Why were you hired?
And did you really earn that bonus?

Several years ago, I did a pretty good stretch in corporate America. I worked as a Field Service Engineer in the medical diagnostics industry. I did primarily, repair and maintenance on laboratory and critical care equipment. I was one of the relatively few working for the company who did not have to move to take the job. I was hired to service the machines in the Knoxville area, which included about a rough two hundred mile radius, routinely and, to back up engineers in other areas as necessary.

After a few years on the job, at one of our national meetings, we were informed of some changes in the bonus program. First off, they changed the name from a bonus program to an incentive program. I was instantly offended. I told them so. I mentioned that I worked in the area that I, my family and, my friends lived in. They/we were the customers or potential customers of the hospitals and doctors offices that I serviced. If I had a vehicular incident or some surprise health incident, I could well be diagnosed using results from the machines that I worked on and those people thought that I needed incentive to do the job that I was hired to do? The program paid off initially if you met stated goals and got better if you exceeded them. Those stated goals were in part, response times, first visit fixes, maintenance on schedule, and percentage of up time. Knowing that I could be the patient was plenty of incentive for me to strive towards those goals. After all, I was hired to do those things, I was hired to keep those machines working and producing accurate and reliable results. Apparently, I’m a dinosaur.

I have no understanding of how the executives at companies that have failed or, are in dire need of being bailed out, can actually hold their heads up and take and spend their bonuses. I have no understanding of just what they are being bonused for especially, those at the top. What do Directors on those company’s boards think their jobs are? Ok, I’m a poor kid from East Knoxville so there is a chance that this is all above my head so, I’m asking for help here. Someone explain some things to me.

Does the CEO and top executive staff at a given company have no responsibility for the profitable operation of the company within the limitations of such regulations as may apply? Is that not the primary job for which they were hired? If so, and if they fail miserably and spectacularly at their job, why do they deserve/get a bonus? Given the fact that policies instituted today may require tens of months to completely know their effect, should executives get a bonus on leaving a company or should the board wait for three years or so to award or deny the bonus?

In all honesty, I’m not confused at all, nor do I think this issue is at all over my head. What I think is that as a nation we have lost our way. It is capitalism when value for value or, value for money are exchanged. It is fraud when it is value for deceit or deceit for money. If those gentlefolk had no intention of ever running those companies profitably within the regulatory structure, they committed fraud in taking compensation for doing so. They should be prosecuted. If they had the intent to profitably operate the company but were unable to do so, they were incompetent for the job and certainly do not deserve any bonus. This simply isn’t a difficult concept but, it is an abomination of alleged American values

Of course, it also isn’t a major issue. If the pay of all those executives over the last five years was confiscated, it would be but a drop in the bucket for what is needed to fix all of this lunacy. It is sort of like the thief who last broke into my car. He got a GPS unit and about $7 in quarters. I imagine that he sold the GPS for $50 or less so let’s round it up to $60 for the evening that he made. In making it, he broke out a window, broke the windshield, dented some sheet metal and cost me a couple or three hours of work. All told his $60 came at a cost to me of $1500 - $2000. Pretty much the same thing with the CEO pay. As a nation, we are paying with $700 billion in tax money, Gawd only knows how much in lost retirement funds, more lost jobs than I care to estimate, lost time and more, for the privilege of them fraudulently getting rich. Unless that is what they really were hired for, you should be a lot angrier.