Trippin' Through Time

Giving a solid and consistent 60% is better even for the company. A burnt out employee is an unproductive and unreliable employee, and good managers realize that.

The fun part is my job is seriously considering only paying "working hours" as an if you are not "actively working" you don't get paid, seems insane but look around.

I work from home putting together bids for construction projects that our project managers want to work on. I'll usually get a project to handle every week or so, but it usually only takes me a couple days of dedicated work to finish one, so I usually just pretend to work until the final few days before a project is due.

Last week we got an emergency project that the project manager forgot to send to us for takeoff, due in only 2 days. I clocked a bunch of OT that I didn't actually need since I could finish the project up at my normal pace anyway, and my boss loves me for finishing it so quickly. Working hard every day would just make that timeframe the norm, and take away any of the appreciation for the work I do.

And when the store smashes the target the manager gets a nice bonus, and the employees who actually did anything can be happy with a free pizza slice.

We've got one colleague who likes to calculate those things. They changed overtime rules a bit. When they asked him to do some work early in the morning for reaching the targets, he refused. When the boss asked for details he sent an excel sheet with all the overtime company and tax rules in it. It turns out you only earn $5 net for coming in at work at o-dark-hundred.

Of course that sheet spread rapidly and management is now very surprised they can't find anybody to come in early.

You didn't get bonus for "smashing" those target?

same

and when I stopped being appreciated, I stopped putting in the extra effort

Pics or it didn't happen

You are lucky to have employers that care. Nothing I do gets me any sort of boost, and I've been repeatedly praised and recognized by the top people at the company.

Every time raises come along, everyone in the department gets the exact same percent boost (average of 1-2% at best).

The "top people" get plenty of boosts, though, I'm sure.

Really depends on situation. In my line of work, some activities are expected but not rewarded. They are part of my tasks, but nobody cares about how well i perform them. So, well, I’ll invest minimal effort in getting them done at minimal quality. Other elements are praised and well considered for promotions and such, you bet I devoted both time and effort in completing them at the best of my ability.

That hasn’t been true for me.

One of the worst experiences I had was when I became the number one seller in the office. I finally asked for a promotion, filled out a résumé, went into the office to speak with the boss.

“You are just too valuable as a salesperson. I understand that it can be frustrating, but when you’re doing 40% better than the best person under you, that is where you are most valuable.” If it had been 20%, they would have asked me to manage and, “duplicate myself.”

It is crazy how I finally had to get what I wanted. I tested them. I didn’t show up to work for a week. I figured if they fired me, I’d just go find another job. That isn’t what happened, when I walked through the door, “oh thank god. We’re having a terrible week, we need you to come in here and work your magic. I was scared you quit bro.” I said, “oh I was going to, it really doesn’t make sense to stay at a place where you can’t grow in any direction and get anything better than a 10 cent raise every 6 months.”

After that, I was able to work three days in sales, two days in sales verification, two dollar raise.

I also got paid an additional four dollars an hour to train people, but only when I was training.

I also got to be a back up manager, where I also made four extra dollars on the hour when I was needed. It wasn’t constant, but it was always rad when it happened. I was also allowed 4 hours of overtime and they ignored the fact that I didn’t clock out for lunch.

I should have stayed in sales, but it really does drive you into the dirt eventually.

That company went out of business in 2009. They also did fundraising and I guess the owners were stealing money.