I am curious.
What’s considered an “appropriate” Christmas bonus for a full time worker with six years under their belt with a company? Someone who’s roughly middle- to lower-management, no paid overtime.
And on that note, what’s the best Christmas bonus you ever got? The worst?
(My best was a thousand dollars when I was a sub-contractor. My boss so rocked. 
)
We get nuthin’. Not one red cent. And I work for a major, multimillion-dollar company, too.
There is no “appropriate” bonus.
Many companies don’t give them. If your company gives Chrismas bonuses, accept and be happy with whatever it is - money, ham, gift certificate, etc.
If you mean a bonus based on the company’s performance, it should be clearly written down.
If you mean a bonus based on your personal work, it will depend on what you did.
Ok, lemme elaborate a bit without risking my ass being fired.
I work for a billion dollar company. They’re currently in a promotion giving away over a half-million dollars to a few dozen winners. A few weeks ago, they told my division, “Be ready for your special Christmas suprise, it’s coming soon!” We waited and waited, and then gave up.
Some of us (not all) finally got it today–it’s a $10 gift certificate to a store almost none of us have any interest in shopping at (but which is a business partner with our parent company). An online store, which means it might cover shipping.
Now, I’m sure the sentiment is there and all, but I have to wonder–is this NORMAL?
And reading Ogre’s thread about his secret santa made me wonder… “Hmm. I wonder what the worst bonus anyone has ever gotten is–an expired ham, used socks, a single Kleenex?”
And I had to include best bonus, because frankly there’s some employers out there–especially small ones–who really go the extra mile and deserve some kudos. :>
-A friend of mine, who works her butt off got 2500 bucks this Christmas.
-I didn’t get a cash one, but we have a free party (2400 employees) with open bar and free dinner and a turkey so I am not complaining.
Whats a Christmas bonus? no such thing around here.
I worked for a car dealership. The bonus there was ten dollars for every year you worked. My second-to-last Christmas I got $40 and a turkey.
My last Christmas, it was decided that the first two years I worked there didn’t count, since I was part time then. So I got $30 and a five-dollar discount on a ham at Safeway.
Now, I do not disagree with starfish’s observation that a bonus is just that: something additional that should be neither expected nor demanded.
But consider this: I was a nine-dollar an hour employee who two months previous had taken over all of the recordkeeping and service duties of a departing 100K a year manager–easily two thirds of the job’s paperwork, and I was still washing cars. I was putting in ten hour days, six days a week. My promised raise had not materialized after sixty days, nor had a new manager. I had politely made my superiors aware of the situation, and received much lip service and no action. Then came my bonus check.
That ten dollar dock was one of the greatest slights of my professional career. It was completely demoralizing, and it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. From that day forward, I devoted myself not to my job, but to finding my way out of my job. I cut my hours back to the standard forty. The new manager was a playboy who wouldn’t do even his own paperwork, let alone that which had devolved to me. It didn’t get done.
Weeks after I left, there were phone messages on my answering machine from distraught employees–some former superiors–asking how to do this or that, or where something was. I told them that was a managerial question and I would be happy to assist them for an equivalent consultant’s fee, or $200 an hour. That got a lot of laughs, until folks realized I wasn’t kidding.
I might still be there today were it not for that bonus check. How could I not interpret such an action as a direct message to me that I was small, insignificant, and unappreciated? I still feel my response was entirely justified.
Well, I thought my Xmas bonus was a bogus bonus until I read these tales of woe.
I got a check for a mind bogglint $56! Compared to you chumps, my company showed me the love.
Then again, a friend of mine got a check for ~970 bucks, and my brother got his check for ~1700 bones on the 20th. My cousin, who works at his dad’s bank, got a mind-blowing ~6,000!
<homer>
Holy Macaroni!
</homer>
So I don’t know. Maybe I’m working for the wrong company. But I now know that even as it could be better, it also could be worse.
Pardon me while I have a good cry. That much money at once would go a looooong way to pulling me out of debt. Sheesh. I got squat. Jack.
But…but…you got a machete. 
Well Shit- The least they coulda given you is a jelly of the Month Club membership!
that’s the gift that keeps on Giving!!
but seriously, I work for a newspaper that has the largest Coverage area for it’s size in the US, and we don’t get shit except an X-mas party which is always fun-so I have nothing to complain about either.
Touche, you bastard!
I’d rather have the cash!
The company I worked for before moving to CA was by far the best I had ever been at as far as bonuses.
The standard being a check, usually equal to 2 weeks pay, although one I received was slightly higher.
An awesome Christmas party with Complimentary hotel rooms for all employees and their guests (it was a hotel group corporate office, with one of the hotels they owned in the same town).
Various little gifts like cookies and candy tins and such. A gift certificate in lieu of a turkey, etc. for $25.00 to Giant Food Stores (actually 2 I think, one for Thanksgiving, one for Christmas.
These were just some of the bonuses, these guys really knew how to keep employees happy, with bi-monthly employee of the month awards(plaques and $250, and Up-front parking until the next winner), a great Company picnic every summer with door prizes and gifts for all the kids, decorating contests during the holidays with cash prizes, pizza parties at the end of year close, just to name a few. Sometimes it was a little corny, but in the end it really was great fun.
And I will just agree with the previous posts, a bonus is just that, a bonus. There really is no ‘average’. Be thankful for anything above and beyond your regular pay, is my point of view.
I can’t remember what I get, so it must not be too much. Guess I’ll find out at pay day next Wednesday.
My tightwad last employer gave us 50 bucks – and then took taxes out. They couldn’t figure it so your net pay was 50 bucks. Oh, no. So instead, you got like $35.28.
I once worked summers at a factory to earn money for college. The lifers there used to complain that all they got at Christmastime was a ham. They derisively referred to it as their “holiday boneless,” which I thought was funny.
Well this year and last I did not receive any Christmas bonus although right now we have 5 huge tins of popcorn circling the floor sent directly from corprate. Yippee!
The only time I received a x-mas bonus was a pet store I worked in throughout the whole holiday, 12 hour shifts. I got 50 bucks, then was fired two days later because they wanted someone who was college educated to work there instead of a 16 year old. It was cool that I got a bonus anyways.
My father usually gets 2 weeks pay of a holiday bonus. This year he got a new job on Dec. 1 so he didn’t get one obviously. But next year I’m sure he will. The only place he got shafted was his last employer gave him an engraved pocket utilitly knife and a holiday party.
I received $2000 last year for “Outstanding Performance”.
This year, due to poor performance resulting from battling depression all year, I received $0.
Last year, many of my co-workers and I got bonuses of ~$23,000. It was a happy-bo-bappy day.
Then, the e-mail came out the next day that the bonuses were in error, and that the entire amount would be removed from our accounts within the next 24 hours.
Fuck them. Hard. Assholes.
Without a doubt, the best bonus I ever got was when I worked as an admin assistant in Glen Ellyn, IL. I hadn’t even worked there a year, (start date - March 1) and I got a $3,000 bonus. Mind you, I was the LOWEST on the totem pole of 14 employees, so just image what the head honchos got. In addition, we had a catered Christmas party at the owners house and our SPOUSES got a visit from Santa, who then gave them beautiful coasters with the company logo and a $50 bill.
::sigh::
I can’t wait to move back to Illinois and get my old job back.
This year I got $500. Still not too shabby.
2 weeks pay is pretty standard. I got my first-ever Xmas bonus this year, even though I’ve been with the company for only 6 months.
Best bonus ever? Three years ago I got a $45,000 “retention bonus” from the company I was working for at the time. Basically, they said to me “We know you’re looking for another job and we know you’re grossly underpaid, so we wanted to give you this so you will stay for another 6 months.” I would have bought a car or something cool like that, but I had almost exactly $45K in debt - student loans and credit card debt accumulated from college. Felt good to pay it off, but it’s not the same as going to a Chevy dealership and paying for a Corvette in cash.
<minor hijack>
BTW, when you finish paying off your student loan with Sallie Mae, a rep gives you a congratulatory phone call. I screamed “FUCK YOU!!!” as loud as I could into the phone and hung up.
</minor hijack>
One of the best bonuses I ever received was not even in the same quantum level as my biggest. It was Christmas 1985 and I’d been working for this oil company for five years. They had previously done bonuses of (once) a month of salary, and the rest of the years I’d been there, a half-month of salary.
That year they announced there would be no bonuses. We’d already been through a couple of rounds of layoffs (one was 50% of exploration) and the industry was tankin’ (little did we know what sheer terror awaited in early '86). So, nobody was surprised at the lack of bonuses.
My boss, the exploration V.P., called me to his office and told me the manager of geophysics and he had scraped together a bonus for me, and handed me an envelope with $500 cash inside. As I say, not the biggest I’ve ever received, but, in light of circumstances, its effect on me was the antithesis of the experience Sofa King related. That V.P. was lost his job a month later.
Years later, when we were both independent, we worked together on several projects.