2009.02.25 Naïveté

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Today, about a week or two before we salaried employees normally get our annual "variable pay", our company president said that we wouldn't be getting any.

...it would have been naïve for any of us to think that there would be an award this year.

Clearly, then, I am naïve. But I'd like to defend that naïveté for a moment.

I did not expect the "variable pay" to be very large this year, being realistic. In fact, I cannot really say that I'm surprised at all that there is no bonus this year - it is what I would have done too. However, feeding my forlorn foolish hope that there would be some pittance was the fact that there has been absolutely no mention of killing it this year, whereas other compensation elements have been specifically addressed on multiple occasions. A little more notice might have been appreciated.

Moreover, this past year we have been pushing hard working on a big government-mandated non-optional project, and we are now pushing even harder to meet our target dates. A little tiny carrot would have seemed, I don't know, appropriate? Is that really so naïve? Especially in context of the management saying that all of us who are exempt from earning overtime money are expected to work overtime proportional to our standard "variable pay" rate. That's 20% for me, and it's been exceeded due to work load lately.

It should be pointed out that naïve little me actually really enjoys my job completely aside from the remuneration. So, the kick in the crotch of morale and motivation that I feel is probably worse for many others. Right at the onset of crunch time.