Comments on: Searching for Perks

By: Jill

Jill — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 10:57:32 +0000

The most stressful job I ever had was a collector at a collection agency – one of the best perks was if you were lucky enough to be offered a headset, so that you didn’t get a neckcramp from holding the phone receiver while you typed all day. No one offered me one.
Every morning we had a meeting where we had to state a target of how much we were going to collect that day. At the end of the month you had to meet your monthly target or you could be fired, but if you exceeded your monthly target you would get a percentage based bonus on top of your salary.
Not enough people were hitting their targets so management tried to motivate us by having a sales contest/raffle. They would say the next person to get a debter to come make a payment to the office gets a raffle ticket, and the person with the highest collection total at the end of the day will get a raffle ticket, etc. Management bought a gas barbeque and a little boombox and other gadget prizes and had them set out in the office to inspire us to work harder. Even the tracers (whose job it is to find the debtors who have moved and keep them on the phone so we can talk to them) had their own contests. The plan was that at the end of the month, those of us who had tickets could put them in a draw for the prizes. For two months in a row, at the end of the month were told that there was not going to be a draw because the entire office collection totals did not warrent it. Then, apparently all the prizes were returned, or the manager took them home for himself because we never saw them again.

Once I got larangitus for almost a week, so I was told that I could take a week unpaid sick leave since I was of no use as a collector. Being unable to afford the loss in pay, I begged to be given some other work. My boss said that since I was a nice girl, he would make an exception and let me work organizing the old files in the file room. No one had been in there for years and I had to spend a day cleaning and removing dirt and dead bugs before I could even get to the files.

By: Mark Z.

Mark Z. — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 00:59:06 +0000

I work for an engineering corp in California, doing the grunt work at the test site for the most part. Good people and despite the age gap I can interact very well with my boss since I found out he surfed more regularly than me (he is notorious for leaving early Wed to get his weekly surf in).

One of the best perks was when my boss had to meet with another company and asked me to sit in with him. The company was literally a block away from one of the best longboard surf spots in CA. My boss and I took our wetsuits and boards and headed out surfing after the meeting. The meeting ended at 3, but my boss let me put down 5 as my clock out time. So I got paid to surf for 2 hours. Best perk ever!

By: Lee

Lee — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 00:49:29 +0000

While working for a bank (currently owned by Wachovia) in highschool I was told I would receive the following benefits, in two years, after I became fully vested:
* full college reimbursement, regardless of major
* health and dental insurance
* free bank account with “free” overdraft protection
* And thirty minutes a day for break

Two weeks before I became fully vested, however, policy changed to where:
* college reimbursement was only available for accounting, business management or computer programming majors
* a brand new, and innefectual, HMO
* bank account perk did not change
* and I had to take my breaks in increments of 10 minutes rather than in a lump

basically I worked two years to have the company fail to honor their agreement.

The worst perk I ever actually got was with a newspaper company where the insurance was a preferred physician program (there was only one doctor listed in my state as accepting it and he was 3 hours away). The program covered over the counter medications such as Advil, but only paid %20 on prescriptions.

By: Diesel

Diesel — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:09:39 +0000

I once worked at a radio station that was so cheap, instead of giving us Christmas bonuses, they gave us each a gift…leftover prizes that listeners didn’t pick up. The prizes were dusty old gift baskets, gift certificates to restaurants that expired within a few days and t-shirts with promotional things printed on them.

By: Blake

Blake — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:15:51 +0000

My job has a lot of awesome perks. Free coffee, we can listen to opur own mp3 players or CDs on the clock, and free movies and all sorts. My last job, though..

I sold life insurance! Boring! We got a $20 voucher for every sale where the monthly premium was $46 or over (that’s a third of our plans), and a scaling bonus for any sales that add up to a yearly premium of $3000 or more. Seems alright to me! One guy reportedly made $8000 a month for three months, not including gift vouchers. Except one small thing: It was all ‘Subject To Approval.’ So, at the end of four months, I was told “.. Sorry. We decided to discontinue it. But GREAT effort!”

In addition, we had $4 per week taken out of our wage for the Social Club. Which never did anything.

By: Stew

Stew — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 17:46:21 +0000

I work for a company that said times were bad. For a few years they gave 2% to 2.5% average raises. Bosses had to divide 2% amongst good and bad employees. Phenomenal workers would get 2.67%, average workers 1.8% and fair workers 1.2% and bad workers 0%. I guess it didn’t pay to work very hard.

Not only that, but each job title had an associated grade that had a salary range (minimum and maximum). After a few years we got the notification of 2% average raises. They also gave us the new minimum and maximums for each range. The minimums and maximums all went up by over 5%. When we asked why they said, because the minimums are too low to hire anyone, and for certain jobs the maximums are not high enough to hire anyone. We all figured out what they really meant was anyone who worked here for any amount of time was an idiot and only was worth 2% more than last year, but if you came from outside you were worth at least 5% more than the people hired the previous year. (I don’t think HR ever figured this out).

Both policies as you can imagine were highly demotivating.

-Stew

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 16:11:41 +0000

Each of these perks is so great/depressing. I hope it’s as cathartic as it is entertaining. Thanks for sharing, and keep them coming!

By: Roman

Roman — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:31:50 +0000

For a Christmas bonus one year at a private shool, the made a “fair” formula of taking the extra cash on hand, and the prorated everyone based on salary and years of service. As a minimum wage employee with one year experience I got a check for 71 cents. The next year they just didn’t bother.

By: Barry

Barry — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:05:41 +0000

I once had to go in for minor surgery at 10:00. Our work day started at 8:00. I was told I could take the day off sick but, “is there any reason why you can’t come in before the surgery”?

By: Jane

Jane — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 01:44:39 +0000

I once had a job that was so thoroughly perk-free that when I started a new job, the fact that the new company bought employees boxes of tissues for our desks almost brought a tear to my eye.