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Stingiest thing you've seen someone do Stingiest thing you've seen someone do

01-12-2011 , 02:50 AM
Zygi Wilf looks like the white version of Humpty Hump, with a less-normal nose.
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01-12-2011 , 02:55 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dids
Not so much stingy as dumb and slightly related.

My sister's boss
Funny, the bonus story triggered my mind, as well, about my sister's Christmas bonus.

Her supervisor passed out $100 cash bonuses on the last Friday before Christmas. "I'm not supposed to hand these out until Monday, but I figured you guys could use these for your Christmas shopping this weekend."

The following Monday, the supervisor, in obvious agony, told everyone, "Corporate decided that we spent too much on marketing this year, so they canceled those bonuses I gave you prematurely. Sorry, everybody, but I need that money, and the cards they came in, back."

(I know everyone's reaction is to tell the super to f*** himself, but he didn't cancel the bonus, and if you don't return it, you're putting him a tough spot, when his only crime was to be thoughtful and nice.)

EDIT TO ADD: Yup, she quit. She had wanted to for a while, and this tore it.
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01-12-2011 , 03:31 PM
^ Jesus that is mind-numbingly tilting in so many ways.

How the **** does "corporate" figure out they spent too much on marketing over the weekend? And after they greenlit the bonuses. Why the **** does supervisor hand them out early when explicitly told not to?

Did people actually bring the $100 back? What were some of the reactions?
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01-12-2011 , 03:54 PM
i once saw a guy eat a nettle
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01-12-2011 , 04:52 PM
The Christmas bonus stories have reminded me of my own related story.

Cliffs: Was expecting $8000 as a sales bonus. Was given $6400 instead when the owner decided that I had only worked 80% as hard as he expected me to work.

Longer version: About a dozen years ago I was working as a salesman for local chain of mattress stores. I was originally doing it to pay for College, but once I graduated I continued working there (because I had no idea what to do next with my life).

A few months after graduating, I was promoted to sales manager for 2 stores. I was given a quarterly sales quota to meet for both locations. There were decent bonuses for meeting the quota of each store, and an extra bonus if both stores met their quotas (something like 3% of the sales for each store + and an extra 2% of the total sales if both stores met their quotas). However, if I didn't meet the quota for either store, I'd receive absolutely no bonus.

Without the bonus, I would be making about $12 an hour. I also wasn't allowed to claim any overtime even though it was expected that I'd be working plenty of extra hours. I was expected to put in about 45 hours a week paid time, and then work another 10 - 15 hours of unpaid time (mostly staying late and coming in early to get paperwork done). I was also not paid for breakfast meetings with the owners, of which there was one every Monday morning.

Anyway, I absolutely worked my ass off for the first two months of the quarter. I made huge changes to our product lineup and layout of our stores, completely changed the advertising and promotions, re-trained sales staff, etc...etc...etc... I worked a ridiculous number of hours that month, but never claimed overtime.

By the end of the 2nd month of the quarter, I had already met the sales goals for both stores. We'd broken the sales records for both stores both months. I was also feeling pretty burned out. I took a weekend off to go camping, and didn't work as much overtime that month. I probably went from working 70 hours a week the first two months to working around 50 hours a week the third month. The stores still ended up meeting their monthly sales targets for the third month, mostly thanks to the work I'd put in for the first two months.

Once the quarter was over and the final sales numbers were in, I was expecting a bonus of about $8000. I was pretty happy about this and was motivated to go back to working crazy hours to make the next bonus.

I receive my paycheque and it contains absolutely no bonus money. Instead there was a note attached to my paycheque stating that we would "discuss the bonus at our Monday morning breakfast meeting next week". As this was Friday, I didn't really want to wait that long so I tried to talk to the owners about it earlier, but they refused to talk about it until Monday.

I worried about the bonus all weekend but couldn't imagine what they could possibly want to discuss with me on Monday that would affect my bonus money. I barely slept on Sunday night before the meeting on Monday.

I arrive at the meeting on Monday and am informed that while the owners were impressed with the effort that I put in the first two months of the quarter, they felt that I had slacked off in the last month of the quarter once I had hit my sales goals. They were disappointed with my lack of effort in the previous month, and didn't feel that I deserved the total bonus.

By their math, they felt that I was owed 80% of the bonus, because I had only worked 80% as hard as they had expected me to. They then handed me a cheque for $1600 less than I had been expecting.

They also informed me that they had discussed my bonus structure, and had decided that it was much too generous. They would be cutting it by a percentage point for the upcoming quarter. They also expected me to give 100% effort for all three months of the quarter, or my bonus would be reduced again.

I felt like I had gotten hit by a truck. I tried arguing with them for the $1600 that I felt that I was owed, but it was no use. They looked at me with blank stares and rolled their eyes when I plead my case. They finally told me that my choice was to "take it or leave it", so I took the $6400.

A few days later, I gave them notice that I'd be quitting at the end of the month and going back to school. They had the nerve to act surprised and angry that I would be leaving right before the busy summer months. They couldn't understand why I wouldn't work for them for the summer if school was only starting September.
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01-12-2011 , 05:11 PM
Hopey if you had a contract with them why didn't you take them to small claims court?
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01-12-2011 , 05:29 PM
the christmas bonuses triggered two for me as well:

-my first boss out of college regifted me some manishevitz or some **** as a christmas bonus

-another boss gave each employee a hand-held pepper mill as a christmas bonus. we designed and facilitated the construction of 4+million dollar homes.
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01-12-2011 , 05:37 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by AJW
Hopey if you had a contract with them why didn't you take them to small claims court?
I definitely should have gone to the Labour Board at the very least.

The "contract" was a hand-written piece of paper that one of the owners drew up and went over with me at the meeting where I was given my promotion. It wasn't really a contract, more an outline of our bonus structure. Nobody that worked there had real employment contracts.

I was young (24 years old) and wasn't smart enough to cover my ass. I didn't expect them to screw me like they did -- I had worked for them for 5 years before, during, and after I went to school. I expected them to live up to their side of the bargain and not to look for a way to weasel out of paying me what they owed me. Lesson learned.

If such a thing were to happen to me today, my reaction would have definitely been much different.
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01-12-2011 , 05:42 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by 27offsuit
the christmas bonuses triggered two for me as well:

-my first boss out of college regifted me some manishevitz or some **** as a christmas bonus

-another boss gave each employee a hand-held pepper mill as a christmas bonus. we designed and facilitated the construction of 4+million dollar homes.
Did they present these things as "bonuses" or as "Christmas gifts"?

I think what a lot of people in this thread are presenting as bonuses were really Christmas gifts from the owners of the company. The owners gave out no bonuses (or only gave them to certain people), and didn't intend the gifts to be seen as being given in place of cash bonuses.

It's stingy regardless, obviously.
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01-13-2011 , 12:17 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by prohornblower
^ Jesus that is mind-numbingly tilting in so many ways.

How the **** does "corporate" figure out they spent too much on marketing over the weekend? And after they greenlit the bonuses. Why the **** does supervisor hand them out early when explicitly told not to?

Did people actually bring the $100 back? What were some of the reactions?
Supervisor was doing his people a favor by handing them out early. Nobody faults the supervisor.

Everyone spent that money over the weekend, but nobody wanted the supervisor to get in trouble/owe over this, especially as he was only guilty of doing something nice, so they all shipped the $100 back.
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01-13-2011 , 12:49 AM
I have worked in a lot of different industries and I have never received a bonus. Are they that common, or are they only big in certain industries?
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01-13-2011 , 01:02 AM
Think its fairly standard to have some sort of yearly bonus. I even received one at my first job after 7 months (started early June, received bonus end of year).
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01-13-2011 , 01:42 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by youtalkfunny
Supervisor was doing his people a favor by handing them out early. Nobody faults the supervisor.

Everyone spent that money over the weekend, but nobody wanted the supervisor to get in trouble/owe over this, especially as he was only guilty of doing something nice, so they all shipped the $100 back.
Some favor. Was this the type of industry where $100 makes Christmas shopping significantly easier? I'll guess that it wasn't. So he probably should have listened to his order and not released them until Monday. He certainly is partially at fault here. "Nice" and "stupid" aren't mutually exclusive.
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01-14-2011 , 10:30 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by ohead
I also reuse my tebeags but I drink very weak tea. Although im not so ******ed that I actually throw them away in between these cups...
LOL WEAK TEA!!! Give me a raise ****er!
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01-14-2011 , 11:32 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hoskomatic
LOL WEAK TEA!!! Give me a raise ****er!
Is this a reference I should get or is somebody just tragically unfunny?
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01-14-2011 , 11:38 AM
There was a guy that used to come in the grocery store I worked at and would get a carton of small eggs and a carton of xlarge eggs, switch the eggs, and buy the small egg carton.
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01-14-2011 , 12:01 PM
Looool
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01-14-2011 , 03:41 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by biggerboat
There was a guy that used to come in the grocery store I worked at and would get a carton of small eggs and a carton of xlarge eggs, switch the eggs, and buy the small egg carton.
fantastic
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01-14-2011 , 06:20 PM
Marketing company had given out a hundo in Christmas bonus to every employee for many consecutive years. But one year, the year I joined the company, they put a stop to the monetary bonus. Instead the vice president gave a sentimental gift to everyone - a marketing book called the Purple Cow.

Yes, the Christmas gift was a ****ing book on how to make the company more ****ing money. It went directly into the trash and I started playing lhe on company time. I would end up going pro 6 months later with a nice nestegg of 10k. In conclusion, ty Purple Cow, ty.
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01-14-2011 , 09:53 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by biggerboat
There was a guy that used to come in the grocery store I worked at and would get a carton of small eggs and a carton of xlarge eggs, switch the eggs, and buy the small egg carton.
I'm about 99% sure if I saw someone doing this I would crack an egg on their head.
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01-15-2011 , 03:36 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ra_Z_Boy
I am not sure if this counts, but several people I knew used to bring half bottles of vodka into expensive bars or clubs and just mix it into their drinks. I thought that was pretty cheap but they were students. Girls especially did this but could be more blatant about it. A bottle of 'evian' in the purse. Yeah thats smirnoff.
Me and my friends would go to a nice bar with a smoking area and take a few of the empty plastic cups designated for the smokers. We'd take them down to the corner shop and fill them with the nastiest and cheapest cider and then rejoin the smoking area with our drinks!

We'd also sometimes nab peoples drinks when they go for a smoke. Not proud of that at all!

Sometimes when I'm broke and need headache tablets or whatever, I open a packet up in the shop and put the contents into another packet and then purchase the packet I'd filled with the extra tablets. Pretty pathetic, but whatever.

Worst of all, my brother in law when he was a teenager would buy those big bottles of cider from the supermarket. They'd take it to the park and drink it all. They'd then fill the empty bottle with their piss, take it back to the shop and inform the clerk that the cider has gone off and they want a new bottle.
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01-15-2011 , 03:41 AM
tomato,

most of those things are just being a thief, not being stingy
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01-15-2011 , 03:49 AM
obv you haven't read the read Josem (it's mostly that)
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01-15-2011 , 04:03 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Josem
tomato,

most of those things are just being a thief, not being stingy
being a thief is stingy, ducy?

In the first example we were quintessentially stingy, we didn't steal anything (except the worthless plastic cups).
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01-15-2011 , 04:05 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dids
Is this a reference I should get or is somebody just tragically unfunny?
Kind of odd that he brought that all the way back from six months ago, although this post had me in stitches at the time too:

Quote:
Originally Posted by RunDownHouse
"HAHA! Weak tea! Pay me more, right now, mother****er!"

Is that how it went?
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