Bonus Probs

So, I'm fairly upset these days. Why? Well, it's salary and bonus time again. The most frustrating time of the year hands down. No matter how much you might think, "oh, look, I'm giving my employees a bump and a bonus, they'll be so happy" and BOOM, nothing but complaints.

That being said, there are problems with the process. The process is supposed to be: (1) I meet with my directors, (2) I get their input on their employees, who's done well that year, who hasn't, etc. (3) I do my best to meet the departmental budget and overages have to be explained then (4) I get final approval from my boss on the increases and bonuses before the managers tell their teams. 

Sadly, that's not the way it always works. In fact, it hasn't worked that way for 4 years. What happens instead is that we get to step (4) and the whole thing gets blown up. 

My boss looks at it and says, "no that won't do! We need to change this and that, and I spoke to this person once and they come off as very smart so we need to give them more, and you have everyone across the board way to high, etc etc." 

So then I go back to my team and tell them that their input wasn't good enough. They look at me and say, "why the fuck did you ask me for input if you weren't going to listen to me?"

Guess what? I don't know. My boss isn't listening to my input either. 

The worst part, I think I'm one of the few who have these challenges. I came in 13K over my budget on my original spreadsheet workup. One of my colleagues, her original worksheet was 190K over. 

My final worksheet was 10K over. Her final worksheet? 100K over. 

But that's not the only reason I'm pissed. You'll have to wait for the next post for that tidbit.