The "douchebaggery" is making stuff up and calling it "douchebaggery." You assumed the bonus here was cash and they want the cash back. There are many kinds of bonuses. For example, I once got $30k in prepaid visa gift cards, which expire in a year and can't be used for some things because they don't support 3DS.

In this case, the bonus is a large loan at the start of employment, which is forgiven if you are still employed in 2 years. The industry took a downturn, people got laid off and were not employed for 2 years, and now they have to pay back the loan they took out. The person in question here got an almost 2 year interest free loan for 100k. That is the minimal bonus, and quite nice. The max bonus (if he was able to keep his employment) would have been a 2 year interest free loan, and $100k cash at the end of that. If there are 22 people, and they cut all but the 7 top performers because now there's only work for 7, the way to get the maximum bonus is to be one of those top performers, which this guy was not.

I really don't understand the need of people to make stuff up that sounds really bad, and attack their made up stuff for being bad. Their press release stated a basic common fact. What is it that you are complaining about sarcastically? That the bonus given was not big enough? How big of a bonus is enough for you to give to a guy who feels victimized and unfairly treated by the world that he can't sell his house for $3mil instead of the (much lesser) amount for which he purchased it years ago?

I would argue that offering your employees a massive loan that you might forgive but it depends if they like you, is incredibly predatory. Terrifying in fact. I guess less bad that giving $100k in cash and asking for it back out of nowhere. But only because it's in the contract.

Wait, so the fact that banks offer loans to people, which they don't have to take is predatory then? The 0% APR for 2 years offers I get in the mail are predatory? This indeed must be terrifying for you, since those terrifying zero-interest offers of credit are in every store you go to, every bank you go to, and omg even in your own mailbox.

So again just to be clear what you're saying. A loan with interest is ok. A loan with zero interest where you might get a chance to have it forgiven if you are a top performer at work, is "incredibly predatory and terrifying?"

And by the way, for a guy selling his house for $3mil, having to give back $100k that he knew he might have to give back, after using it free for almost 2 years, is not "a massive loan." My wife and I spent $80k on refugee aid last year, and I don't have a $3mil house. It was an unplanned expense, but it changed our other spending or lifestyle in zero ways. It just means last year we didn't save as much for retirement as the year before.

Why? It's literally free money. Stick it into an low risk investment account or even a money market account, give it back at the end and keep the interest.

People should be held accountable for their own stupidity, and it's not like the company did anything deceptive AFAIU. If an adult doesn't understand what a loan is then that's on them (or their education, but that doesn't absolve their responsibility).

Calling something a "bonus" when it's actually a loan is indeed douchebaggery.

If the company touted "free food", but somewhere deep in the fine print it said that the company has the right to retroactively charge you $500 per meal if they decide they don't like you two years down the road, that would also be douchebaggery.

Just because something is legal doesn't make it not-douchebaggery.

Yes, the interest-free loan with possibility of it becoming a grant is a bonus. At a job, a bonus is an extra benefit outside of base compensationn.

But that's not what you're arguing here, is it. Since there is no actual argument you can make here, you're making up added details that make you right, then attacking those made up details.

"but somewhere deep in the fine print" - there is Zero chance the bonus recipient had no idea that this loan is only forgiven is he keeps his employment. Zero.

"If the company touted "free food" - and again with the making stuff up. There was no free food. In your example, the company offered you $500 in cash to use as you please, said you'll have to pay it back if you get fired within two years, and you said thanks and took the money. Then you got fired.

Douchebaggery is making stuff up about a scenario because you have no actual argument in the scenario presented. Watch a lot of newsmax by chance?

Not even the Mafia is so unethical as to describe a predatory loan as a "bonus".

ah yes, a predatory loan is a a loan where you pay no interest, have a chance to have it forgiven, and at worst just return the original amount almost 2 years later, gaining the inflation amount.

so any bonus that is not just cash in your pocket is not a bonus? what is the correct word for a really good freebie that a company gives you? you know, a great minimum reward, a possible much bigger reward if you are one of the top performers, so you have an incentive to perform.

Let's say you pay $5 for a lottery ticket, where you're guaranteed to win $5 but can win $100. Is it predatory and unethical to you if you don't win the $100?

There is a thing that we all by convention understand: additional compensation. It is frequently tied to performance. Once given and cleared into a bank account it cannot be taken back.

We call this a bonus.

A loan, which must be paid back might be called a squirrel on mars but here on earth we don’t call it a bonus.

A “benefit”? Maybe. Health insurance may retroactively renege on their promised coverage. 401ks are frequently embezzled. When these things happen it’s usually a pitiful, or illegal act worthy of derision. Like a predatory loan.

You know what, I don’t think this is a benefit either. Let’s just call it a squirrel.

>There is a thing that we all by convention understand

yes, and by we all you are including people who don't deal with sales bonuses, presales bonuses, or sign-on bonuses. the takeaway here is if you don't understand something, don't start talking like an expert and correcting people about it.

what do you call the most common type of sign-on bonus - stock options that you lose if you don't work there for a couple of years? is that a "benefit?"

Benefits come with the job. A one-time benefit based on some criteria is called a bonus. Yes, a chunk of cash is also a bonus. A Cash bonus. This was not a cash bonus. It was the most common type of sign-on bonus that exists - one that is only fully realized if you stay with the company for a certain time. And you're free to not take it. But you can't take it and complain it's somehow a scam.

repeat after me - loans at 0% that you may even get forgiven after 2 years, are not predatory. they are The best loan you are able to ever get - the opposite of predatory. and someone giving you the ability to take this great type of loan, for the event of signing on, is giving you a bonus. Put that 100k in a 5% HSA for 2 years, give it back, and you just got 10k in cash. Predatory loan. You people will twist and turn reality just to double-down.

After reading this thread, you have got to be trying real hard to wash this in your head.

They give people a massive chunk of money as a """bonus""" and then shitcan them right before the 2 year mark so they can get the money back, call it a loan in the paperwork to make this arrangement legally enforceable. You think this is an honest, perfectly reasonable arrangement? Do you hear yourself?

Yes, a company sign-on bonus being dependent on staying with the company for a set time, is not only a reasonable arrangement - it is the most common type of sign-on bonus. Any 2-year interest-free loan is a great loan, and you can turn that into about 10-20k just by putting it into a treasury bond or an HSA. Have you ever, in your life, received a sign-on bonus?

They call it a loan, because it is a loan. Just like PPP was called a loan, and forgiven on a predefined condition.

I hear myself fine. I hear myself observing some people who I believe have not had a professional job in sales or presales, never had a sign-on bonus, never received stock options, and are calling a great thing bad, and being outraged on behalf of some rich asshole playing victim. I hear myself laughing at some people who have no clue about the subject matter, but like to create fake anger and outrage online, so they could feel superior by painting "evil" all around them to avoid dealing with the actual reason for their own failings - themselves.

Does that answer your question?

Yeah you are talking to a lot of people who are not salesmen by trade; this is an engineer heavy community. Many of the people here have received stock options, it's part of the status quo with regard to engineering compensation. They do it differently though, you get vested after a time and then you get your compensation.

This bonus you're talking about, it isn't free money like you frame it, you're framing it simultaneously as "free money" and a loan so as to avoid addressing what is actually going on here. It's a way to get people with money problems stuck in servitude and willing to eat any shit you want them to just to avoid the debt they'll incur if they don't. And that's predatory, but that's not the end of it. They then get laid off and still owe the money back. I'm not surprised you're avoiding mentioning these facts about the case we are discussing.

How is you getting $100k for 2 years, putting it into a 5% APY high yield savings account, then returning it in 2 years and pocketing $10k, "stuck in servitude."

>people with money problems

yes yes, a bunch of you "not salesmen by trade" engineers here, who came over from the teenage antiwork subreddit, are on this thread making up fake facts about this case, and calling a guy with a $3mil house "people with money problems." As someone who spent half of my career as a presales engineer designing and rolling out data storage networks, I fully understand your point, and your reasoning. You want to be angry at someone instead of yourself, so you'll make up victims and double-down on your stance till it kills you.

They owe money back, because they were given an interest free loan. They got laid off, because when the market shrinks, it's not the responsibility of a company to keep paying you for doing nothing. I have mentioned "these facts" fifty times already in this thread. But I would not expect you to change the way you look at them no matter what anyone says. It's similar to a guy I saw while working at a hospital a while ago, the summer when everyone I know got a vaccine. He was cough-screaming that covid was a big pharma hoax as they put him on the ventilator. He never woke up, but he did die thinking he was right. Reality didn't care what he thought, reality just is.

I don’t call it douchebaggery for anything that I’ve made up. They fired people right before the forgiveness date so the bonuses wouldn’t become effectively cash bonuses. That’s douchebaggery.

This isn't a $100k loan. The employee received a fraction of the $100k (due to taxes and tax withholding), but now may need to borrow money to cover their debt.

Let's face it - you made all of that up.

If the down votes you received don't tell you that you're wrong, maybe this will:

https://www.crowe.com/insights/crowe-financial-services-tax-...

If it was me, I'd have to pay an accountant to help me too.