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The Christmas Bonus

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Drip, Dec 12, 2009.

  1. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    Just received my Christmas bonus and to be honest, I was surprised to get it. The loot comes in at a very good time. Did you get one or are you expecting one this year?
     
  2. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    I'll probably get a small one, roughly one or two days' pay.
     
  3. golfnut8924

    golfnut8924 Guest

    At the first place I worked, I came into work one day around Christmas and there was an envelope on my desk. Inside was a Christmas card from the publisher and $50 in it. Not overwhelming, but it was a nice, unexpected bonus, especially considering I was making like 10 bucks an hour. So I was pretty excited.

    About 10 minutes later, an envelope gets passed to me. It's a card for the publisher and they were asking for donations for a gift. So I threw some money in.

    10 minutes later, another card and donation request. This one for the managing editor.

    Another 10 minutes and another card/donation request. Don't even remember who this one was for.

    By the time it was over, my Christmas "bonus" was like 12 bucks.

    It was as if they planned to hand out the bonuses just minutes prior to starting the circulation of the donation requests.
     
  4. ripple

    ripple Member

    That sucks.
     
  5. txsportsscribe

    txsportsscribe Active Member

    why didn't you think fast and throw your own envelope in the rotation?
     
  6. Wenders

    Wenders Well-Known Member

    We didn't even get a complimentary Thanksgiving turkey this year and we don't have a party anymore. Bonus? Right.
     
  7. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    Spent some time at MediaNews, no bonus just a note thanking us for our hard work, explaining that times were tough (a month before the chain acquired another paper or two), and wishing us a Merry Christmas.
    First year at a Gannett paper, we received gift certificates from a local store which was much appreciated. When the company adopted new rules banning "tradeouts" (advertising for goods), the gift certificates were done, but they adopted a lottery for a limited number of prizes. I think I would have preferred nothing than have some people get stuff and others nothing.
    Oddly enough, the best Christmas bonus I ever received (aside from generous customers on my paper route when I was a kid who put MediaNews and Gannett to shame) was working at a local restaurant for just a few weeks, some cash and a bottle of Knob Creek. That was fantastic.
     
  8. Point of Order

    Point of Order Active Member

    An auto-manufacturing plant where I worked in the office part-time during undergrad gave the full-timers Christmas bonuses of like $7,500 one year back when times were good. The part-timers got nothing of course, which was expected and somewhat understandable. When the assistant manager of the small group I worked in brought me into a conference room with the whole group of 8 or 9 I worked with I thought surely something had gone terribly wrong and we were all about to get in trouble.

    They handed me an envelope with what I later counted to be over $500 and said I had earned a bonus and deserved one, so they had all passed the hat for whatever amount anyone wanted to contribute. That was seven years ago, and I still remember it as one of the kindest gestures I've ever received. Good people.
     
  9. bumpy mcgee

    bumpy mcgee Well-Known Member

    Company Christmas party is tonight. As you can read, sports will not be able to attend.
     
  10. Colton

    Colton Active Member

    Christmas bonus? What is this of which you speak?

    After two quarters of furloughs, with another on tap with the new year, two years of wage freezes...

    CNHI will probably give us a card with, "Money's tight, times are hard, here's your fuckin' Christmas card" printed on it.

    Humbug, bah...
     
  11. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    Somehow that makes much more sense than circulating a bunch of cards asking for Christmas donations for the highest-paid folks in the office.

    If someone asked me to contribute to a Christmas bonus for my boss, or my boss's boss, anything they got would have been introduced to the deep dark recesses of my colon first.
     
  12. golfnut8924

    golfnut8924 Guest

    Well said. That's exactly how I felt too. Why the hell did the publisher making who-knows-how-much-money need some expensive gift from the slaves he was paying 10 bucks an hour? That's the shitty ass world that we live in.

    That was, however, the only Christmas bonus I received at a newspaper. My bonus one year was getting to work on Christmas day (while the publisher was off of course)
     
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