Morale is something I find fascinating, because half the normal boosters don’t work on me even though I expect them to while the other half do work even though expect them to fail [0].

Gifts like this are a good example: $1k is objectively small compared to annual salary, but it feels like a lot, so it is great to get given it.

[0] I don’t work for FB, but I had a similar effect with the ~£60 “birthday” gifts at my first post-uni employer: small number, big morale impact. Conversely, the carnival and fireworks they arranged to celebrate a certain threshold made me feel less connected to everyone else at that place.

The more I think about it, I’m wondering if I’m normal and it was all just anchoring bias because of details I don’t want to repeat in public…

Don’t forget the additional bonuses that will come in Q3 due to all employees receiving “exceeds” on their 6 month review

This is the real big one. I'm not at Facebook (but I am at a similar company), and I expect to be getting meets in biannual review process. If I instead got exceeds that would be a huge boon to me. It'd mean a bigger bonus and a bigger stock refresher, and would easily be worth tens of thousands of dollars in the first year alone (plus the remaining three years of the refresher).

Boom -> boon?

Also moral --> morale.