Company cancels bonuses-I get a Payday Loan instead of a bonus?

I get a Payday Loan instead of a bonus?

No Bonus?

What kind of deal is this? I worked flat out the whole year! Not fair! From the first day in January, 2008, until the very last day of December 2008, I worked at 100 percent capacity. I stayed late. I took work home. I came in on weekends, I narrowly avoided the divorce courts over attending an office do instead of dinner with friends, I nailed the Jenkins file and I closed the Humphrey project. I did every little thing that was expected of me and more. I am the ultimate employee, the best departmental manager, the top dog in the upper management strata.

My question

I have a simple question. It is February 2009, the second month after the closing of 2008. Gentlemen of the board, where is my bonus? Did I fail somewhere? Did I displease you? I worked for that bonus because exactly 12 months ago, in February of 2008, you rewarded me for a less successful year with a bonus that allowed my wife, three children and me to spend 3 weeks skiing in Colorado. The previous year, it was a 10 day Caribbean cruise and the year prior to that it was a visit to New Orleans.

My answer

Gentlemen. What I have come to regard as the bonus date has come and gone without an envelope and without an announcement. I understand that there will be no bonus this year. I cannot disappoint my family – they will take it as a sign of failure on my part, not yours, so I have applied for a Payday Loan in order to take my wife and kids camping for a weekend at a campsite near home. Please consider this as my two week’s notice.  I will find a new company to work for.

Your reasoning

I understand your reasoning for passing on the bonuses this year. The world is in a financial crunch. All the companies in this building passed on bonuses and as far as I can see all the businesses on the block and in the city passed as well.

My reasoning

With great respect, I reckon you’re wrong. By all accounts, this is going to be the year that separates the men from the boys, the year where a 100 percent working capacity will get you fired. This is going to be the year when we will have to work at 200 percent capacity just to keep our jobs. I think you should have shown us the reward for last year notwithstanding, let us see the carrot out there on the stick, tease us with a promise of good things.

I think your customers and potential customers would be impressed by a show of ‘we are immune to financial disaster’. Don’t send us on a cruise liner to the Caribbean. Hire the whole cruise liner for the company and its customers. Put us all in the same boat, so to speak. If we are going to sink, let it happen a couple of months earlier.

I rest my case

I enjoyed working last year and I am looking forward to another enjoyable year at my new company. It will be that much more enjoyable knowing that there is a reward waiting. In the meantime, I’m off to collect my Payday Loan for this year and packing my family’s camping gear.