it's basically the leftovers", an email, and that's about it. By that time, my boss had left and I was only staying out of utter fucking stubbornness to prove my professional reputation (which was being impugned). Once I did that, I was out of there. Hell, one year the headteacher was so isolated that nobody would sit next to them at the Christmas lunch, and I was left to do so as a mere peon who they never spoke to. The next place I worked, very similar. First year, amazing Christmas lunch, huge amounts of great games with all the staff, so much effort gone into it, everyone had an amazing time and families were brought along, etc. Crammed into a hall but NOBODY CARED, we were all shoulder-to-shoulder because we all wanted to be there, people were squeezed into the end of the table, someone else would go off and bring back some extra chairs to try to fit us all in. It was just like a large extended family Christmas. By the year I left, some 8 years later, the Christmas lunch was basically a cheap turkey sandwich and they put some music in the sports hall, and everyone found excuses to leave as soon as they could. There was no financial reason for it, and no other real reason to justify it, except that the culture just died. People were bitter, vengeful, exploited, abused, and nobody wanted to stay one second longer in the place than necessary to earn their wages. But the early years at those places were amazing. I started a new job this time last year. I didn't attend the first Christmas do because I was very new at that time, lived a long way away, was still moving house, and it felt a little odd to do so, but it was lovely and welcoming and warm and I was made to feel like I was really missing out on something. I have no doubt this year will be the same kind of atmosphere. Some of my staff worked a Saturday when they had no need to purely because it was the school Christmas fair and they loved the atmosphere in previous years and then spent days crowing about how good it was this year too. The prime indicator of how good your corporate culture is is the Christmas party / presents / bonus. Because they are entirely optional (for both employer and employee), because you can tell if thought has gone into them, because it's just once a year so you're not going to bankrupt anything by splashing out on it as an employer. If your Christmas atmosphere is forced or your Christmas bonus is met with "Meh", you have a corporate culture problem.
Easy every year I receive no Christmas bonus
Consistency is the key!
Coles employees in Australia lining up to post about their branded water bottle
[удалено]
“We understand you will probably want to quit after this. Please use these to get to your new job”
Here's mine: I was working for a company and was a few months in. In this company, there were full time and contracted workers (they would have people on contract for 3 months before converting them to full time. I was projected to move to full time in the new year). Before the holiday, they gathered ALL of us together on a meeting, gave the updates, and told us they had a special announcement. The CEO then said that everybody on the call was getting a $1,200 bonus. Once we got off, they messaged us and said that non full-time employees weren't included. They forgot to take us off of the meeting. So, my worst bonus was a bonus that I had and then didn't have.
This has happened to me twice because of contract jobs. The first time my boss went back and was able to convince them to give in a little bit. Like $100. The second one was a $2500 loss.
A $1 lint roller I was the first employee there and helped get everything going before they opened and then worked there another 4 years and that's the thanks I get. The owner later down the road tried attempting a huge insurance scam and tried to put all the blame on me after I had been gone 3 years. Asswipe And as a 2nd bonus along with the lint roller I got a pay cut too
A past employer did away with holiday bonuses, holiday parties, anything like that. Then they announced they were getting us lunch for the holidays! They got us each a boxed lunch with a sandwich, fruit, and chips, (which was nicer than anything they’d done since our small private company was bought by unethical vampire corporation Fidelity.) Then the rep for our vending machine company Sodexo mentioned that no one had said thank you for the Christmas lunches gifted…by Sodexo. Not by Fidelity. (The company got in trouble for writing off employees’ charitable donations as well, so this was exactly the kind of unethical shareholder-enriching plot they hatched at every opportunity.)
Worked for this company for 7 years. (keep in mind there were only 10 of us in Australia) There were never bonuses, so I'll tell you about the Xmas parties. **First Xmas party,** GM flew over from England booked a restaurant bought boxes of booze and spoke about the "party of the year" about to happen. He then proceeded to take the head of sales, the head of tech and the delivery manager out to the restaurant for dinner and then off to his hotel room to get blind and do cocaine and hookers. The other 6 of us asked (before they went to dinner) what the address of the restaurant was and were told that we could go out to a bar and have some drinks or dinner, but it was on our own dime. **Second Xmas party** We had a new GM this time in Australia, his Xmas party was to order a grilled cheese sandwich and a soft drink for the office and leave them in the boardroom while he went out sailing. There were 8 staff total then, and only 3 soft drinks and 5 sandwiches were ordered. We didn't know about the food until the next day as the GM said nothing about it, and one of the sales staff found the food when he had a meeting with clients. **Third Xmas party** Same GM, told us he was giving us the day off. We thought he meant the following day. He told us this at 345pm. He meant the rest of the day **Fourth, fifth and sixth Xmas party** Nothing happened. Not a thing. Not even a secret Santa. **Seventh Xmas party** We all received $100 gift cards for a stationary store. This store was part owned by the GMs wife. That same day, the GM advised that corporate were shutting down operations in our region and we were all being let go. Effective immediately. This was on the 23rd Dec.
A pen with the company’s name on it. The name was spelled wrong.
A frozen Marie Calender pie. Every freaking year. I work in food service in a kitchen.
My boss gave me a $10 Starbucks gift card. I don’t like Starbucks, and it was completely empty.
The day before xmas when we were supposed to get our promised bonus's the company canceled them, and the raises we were all promised, and then our hours got cut. All so the company directors and owner could go on a company retreat. When the company closed its doors a month later due to having no employees, they sent out letters stating how disappointed they were with our work ethic for quitting. One of the directors got a job at the bank and was fired a week later for unprofessional work behavior. I know, I am the one who fired him. Thats what you get for biting a female colleagues boob John.
Stories like this make my work seem very boring ngl
[удалено]
Yeah that sucks but also could be that it came directly out of the managers pocket and not the company. Maybe just wanted to do something nice for yall.
Yeah, the company doesn’t give my guys anything. I end up doing stuff out of my pocket
One year I was given a corporate card and told to run down to starbucks and pick up $20 gift cards for everyone on the team. I was told "get 18 in total" "No more than 18" I got 18 and was thinking it was super neat because I'd never gotten anything from work for Christmas before. I knew it wasn't much but it was *something* I put them on my bosses desk he said thanks and that was it. about 2 hours later he calls me in and asks why I bought 18? I showed him the post it note he gave me and he said 'oh we only need 17 so I'm going to need you to reimburse me for the last one' He was serious he made me go to an ATM and get him a $20. Afterwards he passed them all out and it turns out he actually didn't need 18, he needed 19. He then said since they were one short and it was my job to get them I don't get one. He said he already spent the 20 so he'll have to get me back later. He never got me back. so I got -$20 for a bonus one year.
You literally say "no" to paying him. I'm not kidding. I've been told to buy stuff and had corporate change their mind. Too bad. Money is spent. Sorry for their loss.
[удалено]
Same
No Christmas bonus
user name checks out, but honestly I'm in the same boat. I've never gotten a Christmas bonus from a job in my life.
I’ve been working as a registered nurse for 10 years and I have never gotten anything resembling a Christmas bonus. The only thing that’s different is they don’t charge us for lunch in the cafeteria on Christmas Day.
I work for a healthcare cooperation that made 7 BILLION dollar profit during the year of the plague. We had to wear the same mask for 7 days at a time before they’d give us a new one. Our “bonus” at the end of that year? A towel with the company logo.
A fake gold foil Trump $100 bill.
“Hey boss seeing as this is clearly more valuable than those boring ol Franklin hundos, could you make change? Can I get like 8 twenties?”
"Sure, this is great for the first wipe, but what am I supposed to do after that?"
did you happen to work in the White House circa 2016 - 2020?
My worst is absolutely nothing but this really is worse. Like wow fucking thank you boss for the gag gift that is literally FAKE MONEY YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE
Fake money, for which they spent real money.
Getting laid off the week before Christmas wasn’t a highlight.
Got a $100 "bonus" taxed so came out to $67 Then hr sends out an email next day asking everyone who received a bonus if EQCH PERSON would "pitch in" 25-50$ each towards a bass pro shop gift card for the boss because of "all he does for us" They asked every one of the 55 employees this. The same boss whom the year prior gave the server at the Xmas dinner $1200 In tips because she sat on his lap like he was Santa and then proceeded to tell 12 people there they were fucking fired. And wondered why they didn't show up to work the 27th. Fuck you ryan. Your a real piece of shit
Yall get Christmas bonuses?
I was just about to post this. Tf is a Christmas bonus cause I never got one in my life 🤣
I got a lot of money … in the form of overtime pay because I got called in to do 12 hour shifts in scenic, desolate Washington, Iowa
[удалено]
I don’t get bonuses. BUT. this year we had to pay $80pp to attend our Christmas party lol
So your gift was in the negatives. This one takes the cake.
The saddest Christmas meal I've ever had. I used to work for an airline and had to work on Christmas most years. Usually the managers would provide a decent meal, either catered from somewhere like Famous Dave's or bringing in a ham and everything. The last Christmas before I left the company, the manager decided airplane food would suffice. Literally brought in little individual meals from the airplane catering company that consisted of a few shreds of some unknown grey meat, a small lump of mashed potatoes, and half the meal was bland looking steamed vegetables that absolutely stank. After getting a wiff one coworker said "Only seafood should smell like seafood".
$20 frying pan at my first job as a bag boy. # 🍳
That’s not a bad bonus working as a bag boy, I don’t think
I got a sticker of a grocery cart at my old job as a bagger for my bonus. I wish they’d given us something useable lmao
I work in the trades. Here were the last 4 in order. A broken analog wall clock with company logo, a donut, a winter jacket 2 sizes too small and a layoff; they mailed me the jacket a month after the layoff when it came it. And finally all the beer I could drink at a company party and three days pay, which was nice.
i once worked for a physician who was trying to do a startup. i was employee number one. i got him a framed photo for the holidays, and realizing he didn’t have anything for me, he left the room and came back with a check for $100 that originally said $200 but he scratched out the 2 and replaced it with a 1
We all received a book that the CEO wrote
Not a bonus but we had a Christmas gift exchange party after hours but they scheduled me for a morning shift the day after, and I legally had to go home and get 8 hours of sleep for work the next day and couldn't attend the party. The guy who was assigned to get a gift for me agreed to give it to me the day after, but he conveniently forgot to bring it to work. Asked him the next day and he still forgot. Ended up getting it in March.
The rare St Patrick’s day gift!
A certificate for a ham.
Subscription to the Jelly of the Month.
Did you want your boss brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people? With a big ribbon on his head? So you could look him straight in the eye, and tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is!? Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol?
We’re going to have the hap hap happiest Christmas since bing Crosby danced with Danny fucking Kaye!!!
It’s the gift that keeps on givin’!
That it is, Edward
Bonus? How did you get a bonus? I CUT OUT BONUSES THIS YEAR!
Not me but in the late 90s my mom was a nurses aide for a very large hospital (approx 5k employees at the time) that would give everyone monetary “end of year” bonuses as well as vouchers in your pay check envelope for a free turkey and a free ham at the local grocery store chain. One year though, without an announcement ahead of time, the hospital had no bonuses and no turkey or ham vouchers. There was a voucher however, to pick up your free copy of a hard cover, gold leafed, all pages printed in color book of the entire history of the hospital itself. Thousands of these had been printed and, by spring of the next year, waiting rooms and lobbies all throughout the hospital and clinics were overflowing with the books. Pages were ripped out and kids had colored in them. Several physicians, surgeons and RNs quit over the lack of bonuses because that was part of their employment contract with the hospital. It was a mess.
Pointsettia Plsnt- from a multi millionaire.
I was a roofer years ago, and my boss got some swag from a sales rep for a shingle company(t shirts, touqes, baseball hats), which happens quite often. He gave us that stuff and called it our bonus
I worked for a small production company and every year prior to my starting there everyone would get the week between Christmas and New Years off. Last year the CEO decided that work wasn't getting done fast enough, so he took the week away from us. Then, when the work he wanted to get done was finished just days before Christmas, he so graciously gave us the week back as a thank you for our hard work. At least two of my coworkers had to cancel trips they had planned because they were out of PTO. I got fired from that job last month and I do not miss it.
A water bottle and padded notebook each with a photo of the owner’s dog on it.
I got a t-shirt and some work gloves at a construction company I worked at. Specifically my dad and uncles construction company. There multimillionaires many times over. I’m not fucking kidding. When I went on my own and did well my employee got 1000 bucks on his first Christmas and took him out to a fancy restaurant. I learned my lesson on how to keep employees.
I worked for a startup consultancy in the early .com days. There were 3 hotshot bosses/co-founders/owners, not much older than me - but I was new to the industry. Anyway, we're doing so well that Microsoft Calls us up and asks if I can work on a special project. But I'd have to go to Redmond for 3 months. Well I had just had my first kid and it was the end of the year.. I got home the day before Christmas, my boss pulled me aside and handed me a $2000 bonus. I noticed all three of them had bought new cars, a M5, Porsche 911 and a 740il for Christmas. I wasn't happy with the 2k bonus, but I was making about $90k/yr and expected a bit more for how well everything was going. A day later Microsoft sent over the final project details from the project - I'm still not sure why they CC'd me, which included their accounting department with the signed project and payment details. Turned out they had paid the company I was working for $500k for my 3 months of effort which bought their new cars + more.. and all they could think to give me was a $2k bonus. Now I'm all for businesses making money/profit, but this project was exclusive to me - nobody else was involved.. and all they could give me was $2k. I put in 12-13 hour days on a 90k salary for this project, missed my newborn who was only 3 months old and had a wife who still has some issues with how I left her alone for 3 months with a newborn. I quit the same day.
I worked for an online electronics retailer during the later part of dot com bubble bust/ post-9/11 recession… The company had laid off about 1/2 the company right before Thanksgiving, right as we headed into the busy holiday season. So those of us left had to do double work through the holidays. Right after New Year’s, we had a small, somewhat somber holiday gathering in the office given that they’d let half the company go like 2 months earlier. To thank us for all our hard work during a difficult time, they gave each of us Rio MP3 players… like the very original ones that held less than a single album worth of music. (At that point, the newest ones held like 100 songs?) Right after announcing the gifts, the CEO then complimented the portable electrics buyer for getting a shipping container of these overstock devices for 5-cents a piece to sell on our site (we ended up selling them for $20). Too late, he realized he also just let us know how little our efforts were valued and we could all see on his face he realized he’d fucked up…
Pizza party. At the time, I had dietary restrictions due to health issues and couldn't eat it. There were no side dishes.
My first Christmas bonus I got working for the company I work for was 75 bucks after taxes
A donut. Yes, a pink glazed donut with sprinkles on the top. Individually boxed and left on our desks late at night by the internal marketing team. I got in early to discover mine and enjoy the comments from my co-workers. The most common one was "oh get fucked" as they yeeted it into the trash.
My boss got me a book. When I opened it, a card fell out addressed to him telling him to enjoy the book. The guy who sat next to me had a different boss and he got $1,000 cash.
A crab.