The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced - <AUTHOR> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/06/the-worst-morale-boosting-gesture-ive-experienced/ <comment><USER2> I worked for a retail clothing company called Steve & Barry's which was very much like The Office. One year the bonus was a novelty 5 pound Hershey chocolate bar. I ended up with 20 pounds of chocolate because several people in my department had no idea what to do with them. Another year they gave Miracle on 34th Street DVDs and popcorn because earlier that year we opened a location on 34th St in Manhattan. There were no bonuses my third year because the company filed bankruptcy and downsized.

At company-wide meetings, stand out performers were given 'top-banana' awards, which if I'm remembering correctly were actually bananas. I think one of my buddies actually kept his on his desk and let it rot until some poor cleaning person threw it away.

The company would order pizzas for lunch to encourage people not to go out, but charged a dollar a slice. Leftover pizza was wrapped individually in tinfoil, frozen, and available for sale the next day, still for a dollar. I remember several rounds of company wide emails chastising people for not paying for frozen pizza.

Shortly after that first bankruptcy filing, the company filed again and liquidated. Steve and Barry were bought out after the first filing and will never have to work again.

<comment><USER3> Oh God I forgot about that place. I went there once after hearing about the hype from a coworker ("Dude, great selection and cheap as hell!").

The place was miserable. Dirty clothing strewn all over the place. I bought a couple shirts for like $8 each. Neither of them fit all that well. They disintegrated after one wash. One was cut crooked.

Seems like the whole company was a thin (and I mean _thin_ ) quick fashion veneer over sweatshop labor?

<comment><USER4> Sweatshops can do a good job though. They must have have used particularly poor workers for some reason.

<comment><USER5> Poor workers. For some reason. ISWYDT.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I worked at one of those companies that earned ridiculous money refinancing peoples homes during the run-up to the financial crisis. (Yes, I now know it was quite unethical)

They had a boiler room team of salespeople who made an insane amount of money. We are talking six figures a month. They were not at all highly skilled or had any financial background or degree.

Their bonuses could be a luxury car. (or once a horse).

I worked on the IT side. We made the software that basically did all the work. It included instructions of a spiel to sell loans, how to get around various excuses and such. And it did all the work with filing the required paperwork ensuring all the required information was there, sending out information to the people who refinanced all that crap. You could, in practice, take someone from the street, set them up with this software and they could sell loans. (this is not as far fetched as it may sound).

I have so many stories about my time there but anyways, the IT team was not at all highly paid, nor very appreciated. One Christmas we knew we were getting a bonus, and given what we knew about bonuses being handed out we were kinda excited.

Wanna guess what it was?

A $50 gift card for a ham.

<comment><USER7> There's something about that particular (shady) business model of ethically questionable work that over-values "commission activity" and under-values technical achievement that makes it possible.

A past employer used the software we built to create a commissions lottery [1] for a call center floor, and paid huge commissions to an "R&D team" that "value added", but really just created idiotic Access reports from the software's databases (sometimes bringing the Production databases to their knees until we started forcing them to use clones and BI data lakes), but software development was a "cost center" ineligible for commissions, despite doing all the "real" work (including any and all efficiency gains). At one point the executives convinced themselves despite huge turnover that they were somehow magically hiring "better" call center staff.

I feel somewhat confident that that companies misplaced ideas of work/efficiency/how it was profitable were directly correlated with its misplaced sense of ethics. The "R&D team", for instance, seemed representative of the sort of bottom feeder scum that play political games well but don't actually have any skills of their own, and arguably at the end of the day that was roughly what the company as a whole was, a bottom feeder parasite playing politics well enough to make a ton of money surviving in an ethically dubious evolutionary niche.

[1] We had proof that it was a really bad lottery, too. The software was something like 95%+ accurate in how much money was likely associated with each item that went out to the call center. To make things "fair" we kept getting a lot of feedback to make it as "random" as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've got two from the hospital:

After a couple of trainees in our area committed suicide, there was a cry and a hue about attending to trainee mental health. Our hospital took this to heart, and decided: they'd hold a resident mental health day!

This took the form of an iced cream party for the residents. Specifically, it meant they got some tri-flavor cartons of iced cream and stuck them in the physicians lounge. They did not give the residents any protected time to take a shit, much less go down to the physicians lounge for iced cream. None of the residents got any, and the attendings ended up eating it. They subsequently sent out an email patting themselves on the back for the efforts they were making to keep any more residents from jumping off the fucking roof.

Another time: it was physician day. I hadn't actually seen this before, most hospitals don't bother praising physicians, but this was a safety net hospital with shit salaries. The trainees on the psych floor were encouraged to go down and get some of that free salad and pizza.

All the patients had been seen, nothing was going down, so they handed off the floor to the nurses and mid levels to go get some of that fancy pizza the folks in charge kept telling them to go get. This is normal; multiple staff qualified to run a code remained on the floor (a code is basically an algorithm for administering cpr, with attendant drugs).

A medicine attending waited for them to leave the floor and go downstairs. The moment they were good and gone, he called a fake code. When the mid-levels, nurses, and med students arrived, all trained in running a code, the attending put them aside, and kept waiting for the residents to arrive. Eventually, of course, they did.

They then proceeded to get ripped new assholes for having had the temerity to go downstairs for lunch after having been told by their seniors to do so, and leaving their patients appropriately covered. They got sent to lunch just so they could be scolded for getting lunch.

But that sort of shit only happens to psych residents. Other residents would never be told to take 20 mins to grab lunch.

</comment><comment><USER9> At the end of a project death-march (at one point I turned in a >100 hour timecard), the division director had a celebratory thank-you dinner for all the _managers_ involved in the project.

My direct supervisor was at first puzzled as to why I wasn't coming with him to the dinner at the end of the day, and then he was quite appalled - I think he later had words with the director about the whole thing.

<comment><USER10> I'd bet money that most of those managers weren't even in the building for most of that death march.

I have a standing rule. If I work overtime it's because I fucked up. I said something would be done by Friday but I goofed off, I'll work.

If I'm working nights and weekends for business reasons, then my manager is in the building the entire time. A lot of them tone down their rhetoric when you make them put skin in the game. All of a sudden some of the scope gets negotiated down.

<comment><USER11> It's funny to tell this story in a thread about bad incentives, but the "managers not there" part reminded me of it.

I worked at a startup that did citizen identity management for government (think SSO for an entire province). Because of gov't IT policies, we often had to deploy after hours, in a kind of weird "managed IT" process. We still automated the process, but couldn't press the button without being on a conference call etc.

Anyway, we had a deployment go south on Friday night, rolled it back, and decided to come back and try again Sunday. The CEO himself showed up about 10 minutes after we did with a big box of Dilly Bars. Normally that would put this in the category of this thread: "thanks, I'm working overtime for ice cream..." but what he said made it all better: "I know this sucks to be here today. Help yourselves to ice cream. And I'll be in my office all day, stop by if you need anything. And please let me know when you're done so I know I can go home."

Awesome awesome dude.

<comment><USER12> Yes, having a manager just be there showing appreciation is huge. My story is trying to crack a hot, high-impact bug that got reported days before product launch. Daily 8:00AM and 5:00PM status meetings on Saturday and Sunday reporting to multiple VP's kind of hot. So the debug lab manager had little clue how to hang a logic analyzer probe any more, and no clue how to read the traces. But he brought in take-out 3 meals a day and did whatever else to keep us well-fed and caffeinated during the ordeal. And if we wanted to consult with somebody, he tracked them down and got them on the phone. Basically just hung out and said "Thanks" often.

<comment><USER11> That is 100% awesome. I've had a few managers over my career that got that.

The counterpoint (funny enough, at the same company as the ice cream) was a different exec who came close but just missed the mark. Weekday evening deployment (started at 5:30pm) and he orders pizza. A lot of pizza. Things go smoothly and since we're just sitting and watching monitoring for a bit to make sure all is good, he decides to head out. Ten minutes after he leaves, we get a call about a third-party site that broke after the deployment... guess we're not leaving.

So the debugging drags on, and around 11pm we start getting hungry. AHA! Leftover pizza in the fridge! We go to the kitchen to discover... he took all of the leftovers home. Like 4 pizzas worth. So what's our conclusion? "Fuck it, we'll fix it in the morning. Let's go home."

All it would have taken waa leftover pizza...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Oh, man, don't get me started. Two short ones: I did a stint in professional services and billed for 2600 hours @ $250/hr for a total of $650k. Essentially worked 12+ hour days for a year, and got a bonus of $1000 before taxes. I quit within a month.

Next up was an appreciation gesture where we were thanked for all of our extra hard work with a pack of "Extra" gum and a delivery of baked potatoes (with all the fixings, at least). Unfortunately, the potatoes didn't arrive until about 2pm and no announcement was made. There was just a couple tins in the corner of the kitchen.

<comment><USER14> Most of the developers at my company (www.facetdev.com) are contract, but for the few full-timers we still have, we used to ask the team to work long hours out of the goodness of their hearts if a project needed it.

That seemed wrong, so I implemented a bonus plan where you get paid 60% of everything you bill over your weekly goals and made working extra hours optional. I love writing those bonus checks!

<comment><USER15> Wait, so you pay overtime, except you pay 40% less? I must be misunderstanding.

Also please tell me you aren't proud of paying for overtime and I'm misunderstanding that too. That should be the minimum expectation.

<comment><USER16> Not the original poster, but any kind of overtime is rare for salaried work? At least in the US.

I'd take 60% per hour for overtime in a heartbeat as long as it was optional, since I've always ended up doing that kind of work for client/manager goodwill (or the pleasure of not being fired).

<comment><USER17> Some states (Washington, IIRC?) require overtime hours be tracked even for salaried positions, and those hours should be 1.5x regular rate.

(This is off the top of my head based on an internship 6 years ago)

<comment><USER18> I think this may be true beneath a certain salary amount, but it's relatively low for software.

<comment><USER19> For California it depends on both type of work and compensation. You can still be required to pay overtime to a salaried employee if they don't meet certain criterion such as being in a managerial position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> My wife is a registered nurse and the facility she works for had a Christmas party "to recognize all the hard work" everyone did. At some point they did a raffle and handed out a total of 8 gift cards among the 200 employees at the party. Whatever. Her next pay stub had a deduction for $35 to cover the cost of that party and the "gifts" that were given.

<comment><USER21> I think this one has transcended the realm of bad gestures and ended up deep in the territory of illegal wage theft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> One of my hobbies is to dream up fun ways to shame the higher ups. The basic gist of it is that you have to thread a needle between the fiction that you as an employee care about the business and the business cares about the employees and the reality that the business primarily cares about increasing profits and the employees just don't want to be bothered by silly management tactics.

So in order to be successful at this and deliver maximum shame you have to pay the same amount of lip service to the fiction as management does while savagely illustrating the reality. And do it as publicly as possible, but not in a town hall or all-hands meeting. All-hands meetings are ridiculously expensive from the corporate perspective so derailing them to make a point makes you out to be a villain. At least wait until they ask for questions.

But if the boss gets up and grabs everyone's attention for a minute, that's the perfect time to go on the warpath. "So what are we going to get for all this effort? Gift certificate to Applebees?" especially if that's something that's been done before. The idea here is that the boss is making an appeal to sacrifice personal comfort for the good of the company. That's never okay and is poor management. So raise the question of what we're getting in return.

The payoff is twofold. First everyone paying attention gets the pleasure of watching the boss squirm. Second is the eventual pavlovian conditioning that gets the boss to respect the workers by not making unreasonable demands _just because nobody will stand up to them_. They need to justify it with more than hoorahs.

The best part of it I think is if you do this once and get away with it, you won't see it again for awhile, then when they do and you have to remind them again, you can watch that flash of 'oh right, I can't do that with Vince around' on their face.

Won't work in the public sector where the expectation to sacrifice yourself for the public good is intrinsic to the culture. But I consider carrying the torch for workplace respect part of what I consider "managing up" and one of the things I try to bring to every role.

<comment><USER23> I'm surprised this seems to work so well for you. I've had colleagues do similar things and it pretty much always resulted in them being "managed out", outright fired, or mysteriously lumped into a round of layoffs that otherwise didn't affect their department.

<comment><USER22> It really is about threading a needle and making sure you pay the appropriate amount of lip service. It really helps to make yourself really hard to fire and likeable otherwise in the organization. Respect starts with you respecting others and the company. If they respect what you do for them, then you get the latitude to push back on stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> My employer, a US DoD component, had a program called "On The Spot" awards. The idea was that if you had done something outstanding, your first line supervisor could authorize an immediate bonus of up to $1000.

Being the DoD, it couldn't be that simple. They decided that actually the bonuses had to be approved by your second, third, _and_ fourth line supervisors. And also by the program manager at the sponsoring agency. Forms had to be filled out, lost, found, signed, routed, xeroxed, left on desks while people were on vacation. Passed through legal and security.

Also, the bonus was distributed among all the team members being rewarded. The $1000 figure was the maximum allowed for the total bonus, not the individual bonuses.

My team did something outstanding. It took 18 months of hard labor. Overtime. High stakes demonstrations. We ended up bringing in tens of millions of dollars in funding. A full year later an extra $150 showed up in my paycheck.

PS I forgot another incident. I was nominated for a prestigious award, given by an official very high up at the Pentagon. I was asked to write my own nomination letter. I was given the award; to receive it I had to dress up in a suit, show up early to work, shake the official's hand, and then spend an hour giving him a tour. The actual award was a letter of commendation and a challenge coin. There was no bonus.

Theoretically, the challenge coin would be worth a lifetime of free drinks in bars frequented by military members. Or so I'm told. I don't drink.

<comment><USER25> Damn! My current CEO wants to do the same. But he wants people to vote across teams. EG, backend engineer nominates machine learning researcher. Machine learning nominates HR. For a $1000 bonus, or a new ipad previous generation. Reasoning is that the manager cannot approve because that would reward favoritism, so random people nominating random people it is. Bad ideas coming from a good place I guess, but people are going to feel demoralized for sure in the end.

<comment><USER26> It's surprisingly easy to accidentally be designing a game and not realize it. And designing games is hard. And one can closely approximate the percentage of the population that's put so much as one thought toward how to do so—the limits of the practice, the balance, the ways your rules can be abused or encourage behavior you hadn't anticipated—ever, as zero. That when someone starts to recognize what they're accidentally doing they tend to give up, or abandon any effort to do it well, or ditch it and go with some familiar, proven pattern instead even if it sucks and doesn't fit the situation, makes sense. It's hard, and very few people are good at it.

It's easier to recognize that you're playing one than that you're making one, it seems.

<comment><USER27> Obligatory: [https://dilbert.com/strip/1995-11-13](https://dilbert.com/strip/1995-11-13)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I worked for a while for Thomson Reuters, where some years ago somebody in charge read that companies with value statements performed better than those that did not. So they _hired a 3rd party consultant to write down their values_ and they had these posted all over the walls.

They also had posters of stuff like "the mood elevator" pasted up in the kitchen: [https://themoodelevator.com/](https://themoodelevator.com/)

Everyone I felt like I could talk to about this thought this was childish, idiotic nonsense. Do companies have thousands of childish people who take this stuff seriously and think it is great? Or does everyone have to just pretend because they don't want to get fired?

I have a hard time understanding it. Anyway I left that place.

<comment><USER29> For me any kind of motivational posters on the wall are an immediate red flag. Usually it means that things aren't going well and management can't come up with anything better than hanging up posters. Well-run companies show their values by the way they work. They don't need posters.

<comment><USER30> My company sends emails about online surveys.

The surveys are thankfully anonymous.

I know these useless surveys will never have any effect, and you never hear about any results or changes that have happened because of the surveys.

There are only checkboxes for "mildly agree", "agree", etc.

But there is usually a tiny "other comments" box. So I usually write long diatribes about all the company's failings in that tiny "other comments" box.

At least I'm getting paid while filling them out, but they must be wondering who the disgruntled truth-sayer is, since I'm sure not many in the company actually bother to do the surveys.

The only reason I know not many actually bother to do the surveys is because they do release stats on that, and encourage people to do them - I imagine it's some kind of Executive KPI for worker engagement or some such bullshit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I worked on a team of three people in the early 2000s to develop one of the first web based automotive insurance underwriting applications for an insurance broker. It was a low volume program and as such they hired a single marketing representative to cover the entire state of Pennsylvania. He worked on commission and was expected to make in the high five figures.

It ended up being wildly more successful than anticipated and pulled in double digit millions the first year. The marketing representative's commission ended up being middle six figures as a result.

He sent us a case of Tastykake snack cakes as thanks. That was all we got in the way of thanks from the company.

<comment><USER32> Was it really his responsibility to give your team a lavish thanks? Sounds like he had a windfall, but working on commission can very easily go the opposite direction.

Was the wild success of the initiative due to your team's outstanding technical genius?

<comment><USER33> "Sounds like he had a windfall, but working on commission can very easily go the opposite direction"

Well, I'm a bit skeptical. Someone who makes $500K unexpectedly isn't going to lose $500K unexpectedly.

<comment><USER34> One year you sell $500k worth of software to customers, the next customers sell $500k worth of software to _you_. Easy come, easy go, it's a zero-sum game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Not a counter point to this article, but a counter point to the efficacy of monetary rewards.

> "Study showed that monetary incentives are great for routine, mechanical > work. But how does it play when talking about cognitive, advanced tasks? Not > well at all."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgKKPQiRRag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgKKPQiRRag)

Counter-counter point: If anyone ever points you to this for evidence _you_ shouldn't get a bonus/monetary reward system, ask if _they_ get a bonus/monetary reward system...

<comment><USER36> This is a different topic than the article and the discussion so far.

A yearly bonus or a "thank you"/party/etc aren't rewards tied to specific tasks. They're meant to be gestures of appropriation. You're discussing a bonus structure that ties financial incentives to very specific work items, and rewards them accordingly.

I'm not disagreeing with your point, just pointing out they're two different topics.

<comment><USER37> Appropriation or appreciation? If it's appropriation I'm intrigued!

Like what if someone shows up to an event you planned, and starts thanking people for coming. They're basically implying/claiming ownership of the event. Appropriation through appreciation.

In other words what if you thought a project was yours, and then someone appropriates it by thanking your team, implying it was for that person all along?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> On a team with many colleagues from India, was repeatedly promised steak dinners if we were able to meet deadlines.

<comment><USER39> There are plenty of Indians fine with steak dinners. India is a pretty diverse country.

<comment><USER40> Only about one-quarter of Indians eat beef, so it's not at all safe to assume that any random group of Indians you encounter will be majority beef-eaters.

<comment><USER41> Well then they can get the pork chop

<comment><USER42> Pork isn't popular amongst meat eating Indians either. Just look at your local Indian restaurant menu. You will see very few, if any, pork dishes.

<comment><USER33> I don't think I've ever been in an Indian restaurant that has pork _or_ beef on the menu, but that's in my corner of the US. Pretty much universally, they have chicken, lamb, goat, seafood, and vegetarian versions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> We need to find a name for a gesture so small in its generosity that it ends up being offensive. No bonus would have left me disappointed, but a $50 bonus would have made me angry.

Like when Delta gave a food voucher to make up for a 5-hour delay on a 30-minute file. The voucher was for $3. Fuck Delta.

<comment><USER43> When my entire engineering team was laid off, work organized farewell drinks for us.

Except they didn't actually _budget_ for this. Their idea was that the whole office would go out and... celebrate? Us being laid off? And pay for it ourselves?

<comment><USER44> Man, when my company got shut down in the dot com days, after the 10am all hands, I said screw it and took my entire team out for drinks until about 4, out of my own pocket.

As far as I'm concerned, that's the way you do it if you're going down with the ship. Drink with the crew, pay for them, and tell stories and try to make plans as you slip into the waters. 19 years later, I'm still friends with all but one who disappeared to the offline somehow.

Ended up giving my director a slightly embarrassing hug when we got back in, but we'd been through enough over the past that she forgave me and we're still friends.

<comment><USER34> How can a hug be so embarrassing that it needs to be forgiven? It's a euphemism I'm missing, isn't it.

<comment><USER44> She and I were somewhat standoffish people back then, not really huggy types. Meanwhile, I come into the office, 3 sheets to the wind, see her, and said something like "S., I am going to miss working with you so much!" at a fairly loud volume, and I'm a good half foot taller than her.

It's something I still have to buy her a beer for every couple of years or so.

<comment><USER34> Hmm, I still can't relate. It sounds like a very sweet gesture. If you told me you'd miss me and hugged me, I'd buy you a beer.

<comment><USER44> I grok. Our business relationship was very good (thus my outburst) but our somewhat distancing (and very "proper" and "professional" Midwestern based) personalities in the 90s led to it being slightly embarrassing for us, then.

We obviously got past it, but it makes for an amusing story as she's never seen me that inebriated since, and actually didn't know I could get that buzzed as well as be demonstrative.

<comment><USER34> Ah, I see, thanks. I'm glad everything is good now!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> A different view: I'm a contract dev at a very small company (20 all up, 2.5 devs, all contractors). The bosses are owners, and work _crazy_ hours. Occasionally they'll give out $100 supermarket vouchers, with a hand-written Thank You message, when we've hit some milestone. It's worth barely more than an hour's work, but I still appreciate it. I'm pretty well paid there, and to give a cash bonus that would be significant on top would be a big dent for them, so I mentally fall back on the 'It's the thought that counts', and the hand-written cards give a genuine feeling of being appreciated

<comment> crooked-v I'm sure it helps that it's actually something useful, unlike some of the other examples given in the comments - everyone needs groceries, after all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> My own personal favorite, from my GM, explaining why the sales team was getting six-figure bonuses for an extremely successful year entirely driven by engineering, which was getting barely four figures:

"Sales people are motivated by money; engineers are motivated by fun work. So just do your job and have fun!"

I'm not even interested in money, just a little respect would've been great! Needless to say, I quit shortly thereafter.

</comment><comment><USER47> I read this and was immediately reminded of David Sedaris' short story about working as a Macy's Elf:

>I spend all day lying to people, saying, "You look so pretty," and "Santa can't wait to visit with you. You're all he talks about. It's just not Christmas without you. You're Santa's favorite person in the entire tri-state area."

>

>Sometimes I lay it on really thick. "Aren't you the princess of Rongovia? Santa said that a beautiful princess was coming to visit him. He said she would be wearing a red dress and that she was very pretty, but not stuck up or two-faced. That's you isn't it?" I lay it on and the parents mouth the words, "Thank you," and "Good job."

Source: [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/47/transcript](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/47/transcript)

<comment><USER48> I particularly liked Sedaris' rendition of 'Away in a Manger' sung straight from the heart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Kudos session during the Agile's Sprint Retrospective. Everyone suppose to show their appreciation to teammates of their choices for a mandatory pat on the back. I always feel being forced to do that is really awkward.

For one, if someone didn't get at least one pat on the back, it is very demoralizing for them. Also, there are a lot of teammates did not get a pat by the persons they think should be gratuitous would be a little resentful. I think it's one of the dumbest morale boosting activities.

</comment><comment><USER50> A certain startup I worked at, the CEO would give out... gift cards. Occasionally, usually after someone was severely overworked. And I'm pretty certain he got them for free/cheap in the first place.

Of course, the real red flag was starting at $10/hr 1099'd (almost definitely illegally) and being told it's more than most people start at. For software engineering. After a good interview. I was astounded and perplexed, but it was my first software job, I was a college dropout, and I was still living with my parents, so I took it anyways. But if I knew what I know now, just a few years later, I would've laughed in their faces. Oh well.

<comment><USER51> > the CEO would give out... gift cards. Occasionally, usually after someone > was severely overworked. And I'm pretty certain he got them for free/cheap > in the first place.

I've been there, and it wasn't even a startup. The company credit cards had 1% back, redeemable as gift cards. The owner/CEO insisted on paying as many vendors and contracts as possible via credit card to rack up the points. The stack of gift cards (for places he didn't like enough to keep the cards) became the de-facto office "perk me up", particularly after bouts of excessive overwork.

<comment><USER52> I don't mind gift cards. It's a bit tacky when you can tell they are Christmas leftover by the eGiftCard that is included with it expering back in Feburary, and it's June.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Considering how expensive staff are, I've never understood the culture surrounding penny pinching the stuff that would keep them happy/improve moral/improve retention.

Forget the moral arguments for a second, even in purely financial terms it would likely pay for itself in recruitment savings alone, let alone brain drain/efficiency, training costs, and so on.

Even a "cheap" employee in a white collar job, is likely costing $60K or more (inc. the employer's share of taxes, benefits, etc). 1% of that is only $600. But people won't pay even that towards bonuses/comfortable chairs/second monitors/"thank you" lunches/staff parties.

At some point it seems a lot less to do with what is rational/logical, and more to do with the power dynamics and people higher up the chain's apathy. Companies are actually hurting themselves for seemingly no good reason. It isn't even fiscally responsible.

<comment><USER53> I work in the US and since the Great Recession the swag that we used to get around the office (e.g. t-shirts, ice cream days) have really dried up. Spending on buildings, on the other hand, has increased rapidly.

Last year I went to a meeting in France that was held in a rather old building in Grenoble. It was a day long meeting so they brought in a boxed lunch for everyone. Shocking. There was some sushi, chicken in pasta, hot rolls, chocolate cake, and two small bottles of wine and water. It was fantastic.

I was slow on the uptake, but then it hit me, given a choice between spending money on people or things, they chose to spend it on people. Honestly, a total shock for me.

<comment><USER54> In high tax countries, you spend a lot on untaxed benefits for the employees.

In Silicon Valley I make 3 times as much (after tax) as I made in my high tax European country, but my work place life is crap in comparison.

<comment><USER55> Don't they have free food and a foosball/ping-pong table? Isn't that pretty much a staple? Or, is it the co-workers that suck?

<comment><USER54> In one of my European jobs we'd have quarterly "seminars", where we ostensibly studied something. But they were really quite costly parties at exotic locations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I once worked for a company that was on the verge of bankruptcy.

The owner (main shareholder) of the company decided that what the company needed was a new CEO to turn the ship around.

At the time, the company was so broke that we were getting less than the needed amount of office supplies. At the end of each month, basics were missing. So us, the employees, were bringing in our own toilet paper, coffee, cleaning materials, etc.

The new CEO came in at the end of the month when everything was missing. He felt were were 'gloomy'. So he went out and bought us all balloons and something else I forgot by now.

But the feeling of going to my desk to pick up toilet paper that I had to bring in while carrying a 'free balloon' with some 'motivating' words is something that I will carry forever. It was part of my motivation to spent 8 years self employed.

<comment><USER57> Isn't providing insufficient restroom facilities an OSHA violation?

<comment><USER56> It wasn't in the US. I'm sure it was a violation of some code in that country, but if the company is close to bankruptcy... you can't bleed a rock. The only way for the remaining employees to see what was owed to them was for the company to keep sputtering on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I once worked for a very high profile entertainment company. Every year, the CEO would give a "company gift" that was usually somewhat underwhelming. A blanket with the company logo. A workout bag with the company logo. An umbrella, with the company logo. Clearly someone was shopping out of the "stuff we can get our logo on" catalog. The year after I left a new CEO was hired (who, arguably had more experience in this particular industry) and they promptly said "oh hell no" to that practice, and gave everybody new iPhones and iPads. Dang.... figures it happen just after I left...

<comment><USER59> The CEO? butterfi

Sorry, couldn't resist :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I remember one young aspiring manager (now director at Google) destroying a new talented employee by completely disregarding their work (which was the main component of their brand new successful system and helped said manager to a promotion), then later requesting that very same employee to smile more and be as energetic/optimistic as when they first walked into the office. Beatings will continue until morale improves...

<comment><USER61> This is the what happens when you hire engineers with zero emotional intelligence and/or communication skills just because they can pass a Leetcode interview and then promote them to a leadership position later down the line. I've seen this happen way too many times.

<comment><USER28> he was talking about an aspiring manager and here you assume he passed a leetcode interview. ive never known an autism spectrum leetcoder type to tell someone to smile more.

<comment><USER60> He was a tech lead and got promoted to manager after the release of that new system, the core of which was written by the mistreated developer. I think it had to do with dark personality traits instead of autism/Asperger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Could have been worse. There was a time when corporations would literally pay to produce entire _broadway productions_ about their companies.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_musical](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_musical)

<comment> crooked-v The documentary Bathtubs Over Broadway suggests that those productions got positive reponses from employees, but that probably had to do with good production values (some of the shows cost more than actual Broadway runs) and it being an expenses-paid day trip for everybody.

<comment><USER62> That's actually where I learned about industrial musicals myself. I wanted to link a more direct explanation, however.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I spent 2 weeks basically carrying our team building a proof of concept for a $10 million contract, working 60+ hours a week, and got a $25 gift card for applebees.

<comment><USER28> Not sure if that is worse than a challenge coin. Maybe.

<comment><USER64> A lifetime chance at free drinks from military people (and hangers-on of military culture) vs a meal at Applebees.

On the one hand you have to spend time in the company of military folks. On the other hand you have to go to Applebees. Damn that's a hard one to call. I think I'd prefer the coin, at least it's shiny.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> My younger sister received an award for being a promising new grad or something in her first year at one of the Big 4 accounting companies. Her prize? A public ceremony where a senior manager handed her a copy of 50 Shades of Grey.......

<comment><USER66> ... had they _read_ the book? Or just heard it was popular?

I'm trying to mentally justify how this isn't the craziest, stupidest idea ever.

<comment><USER67> If I really stretched my imagination, maybe 'She's worked so hard and did so well for our company, maybe she deserves to take a nice vacation, here's the most popular book for women to symbolize that'.

<comment><USER68> You are putting a bit too much thought into the decision making. I figure someone walked into the book store and picked the book from the first bestseller display.

Never attribute to malice or ignorance what can adequately explained by lazy.

<comment><USER69> It is very common for abusive people to exploit this attitude and commit acts that are clearly over the line but have some barely plausible innocent explanation. Gaslighting the victim is, perhaps, another intentional part of the abuse.

You'd have to work pretty hard to convince me that gifting a young woman a sexually explicit novel is not malicious.

<comment><USER70> I didn't know 50 Shades of Grey was erotica until the movie trailers started hitting TV.

Most guys had no clue about the book other than thinking it was a straight forward romance book. I could make the same claims against other people about how they can't tell the difference between spam and real emails or ad results and real results. I know because I'm consistently around it and I HAVE to know. It takes a level of maturity to understand that everyone else doesn't know what you may know.

<comment><USER69> A "straight forward romance book" would still be inappropriate

<comment><USER70> Really? I gifted romance books before to women. Not publicly, since I've never been in a situation to do so. They've all been happy about it since I always get them something random that they would never pick. Or is it that people really don't gift books? I remember the original book cover to 50 Shades was like a tie or something. It actually looked like a "tasteful" book if you didn't know better. Literally, I would have picked that up for my mom in a similar situation, if she didn't own it already...

I'm really thinking you're pushing a bias on the situation. Someone did something potentially nice, but in a lazy ass way. Like getting flowers for someone who is allergic to flowers. The laziness really bit them in the ass. It'd be the same if I told someone I liked horror and they got me Twilight because they heard it was about vampires and werewolves.

That's a situation where you laugh your ass off about it and crack a joke.

<comment><USER71> Firstly you shouldn't reward significant work achievements with a cheap book. That's tone deaf no matter what the book is.

Secondly if you do pick a book, you can at least try to make it relevant to someone's actual professional competence - something useful, but not insultingly peppy.

Thirdly if you're going to do that, you can ask them what they want, in a way that indicates you value their competence and opinion.

Gifts and rewards are all about social signalling, hierarchies and statements of relative value. The messages are understood whether or not you're aware you're speaking that language.

If you get it wrong, it's not just demotivating for the person, it's demotivating for everyone else too.

And no, you don't have to be super-serious about it. Jokey gifts are fine, although riskier than something straight. If the culture can take it, they're a good choice. But you have to be very sure that _is_ the culture.

<comment><USER70> Whoa! You ask people what to get them as a gift? Do you also just tell them "Hey, I'm too important to remember your likes/dislikes and to make an effort to get you something that's at least somewhat meaningful." You realize a lot of people take that as a really bad insult right? Being asked what to get as a gift is just a "fuck you, I'm forced I get you something against my will". Why do you think when some people are asked that, they just say not to worry about it. That signals utter uselessness. Jesus, even my neighbors, who I barely know, got me Neil deGrasse Tyson's latest book for Christmas because they knew I like science. Seriously, like how heartless are you to just give advice to "Just ask what they want. Don't bother thinking about it. It's not important to think about that person on a human level and surprise them." Like, WOW. I just reread Man's Search for Meaning again last week, but your comment really just bothers the hell out of me. And you want to talk about cultural appropriate actions?

Now, check the op, it's "Most promising grad that's been there for a year." It's a borderline participation trophy. "Congrats, we didn't fire you." More than likely, senior management, who gave it to her, probably felt the same thing and thought making a big deal out of it was pointless. "At least get her something other than some stupid piece of paper". So the guy, who 99% likely didn't know her either, but did ask around what she likes and probably someone said "she likes to read". Maybe he even saw her read a book. Then he just either quickly ordered it off amazon if there was time for it to come in, or just walked into barnes and noble and saw the "New York Times Bestselling Book" table right at the door and picked it out. It is after all, someone he doesn't know. But at the same time thinks a stupid piece of paper and making a big deal about nothing is insulting to her as well. At least get her something of some minor tangible value.

The main point, most guys had no idea what the fuck the book was about the first year or two it came out. They just knew women liked the book and asked no more questions. It has a not racey cover on it. It's easy to think it's not too crazy judging by the cover.

Yea, profession book. Think about that one. "Congrats, we didn't fire you for a year, here's a book that'll teach you to do your job better." Talk about lacking empathy. At least getting a fiction book means, "Congrats, we didn't fire you, have fun with a book."

A gift that's demotivating is one of being generic. A gift that can apply to anyone. At least a book narrows you down to around a rough 30% demographic of a given population with written language. "Oh hey, I notice/heard you like to read. Since you've proved not to be useless to the company, here's a book people seem to like and I hope you enjoy it yourself."

I also highly doubt it was a joking gift. ESPECIALLY AT AN ACCOUNTING FIRM. You realize the HR nightmare and a half. Like, seriously. Because no one has ever fucked up by trying to do a simple nice gesture, ever, in human history. Everything is full of malice, hate and evil. Every single person. Must be if you think asking someone what they want as a gift is even remotely appropriate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> This reminds me of the story in Rivethead about Howie Makem, the Quality Cat at General Motors, a 5' 9" cat who would wander the shop floor encouraging quality.

One day the order came down that Howie Makem was not to appear in public without his head on. The working stiffs figured out the reason: otherwise, they might realise he wasn't actually a cat.

</comment><comment><USER73> At a company I worked at it was bonus time. Bonuses had been a point of contention forever as the company always bugled the metrics and despite a lot of talk bonuses were hard to account for.

So anyway they announce a "Christmas Bonus":

$50....

I mean I'll take $50 but it felt like such an empty gesture. Just a few years earlier I had gotten $150 bonus while working at a pizza joint. The HR person who sent out the survey that year did not like that factoid about the pizza joint that I provided on their benefits feedback survey.

<comment><USER74> Yeah, I got something similar to that. Make 6 figures and got a 200$ yearly bonus. I'd rather have no bonus. haha

<comment><USER29> Or when a team works 6 weekends in a row, give them 3 days extra off and make it sound generous.

<comment><USER75> I worked in a startup eng. org that worked everybody to the bone for several months with a dubious SOA overhaul. The prize was a cheap open bar. At least it looked like an open bar, privately reserved and such. We each got two raffle-style tickets to exchange for drinks, lest us peons get carried away. Three days off? That would've been amazing.

<comment><USER76> hahaha. "drink tickets" I don't honestly know if it's a cost thing so much as some trick HR has convinced people will limit their liability if something bad were to happen. Every time I see that done, it seems like there is a little black market for them the develops, some folks don't drink or leave the party early and people tend to accumulate more than their 2 or 3 tickets.

This company no longer exists but they routinely demanded 6 days a week effort as a matter of principle (if you put the hard work in up front, it pays dividends as the project goes on... and then they just add stuff near the end of the project) Some people left, morale was terrible, what did they do? The C-level staff that a) had limited culinary ability, and b) nobody really wanted to spend time with made a special dinner for everybody, it was quasi mandatory on a Friday night. The CEO even gave a speech about how they could have just taken us to a nice restaurant but it felt more personal and special for them to make and serve us dinner.

To make it even better, there were some vegans in the mix and they didn't have anything that they could eat.

<comment><USER73> >To make it even better, there were some vegans in the mix and they didn't have anything that they could eat.

I was on the reverse end of that. A small group of folks eventually became in charge of company morale type events... they only liked "different" things.

So there would be a presentation or event like thing and lunch. Except lunch would be these weird vegan-ish "pizzas" and other dishes catered out, but absolutely NO standard type lunch stuff. I don't mind odd stuff here and there but it was all very unusual and honestly sometimes gross (even the vegans on our team wouldn't eat it). Like at least have a few standard sandwiches.... At one point it became such an issue people stopped going to the events.

The saga went on and on with this group of folks "guarding" the door so people didn't leave early, events eventually became mandatory (people still did not go), etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> * got a $6 christmas bonus one year. (they did a percentage across that board, and i was working very little.)

* coupon for $10 off a turkey on more than one occasion

* enormous bowl of candy left out for everyone to get fat on. when employees complained that we didn't appreciate a constant supply of candy, CEO whined about how he was giving us "free food" and we were complaining.

* two different employers have decided that they needed to paint a bunch of fancy accent walls. they then get budget painters to put a single sloppy coat of cheap paint over the professionally painted office-wall-grey. ends up looking pitiful.

</comment><comment><USER78> Incidentally, this is also why philanthropy is not a substitute for a safety net.

</comment><comment><USER79> I read this thread with such a jaundiced eye; from blunt cluelessness to outright cruelty - _who_ is on the other side of these transactions? Surely these are humans who think about the things they (do to|inflict on) their underlings? Surely they are surrounded by other humans of moderate good sense who could see the harmful, if unintended consequence and talk them out of it? And yet, here we are.

My contribution: office Christmas party. One drink ticket. Spouse or significant other specifically, emphatically, disinvited.

</comment><comment><USER80> John Oliver did a segment explaining how Murray Coal gave people bonus checks as low as $3 for dodging safety policies to mine more coal, and said "they can void their checks if they don't want the bonuses". Some miners mailed the checks back voided with "Eat Shit Bob Murray" on them.

<comment><USER81> Murray is possibly one of the most infuriating contemporary figures I've ever learned about: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Murray](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Murray)

After one of his mines collapsed:

> The MSHA report heavily criticized Bob Murray's volatile behavior during the > crisis, especially at daily briefings for family members, where he > "frequently became very irate and would start yelling," even making young > children cry, it said. He told family members that "the media is telling you > lies" and "the union is your enemy."

[http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26050043/ns/us_news-life/t/year- af...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26050043/ns/us_news-life/t/year-after-mine- collapse-many-failures-clear/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> Well at least they tried. I'm in a Fortune 500 with no IC/TC promotion path that spams the entire company with promotion announcements that land like insults every week.

<comment><USER29> I see those all the time too well knowing that for me that for me any further promotion is close to impossible.

One thing that happened a few years ago was that I was on an improvement project that supposedly saved the company millions of dollars. At the end we won an award and i received an email talking about a big party at headquarters with great entertainment and good food where people could mingle with top management and the board of directors. It described what fantastic opportunity this would be. This went on for paragraphs.

Then the last paragraph said something like "by the way to save money we will send only the project lead and your management (who had nothing to do with the project) to the event but you will also get a nice plaque instead of the $500 or so gift card that used to be normal for this type of award. ". I still don't know how anyone could write this and not see how crazy it was.

Anyways this was a good reminder to look after myself and not be a "team player".

<comment><USER73> >Anyways this was a good reminder to look after myself and not be a "team player".

Well you can do both, just don't expect anyone to do the first part for you. Especially if that means moving on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> So, several years ago, I was working for SAIC on a government contract. This was shortly before the SAIC/Leidos split. Our head-honcho was an otherwise decent man, but SAIC HQ decided...something. I've no idea what they thought they were doing. What happened was that the daughter or niece of one of SAIC's original founders came in as the co-head-honcho. No one liked her, although no one particularly disliked her. No one knew what she did. She would show up at meetings, be irrelevant, and disappear again. The customers were very confused.

Shortly before Christmas, she and one of the administrative assistant types went around the office with a cart, giving out name plates. She had to ask who everyone was. Then she expressed how valuable you were and how you were doing a wonderful job. She eventually disappeared again, back to wherever she came from, very shortly before the SAIC/Leidos split.

I still have no idea what the hell was going on. And I worked at IBM for several years.

</comment><comment><USER84> When I bring home a new T shirt from work, my wife says, "Morale's bad again, huh"?

</comment><comment><USER10> One place handed out awards to half a dozen of us but the ceremony and the gift were not given at the same time.

We had to harangue them for 6 weeks before they gave us the damned thing and by that point the fact that we had to work for it a second time completely undermined the thoughtfulness of the original idea.

And earlier boss would come to us at 10 am on Friday and said we could leave early if we finished up early. The third time he did this we all shot daggers at him and there was no fourth time. Because every time he did this we ended up staying _late_ on Friday instead of leaving early. This is the same guy who argued my estimates for a project down by 50% and then the project took 3x as long as he told the customer (if you don't have time to do it right you have time to do it over). But that's a different story.

It's important not to offer an award that you are not 100% sure you can follow through on. It's way worse than nothing. It's Lucy and the fucking football.

</comment><comment><USER85> My dad worked Saturdays at a store related to his hobby, mostly for the employee discount. They did a holiday bonus as a percentage of yearly pay, and with his limited hours it came to something like $15.

It became a running joke until a year or two later when I had my first software development job. The holidays came around, and we all got a letter saying how vital we were to the organization's financial success this year, and to express their appreciation they included a copy of the year's final pay stub.

I had another job where I worked remotely, and they sent out employee recognition packages that were just office supplies with the company logo. The icing on top was that they had insufficient postage and I had to pay for a lousy pen.

</comment><comment><USER86> The worst morale boosting gesture I've ever experienced was the CEO telling an all-staff meeting that anyone that wasn't happy to work there could get $2000 for quitting on the spot.

<comment><USER87> How many people took it?

I'd probably take it on the spot. I mean, if morale is that bad already it's like you're getting a bonus for leaving. Might as well!

<comment><USER86> I don't think anyone did - it was ambiguous whether it would invalidate the notice period (4 weeks), which would have been a bit more than $2000. No-one was prepared to risk it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> Currently working at a place, taking a significantly lower pay, just for the morale around here. Last place I worked didn't even have free coffee, and it was a Fortune 100 company. I'll take the coffee and ability to put my feet up, thanks.

</comment><comment><USER89> The setting: a mandatory, in-person all-hands meeting at a medium-sized enterprise software company in SV.

The time: a few weeks before the winter holidays, mid-2000s.

What we expected: to hear about our company's IPO or beneficial acquisition.

What we got: orders to design and construct crazy! wacky!! zany!!! miniature golf obstacles in the office for the CxOs to play through.

I doubt the (unquantified) morale at this company improved.

</comment><comment><USER90> Custom made motivational posters, with elegantly typeset quotations and slogans. Part of the same great rebranding/reorganization initiative in which employees got company-branded mugs and pens.

</comment><comment><USER91> "Many years ago, when I was very young and you were even younger...Grinding through emails"

Dude you're still young!

<comment><USER92> My same thought... I understand email is "old" in terms of technology speed but man SMTP was just defined in 1982.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> One of my past employers gave us a "big Christmas bonus". It was a Twix Bar with a pen tied to the bar with a piece of holiday ribbon.

The pen didn't work.

</comment><comment><USER94> I got an XXL Berkshire Hathaway shirt. I'm a medium. Thanks

<comment><USER95> Did you even work for Berkshire Hathaway? Lie to me, and tell me you worked for Citibank: it makes the story even better.

<comment><USER96> They may have gotten a BH T-Shirt even though they worked for somebody else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> One job presented me with a Kindle after passing probation, it was still in the box so straight into eBay to get money for something I actually wanted. Same place rewarded a risky project we completed blazingly fast (the new VP, when reviewing it, said it looked good for three quarters of work and we had to correct him to say we'd started 3 months ago) with an Italian meal and a promotion for the lead dev. The rest of us were on pitiful salaries and all but one quit in the next three months.

Makes me appreciate the current role more, which has 4 office events a year, a kids Christmas party where the parent-provided presents are reimbursed, and a standard formula for a leaving drinks budget (roughly enough for one drink per employee per year of employment). People still talk about when a 5- and 7-year veteran both finished up in the same week.

</comment><comment><USER98> I used to work at a kinda old, small startup shop. The office had 'filtered' water dispenser. BUT the filters had not been replaced for awhile and one day I noticed the water tasted filthy.

The CEO's office was right next to the water dispenser spot. As I was walking through the hallway, I noticed cases of FIJI water bottles in his office. And no, it wasn't for us. It was ALL for him.

For those who don't know, FIJI water bottle costs about 5 - 6 times more than regular water bottles.

</comment><comment><USER99> Dont tech companies in china hire full time cheerleaders for their male programmers?

<comment><USER100> I heard they did that in Texas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> I worked at a company that handed out monthly "awards" to one member of every team, but it was clear that winners of these awards were picked out of a hat and everyone knew it. One guy on my team got an "outstanding excellence" award the week after getting chewed out by the CEO for not pulling his own weight(which was totally untrue).

</comment><comment><USER102> My manager gathered our team in a conference room to listen to the audio book of "Who moved my cheese". Which, if you're unfamiliar, is a lame allegory about how you shouldn't complain if you are fired or otherwise screwed over.

The oddest part is that the layoffs everyone expected never materialized.

</comment><comment><USER103> Got an email saying we were getting rewarded with pizza for lunch. My desk was near the door. I saw the pizza delivery guy bring in the stacks of pizzas and put them in the conference room. A group of supervisors came to supervise the pizza delivery. Supervisors wore casual attire. Then a man came who must have been their boss because he wore a button up short. Then a man with a shirt and tie. Then a man in a suit. Finally, a man in an expensive suit I recognized as the VP. Everyone assembled waited for him as he looked at the stacks of pizzas, said something, and nodded. The supervisors then put the boxes on carts and started to distribute them. I finally got my two slices of cold pizza over an hour after they were delivered. Felt so appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER104> I once worked at a large IT company. Several years ago, a high-ranking manager was off to Europe for some sport thing. The company had the biggest outage in its history, spanning several hours/days, and most of his team was working non-stop to handle customers and trying to fix issues. He decided to stay on vacation - his sport thing was too important to be canceled. Wait, the best part is yet to come.

Months later we were having one of these kick-offs. He stood up on stage, started his slideshow, and offered a few pictures of sunny places where he was having fun playing that sport. Most people in the room knew what they were doing while he was having fun. One of the worst examples of leadership I've witnessed.

That person was let go several months later.

</comment><comment><USER105> Ten euros worth of Amazon gift cards as birthday gift from the company.

That amount has a great way of signaling that the company is too cheap to do anything real, but too unsophisticated to realize they then should have just given a slice of cake or a birthday card.

</comment><comment><USER106> My first job, 8 months on relatively fresh to software dev. They announced we were going to have a pizza party the next day for all of our hard work this year. The next day come around and about an hour or two beforehand I see managers running, yes literally running, around the office and taking people aside. Turns out half the company was fired and there wasn't even pizza. They pretty much just said, we fired some people no big deal, back to work everyone.

</comment><comment><USER4> My company spent months building an internal, online reward site.

You got points for going to unpaid classes in addition to your normal work hours.

It had no backend validation and within 30 minutes I'd awarded myself some company sweatpants.

I got an email a day later asking what size I wanted, and out of fear, I replied that I didn't want them anymore and I never took another reward.

</comment><comment><USER60> Hard to beat this one:

[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formulaone/article-5871773...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formulaone/article-5871773/McLaren-F1-staff- revolt-25p-chocolate-bars-given-reward-hard-work.html)

</comment><comment><USER107> The comments here. Ouch. So far so good my side. For above avg a months pay and a extra day off

</comment><comment><USER104> Loved this comment on the article:

> My then manager once closed a team meeting with the words, (literally): > "Thank you, and whatever other motivational stuff l'm supposed to say".

</comment><comment><USER108> 5 dollar Target gift card bonuses, and then after launching a major app on time a real bonus with a 3 page legal memorandum attached telling me it was not.

</comment><comment><USER109> My last company cut everyone's quarterly bonuses and then handed out company branded fidget spinners.

</comment><comment><USER110> I worked for State Government. They made a big deal of going to a 'pay for performance' program...You'd be paid for excellent work...Nobody would lose any pay...this program had no funding.

Somebody was bad at math...or they thought we were bad at math. It did not improve morale.

</comment><comment><USER111> This level of bullshit has PWC written all over it.

</comment><comment><USER112> I worked for a company that was always handing out cheap tokens of their "appreciation" (we all knew they didn't appreciate the employees but I guess they figured pretending might reduce turnover). Sometimes it was a free pretzel or water ice, other times it was a Thank You email that sounded like it was written by some cheap marketing AI. You could also get a "Shout Out" in the monthly newsletter that nobody read, but only if you twisted your coworkers' arms enough to submit one. In the end, all their efforts only served as constant reminders of how little the executives actually appreciated everyone, which decreased morale and increased turnover.

There's something extra depressing about working for a company where the millionaire executives think workers can be placated with 25-cent junk food. I think that company is still limping along somehow, which is great because the new Glassdoor reviews are usually pretty amusing.

Also, if you want to see an example of morale boosting gone wrong the Healthineers song is pretty great: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5LiUrezV6k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5LiUrezV6k)

<comment><USER52> Here's my story:

A place I worked at one time had the vending machines removed. The owner's neice was overweight and died of cancer and had other health issues, so he didn't want any of the rest of us making poor deciisions and ending up like her

So they took the vending machines out. Great, now we need to go to the gas station a block down the road to get a candy bar, chips, or afternoon soda.

One particularly hot day, the sales team went out to the production floor/warehouse to hand out Powerade (generic gatorade) to the workers.

They brought the social media and marketing people with them to take photos and post the 'good deed ' online. We can only have a soft drink when they deem it necessary!

<comment><USER8> Was at a place that did something similar, but at least they replaced it with free (if crappy) coffee and giant bowls of fruit. I actually appreciated it, even if it was a touch "we want to pay lower Health insurance premiums" paternalistic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER113> Christmas 2010, HostGator gave everyone an e-cigarette or some other option but since we were mostly 20-somethings working there the vast majority chose the e-cigarette.

<comment><USER52> I bet the next week was glorious if everyone smoked them at their desks

<comment><USER113> It was, there are probably some videos of us double, or triple barreling them and blowing clouds everywhere. My throat still hurts thinking about that day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER114> These are times when I remember that in a hierarchy people at the top are so removed and deluded that they think their employees aren't full grown adults that see this bullshit for what it is. It is insulting actually.

</comment><comment><USER115> I worked for a "huge well-known bank" as a data center engineer. Unfortunately, they had converted all the FTE positions to contractor. As a contractor, you had as much job security as a slab of meat. All new contractor hires were given a copy of "Who Moved My Cheese" to read. In 32 years of working, I've never seen a place with a higher turnover rate. It was sad because the job itself was pretty nice, just nothing else about it was.

</comment><comment><USER116> This sounds kinda nice. Certainly better than a sandwich, or a lunch. You have to give it points for originality at least.</comment>


Kitty Marion: an actress who became a suffragette who planted bombs - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-44210012 <comment><USER2> _Riddell says that it was only the outbreak of World War One in 1914 that curbed the escalating militancy of the suffragettes._

This piece is interesting to me. I spent my childhood very uninterested in history because in school we basically memorized the names of politicians and the dates of starts of wars. There was nothing interesting presented to me.

Then I began to learn that wars impacted things like fashion and women's rights and freedoms and had substantial economic impact. I was hooked.

Many people don't realize it, but the long dresses and many underskirts that preceded the war stopped being the fashion precisely because we had this war. Women were asked to donate their many underskirts and excess material from long dresses to the war effort. They were also asked to donate their corsets, which were often made of metal, so munitions and the like could be made from them.

This is how we went dramatically from Victorian fashion -- with long dresses, long sleeves, many underskirts and crippling corsets -- to the Flapper Era of loose fitting mini dresses. This was hugely liberating in and of itself and improved the health of women. Women suffered terrible gastrointestinal issues from corsets and some of them had lower ribs removed in order to fit a smaller corset. It was horrible.

This is akin to if an Islamic country suddenly stopped requiring the veil in public. Women in conservative Islamic countries typically suffer vitamin D deficiencies because they can't go out in public without being covered head to toe. It has significant negative health consequences.

I was a military wife for a lot of years. The military is weirdly empowering of women in old fashioned roles. I was a homemaker, yet I routinely had a power of attorney and was expected to make decisions and handle family business in my husband's absence. War is often something that does good things for the status of women.

It saddens me to learn that women were engaging in terrorist activities to try to gain some freedom and this only ended because the entire world went to war. I would like to think we can find our way forward on such topics more peaceably, though I am currently so frustrated with certain things that I am having one of those moments where I kind of understand why some women would just lose their shit and start making bombs. Staying the course on a peaceable path sometimes seems mind-bogglingly hard.

<comment><USER3> > This is akin to if an Islamic country suddenly stopped requiring the veil in > public. Women in conservative Islamic countries typically suffer vitamin D > deficiencies because they can't go out in public without being covered head > to toe. It has significant negative health consequences.

Used to be Iran didn't require it [0].

One of the captions on that page ("to protect the achievements of women's right in the [preceding] 70 years of Iranian history") made me curious, so I did a quick search and found something interesting [1]. Apparently, the liberation they were defending in 1979 was actually forced upon them generations earlier.

[0] [https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/women-protesting- hijab-1979...](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/women-protesting-hijab-1979/)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashf- e_hijab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashf-e_hijab)

<comment><USER2> Thank you for those links.

I have read some pieces about Iran, including the memoirs _Reading Lolita in Tehran_ and _Persepolis._ From what I gather, when women leave an Islamic country and are free to wear western clothes in public, this is a big deal and the whole _feel of the sun on my skin_ is a thing they comment on to each other as some significant detail.

I can actually feel some sympathy for women objecting to the removal of the veil being forced upon them, but I'm not sure I can say anything constructive about that which has any hope of being appreciated by a mostly western audience.

<comment><USER4> Doesn't this show the hypocrisy of western civilization? The "history", that is mostly written by western historians is so much rife with lies and inconsistencies, I lost my respect to study of history and historians long time ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why is the word terrorist in quotes? That's exactly what she was. That word isn't just reserved for men who wear turbans.

<comment><USER6> Because the word terrorism has a universal condemning connotation. Given the tumultuous history of the US and its founding based on militant popular revolt, the history towards political violence has always been ambivalent.

So in cases like this were the militant struggle involved fighting for what we now consider a fundamental right rather than purely barbaric violence, people want to make a distinction from terrorism.

<comment><USER7> Aren't all terrorists fighting for something they hope will become a fundamental right rather than purely barbaric violence? If it was aimless violence, it would just be crime, not terrorism. Terrorism has a political goal.

<comment><USER8> Depends the original "terrorists" Rusian Nihilists for example had terror as the aim - more recently its targeted as random killing of kids turns off your supporters.

For example the IRA bombs in London where often targeted at economic targets ie look we can cost you so deal with us - ok they also had a go at the PM and almost succeeded a couple of times.

With ISIS its almost a return to the original roots though there is also an element of sectarian almost genocidal which is why targeting medics and children is ok for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sanitizing history like this has a very negative consequence. We are taught to believe that there is such a thing as bloodless revolution. And that makes it easy to dismiss movements like blacklivesmatter any time someone commits violence in the name of the movement. After all, if the suffragettes got justice without firing a shot, why can't everyone else?

<comment><USER10> Unfortunately, those in charge of writing history are very prone to sanitizing unappealing details. Take Helen Keller for example. We learn a lot of minor details of her history. But students never learn how she was a loud socialist. Information like that would be uncomfortable, inconvenient, or too challenging for those learning history.

> During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes > constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage > malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies > and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into > harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a > certain extent for the "consolation" of the oppressed classes and with the > object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the > revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and > vulgarizing it.

<comment><USER11> People are interested in HK because of the adversity she overcame, not because of her political viewpoints. I'm sure if she was a staunch libertarian, we would not hear much about those viewpoints either - because it isn't relevant to the interesting part of her life story.

<comment><USER10> To Keller the politics had a lot to do with blindness:

> I was appointed on a commission to investigate the conditions of the blind. > For the first time I, who had thought blindness a misfortune beyond human > control, found that too much of it was traceable to wrong industrial > conditions, often caused by the selfishness and greed of employers. And the > social evil contributed its share. I found that poverty drove women to a > life of shame that ended in blindness.

If we're only telling her story as an allegory and divorce her from her personal viewpoints, we might as well tell fables.

<comment><USER11> She was already nationally famous before she became a political activist. And the reason she was famous was because of the adversity she overcame as a child, not because she had pretty run of the mill viewpoints on socialism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In a totally divorced from morality sense violence has a purpose in making the current status quo less worth it to the powers that be. If they won't respond to decency they may to the costs imposed - even if it isn't the desired response. Violence isn't needed per say for this so long as damage can be inflicted by some means.

Boycotts and strikes can do so as well and are generally less backfire prone. Granted they require valuable resources in their control to do so. Meanwhile everyone has some capacity for violence and it becomes more tempting in response to violence received. In some cases it is the only option. Look at Haiti's bloody history. Their revolt was brutal but they had lived in a situation that was essentially a death camp - population of slaves was sustained by importation. Peace was never an option and there was no halfway. Once the revolt started it was either kill every oppressor or be purged and replaced by the next shipfull.

</comment><comment><USER13> See also:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Goldman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Goldman)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Perovskaya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Perovskaya)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_Markievicz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_Markievicz)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noe_It%C5%8D](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noe_It%C5%8D)

</comment><comment><USER14> For those interested in non violent movements/resistance, one of the greatest bodies of work can be found at the Einstein Institute:

[https://www.aeinstein.org/](https://www.aeinstein.org/)

Gene Sharp the longstanding founder passed away earlier this year.

Much of the content is free.

Another great resource is Canvas(with a lot of free ebook content):

[http://canvasopedia.org/publications/](http://canvasopedia.org/publications/)

The co-founder Srdja Popovic was an instructor of mine for the Harvard JFK School course he teaches.

He was a student leader in Serbia that helped to remove Milosevic from power with non-violent concepts such as "laughtivism".

The data on non violent movements for social change suggests that non-violent movements are twice as likely to be successful and more sustainable/resilient.

<comment><USER15> > The data on non violent movements for social change suggests that non- > violent movements are twice as likely to be successful

it makes intuitive sense as well. Someone who resorts to violence can be considered a public enemy and therefore engages in a zero sum game. Non violent protests usually consider that both sides need to talk and not fight.

<comment><USER2> As I see it, one of the problems with violent protest is hypocrisy. It takes the position that "I want you to treat me better because treating me so poorly is morally wrong, and I am willing to treat you terribly to get it."

SJWs have such a bad reputation because many of them clearly don't really want to end the current _Lord of the Flies_ pecking order that dictates some people get crapped on and some people do the crapping. They often clearly just want to change who plays those respective roles, often with an obvious eye towards taking revenge against the current "privileged" demographic.

If you aren't advocating that _no one_ should be crapped on, it's really hard to gain trust and it's really hard to convincingly claim the moral high ground.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > At that time I had a certain impression of suffragettes that many people > did.

I don't know about the impression anyone else had, but the impression _I_ had came from Disney and Mary Poppins: suffragettes were frivolous society women of well-to-do means who just wanted to find a cause for the drama and attention while neglecting their children and family.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvk1NZDFvZU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvk1NZDFvZU)

Riddell goes on to list the chaining, the force-feeding, and the window- smashing; I wasn't even aware of that. The whole suffragette movement for a long time looked to me like a bunch of women complaining for a long time until men, simply exasperated with the whining, decided to give in.

I had never even heard of "deeds, not words", nor about Emmeline Pankhurst, or Emily Davison. Nor was I aware that women had to put up with the exact same kind of mockery that they have to endure today:

[http://historyoffeminism.com/anti-suffragette-postcards- post...](http://historyoffeminism.com/anti-suffragette-postcards-posters- cartoons/)

[https://mashable.com/2016/09/03/anti-suffrage- propaganda/#d9...](https://mashable.com/2016/09/03/anti-suffrage- propaganda/#d9rNcd7jf5qC)

[http://mentalfloss.com/article/52207/12-cruel-anti- suffraget...](http://mentalfloss.com/article/52207/12-cruel-anti-suffragette- cartoons)</comment>


Ask HN: What is a simple tool for asking for emails from users - <AUTHOR> I just launched a very small public tool and I wanted to ask users if they want updates on future projects. What sort of tool could I use to achieve this?<p>I am aware of tools such as mailchimp but are there any very simple ones? (free of course) <comment><USER2> I use Sendy, it costs a license fee (one-off) and then AWS fees which amount to a few dollars a month for my 5k sub list.

Of course it means you need to setup Sendy. I was going to setup as Sendy as a Service business, but most of the money would be paying license costs for software I could easily build with enough time, so I canned the idea and focussed on other projects.

</comment><comment><USER3> That's my favorite: [https://www.getrevue.co/pricing](https://www.getrevue.co/pricing)

It's simplistic and doesn't have all the features that MailChimp offers, but it is way more intuitiv and cheaper once your audience scales.

</comment><comment><USER4> TinyLetter from mailchimp is free for up to 5000 subscribers, and very simple. [http://tinyletter.com/site/about/](http://tinyletter.com/site/about/)

</comment><comment><USER5> You could [https://getsimpleform.com/](https://getsimpleform.com/) which gives you an endpoint which will store the form submissions and send you a notification whenever someone submits. Full Disclaimer: I built it.

<comment><AUTHOR> cool ill check it out</comment></comment>