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“What Twenty Years Is Worth To My Company”: 30 Of The Most Insulting Work Bonuses (New Pics)
Interview With Expert
Imagine receiving an average annual bonus of $456.7 million… one can only dream. But that’s what Elon Musk reportedly rakes in every year, on top of his other earnings as the big boss of Tesla Inc. According to data, the average bonus for American workers in 2024 was around $2,503. But not everyone was that lucky.
People have been sharing the most ridiculous company bonuses, gifts and perks, and some are so strange they’re insulting: a rock, an empty tin, a handful of sweets. These are just a few of the random rewards that employees were expected to be grateful for.
We've compiled a list of some of the most mind-boggling corporate offerings that people received in return for their hard work and loyalty. Bored Panda also reached out to customer service and experience (CX) expert, best-selling author and keynote speaker Shep Hyken for tips on how not to fail at the corporate gifting game.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Here’s A New One. If Our Store Makes The Most Sales Competitively We Earn A Pizza Party Not For Ourselves But For Our Bosses
RELATED:
#2
Little "Gift" My Wife Got One Year
Empty gift bag from work.
#3
Company Gave Employees Cookies To Celebrate $10 Billion In Profits
Give the workers an extra day of PTO a year, or a raise, or working technology? Nah, how about COOKIES???
#4
Happy Nurses’ Week
#5
This Will Cover My Rising Rent
#6
Employee Appreciation Day
Our local Walmart decided to show their appreciation for the hard work working employees who tirelessly work themselves to ensure that the shelves are stocked for customers.
#7
Congrats On 35 Years For The Company! Here Is 12 Donuts
It’s kinda sad honestly after 35 years they think 12 donuts is good enough.
#8
What My School Gave Its Teachers For Teacher Appreciation Week
#9
My Wife’s Teacher Appreciation Gift From The Administrators Who Have Let Everyone Know All Year They Do Not Appreciate Them At All
#10
Getting This As A Teacher Is Degrading. If You Want To Show Us Appreciation, Then Pay Us!
#11
10 Year Symbol: Represents Durability And Flexibility. My Wife Got This From Work, She's Been There 19 Years. They Gave This And A Bunch Of Other Random Stuff
#12
For Christmas 2019, My Boss Gifted Us With 1 Work From Home Day In 2020
#13
After A Year Nurse Shortages, Running Out Of PPE, Working Employees To The Bone Without Hazard Pay, This Is The Meal My Wife’s Hospital Had The Audacity To Serve For Nurse’s Appreciation Week
#14
The Bring Your Own Potato Bar Hosted By My School For Teacher Appreciation
#15
These Are Trying Times With High Inflation, Better Bust The Sticker Budget
#16
The Warehouse I Work At Was #1 In The Company For The 1st Quarter, Management Promised A Huge Reward, This Was It
The GM of the warehouse kept going on and on about how glad he was that we hit #1 because he'd be getting a bonus check "just in time for the warmer weather." Also a few suits from corporate came in to "personally and individually thank each of us" and needless to say they neither talked to nor thanked nobody.
#17
2 Billion In Gross Profit
#18
I Work At A Prison That Is Terribly Short Staffed, 12 Hour Overtime Shifts Are Mandated, And We've Just Been Informed That We Won't Be Getting A Yearly Raise For Cost Of Living/Inflation. This Is Our "Mental Health Awareness Month" Gift
#19
Pathetic
#20
My Friend Got A “Gift” From Work. Chappy New Year
#21
This Snow Reminded Me Of That Time When My Employer Asked Us To Work In -40 Weather. Our Reward? A Hat
The hat reads "40 Below Survivor 2019" which sucks for a couple of reasons. 1. People literally could not make it in, and I had a number of factors that allowed me to do so and 2. It wasn't at our facility, but another employee of the company actually died in the snow. Your job doesn't care about you. Stay warm and stay safe.
#22
Our Work Christmas Bonus. Can't Wait To Pay My Bills With This
#23
No Money Reward, No Time Off, Just Meaningless Things
#24
Genuinely Ready To Quit! This Was My Bonus For Making The Company $85,000 In February
They gave me rainbow earphones because I'm part of the LGBT community. The earphones cost $2 on Amazon and didn't work. This is a Fortune 50 company. I make gross $45,000 a year.
#25
A Competing Company Is Offering Us 20 Percent More To Work For Them. Management's Response
April Pickett 1 year ago (edited)
Unless they've been there 25-30 years to get their retirement, I would imagine this company will have a lot of vacant positions. Without resignation letters. Also, their department head can't spell, which would have made me more resentful.
#26
My Girlfriend's Boss Handed This To Her In Her Office Saying, "These Are Being Handed Out From The Company." I'm Not Sure If This Is A Christmas Gift. What Do You All Think?
#27
My Company Has Given Each Employee 1-2 Bottles Of Expired Hand Sanitizer For "Employee Appreciation Day" 3 Years In A Row. Guess They Had Some Left Over From The Lockdowns
My husband works in HAZMAT. He's 100% sure it's because bulk disposal of 70% iso is too expensive, so they'd rather disperse it to staff and make us get rid of it for them.
It smells horrible and I almost never use hand sanitizer when soap and water is available.
#28
Last Week Boss Overhears Us Complaining About No Raises, This Week Everyone Get Cookies
#29
After 10 Years At Her Job She Got A Pay Rate Increase, I Don’t Know What We’re Are Going To Do With All This Extra Cash
#30
My "Bonus" A $5 Dunkin Gift Card
Miracle Max 1 year ago
I gave $20 gift cards out of my own pocket to my people at Christmas. Starbucks, caribou coffee, whatever they usually eat/drink. And I knew them well enough to know what they used!
#31
CFO Sent Me A Thank You Gift
Backstory: I've been doing the workload of 2 people for almost 2 years now, they just fired someone from my team and my manager has gone on stress leave and long service leave so I've been covering for both of them for the last 5-6 weeks too.
The company CFO, who I report to, lives in a different state. Last month I had to do our end of month procedures by myself for the first time (which usually involves 4 people) and had to be done on a strict timeline. I worked my guts out to do it, and afterwards I had 973 emails of my own to action that I had ignored to finish end of month. I was overwhelmed and told the CFO and CEO that I was taking a day off because my workload is too high and I needed to mental break to reset.
The CFO has been making a big deal for the last 3 weeks to the exec team and other managers in my office about how she's organized a nice gift for me to say thank you for the hard work I've put in. The last week she mentioned it to me directly and has been asking me to hunt it down because she couldn't understand how it still hadn't gotten there and didn't want it to get lost etc...
Today it turned up and it was literally 2 packets of Peppa Pig lollies. I have never laughed so hard, yet been so offended at the same time.
How would you take this? Should I say something?
#32
Today Is Teacher Appreciation Day. Our Principal Told Us She Left “Surprise Treats” In The Lounge As Our Gift. My Favorite Is The Leftover Snack From Her Southwest Flight
#33
After Working 3 Positions And Managing 20 Employees, Here’s My Work Christmas Gift
#34
What My Hospital Gave An 8 Person Ir Department For Employee Appreciation Day. 1 Kitkat Bar
#35
"Gift" From The School My Girlfriend Got For Teacher’s Appreciation Week
#36
Love How I Get This After Spending 5 Years At A Job
#37
This So What We Got After “Breaking Records” For The Company
#38
Received This Today 5/9/19 For “Employee Appreciation Week”
#39
This Gift From Administration For Teachers Appreciation Week. It Was A Bunch Of Tiny Trinkets Wrapped In Tissue Paper
#40
We Bust Out A** In The Heat All Day In Auto Detail And Touch Every Car That Leaves Our Dealership (Hyundai) So We Sell A Decent Amount A Day. This Was Our Reward For It
#41
Lmfao Have A Snack
I barely made my mortgage, I'm a caregiver for a parent with medical bills piling up. I've been asking, applying, and almost begging to do anything in this org that will give me a raise to take care of responsibilities - I got a Welch's fruit snack.
#42
First Day Of Teacher Appreciation Week. This Was Our Gift Bag Given To Us By Administration
#43
I See Your Fancy Lindor Treats And Raise You The 6 Individually Wrapped Lifesavers I Received From Work
#44
Spencer’s Gifts Sending Literal Bricks To Employees As A “Thank You”
April Pickett 1 year ago
When they gave me a 4"x4" plaque for outstanding service in my job (cashier), I stood in front of my assistant store manager and dumped it in the trash. They should do the same with this or maybe drop it on their foot.
#45
A Gift From Work... To Motivate, Validate Our Efforts. They Ordered 100's
#46
My Company's "Appreciation Gift" For Breaking Company Q2 And 1h Records
#47
FedEx Showed Its Appreciation For Its Essential Employees With This. Thanks, FedEx
#48
Instead Of A Christmas Bonus This Year My Work Gave Out Gift Cards To The Company "Swag Store", Where You Can Buy Luxury Items Such As
#49
It Was Teacher Appreciation Week And They Said Dinner Would Be Provided
#50
Check Out My Christmas Bonus After Making My Company $1 Million In The Last 2 Months Alone. $25 Card
#51
Girlfriend Has Worked For The Company Over A Year. Here Was How They Rewarded Her
#52
Store Managers Get A $100,000+ Bonus, Employees Get
#53
Bonus? Nope! Raise? Nope
But thank you master for my non-delux chicken sandwich, provided because labor inspectors are here.
#54
Hit Our Yearly Target A Month Early And Got This Instead Of A Pizza Party
robert copher 1 year ago
I'd take this over most of the c**p in this list. Still not great. :(
#55
This Is What A Got As A Gift From My Company For Successfully Going Live With A Client With 2m€ Contract, Seems Pretty Fair
#56
Hours Majorly Cut, Asking Tms To Go Home Early, Retracting Shifts, Requesting Tms To Go On Demand. This Goes Up In The Breakroom. Read The Room??
#57
My Partner's "Employee Appreciation Gift" After Wawa Has Refused To Give Any Pay Raises For Two Years
#58
4 Of My Coworkers Quit Last Week, So Corporate Handed Out Gift Bags. Corporate Clearly Thinks We're Kindergarteners
#59
Saw This In The Breakroom Today
#60
To Show Appreciation To Employees
#61
This Was Our Only Gift For “Employee Appreciation Month”
#62
This Is What I Got For Working 1 Year At My Job. They Spelt My Last Name Wrong. Pathetic
April Pickett 1 year ago
They changed their "gift' again. When I started they would give you a round patch for doing a good job. If you got 10 there would be an extra $50 in your next check. They went to the 4"x4" little plaques (fired that CEO with mega bucks "retirement" money), and now they give you candy bars. I'm impressed by how they've gone downhill since I worked there.
#63
We Were Promised Candy Bars Today For Teacher Appreciation Week
For context, the empty bowls were from the small bags of Sun Chips from yesterday.
#64
The "Gift" Received For Teacher Appreciation Week
#65
The Gift I Got From Work For "National Thank You Day." I Feel Truly Insulted
#66
We Made A Ton Of Money For The Company I Work At, And A $2 Hot Pocket Is Our Reward. “Yay”
#67
My Multi-Million Dollar Health Care Company Said They Were Getting Us A Present For Being Essential Workers. We Got A Baggie Of Masks
#68
What Twenty Years Is Worth To My Company
Heir of Durin 1 year ago
An extra four days of PTO isn’t too bad. They’re headed in the right direction at least.
#69
My Job Just Gave Me A Pin Celebrating 5 Years Of Me Working There. When The Company I'm Working At Was Sold And I'm Being Laid Off In A Few Months Because The Company That Bought Us Out Doesn't Want To Pay My Current Wages
#70
To Show Employee Appreciation During The Holidays
#71
My Employee Appreciation Gift
The Chronic Insomniac 1 year ago
Here's an old expired, melted together bag of what used to be a somewhat yummy snack! You're welcome!
#72
I’ve Been At This Job For 2 Years And Have Been Working Nonstop Since The Pandemic Started. They Mentioned Gifting Us Something As An Appreciation For All Our Hard Work During These Chaotic Times. Here’s What They Gave Us
#73
Everyone In My Department Received One Of These From Our Boss. What Is The Point Of This? The Best Part Is She Hand Signed Every Single One. There’s Like 50 People In My Department
#74
Employee Appreciation Day At The 3rd Biggest Automotive Supplier, Free Tea Or Coffee
#75
This Employee Appreciation "Gift" My Husband Received. Four Candies, A Pen, And A Sticker, In This Useless Mesh Bag. Wtf?
#76
Found This In Our Break Room This Morning. “Instead Of A Raise Or Bonus, We’ll Give You Fake Money With The Managers Face On It”
#77
My Spouse's Christmas Bonus From Panera
#78
Merry Christmas! It Was A Record Profit Year So Here Are Some Baked Beans And Potatoes You Can Bake To Celebrate. Thank You For Your Efforts
#79
I Feel So Valued
Here ya go - my “bonus” from one of my jobs this year at a grocery store: homemade Chex mix. Yup.
Because nothing says “I value you” like a baggie of cereal and pretzels.
#80
My Wife’s Salary Is Made Out Of Commissions And Instead Of Getting Cash Payment For A Product She Sold Her Company Gave Her Hkd 6k ($766) In Vouchers To Spend In A “Japanese” Supermarket
This supermarket isn’t even located in our area and we will have to carry the groceries from far away with public transport or cab.
PS: in Hong Kong we don’t drive as most of locals.
#81
I Present To You, My Reward For Covering 2 Vacant Positions In My Department While Management Has Been “Looking” For Replacements. One Has Been Vacant For Almost 12 Months, And The Other For 7
#82
What 5 Years At My Company Gets You
Due to doxing concerns, I can't show the inside but it's just a single line of text that said happy anniversary from (company location).
robert copher 1 year ago
a card for 5 years!? Yikes I remember when 5 years was a pen set, 10 was a party and nice gift, 15 was a party and a nicer gift
#83
My Moms 10 Year Associate Anniversary Present From A Retail Store
#85
My Girlfriend’s Nurse Appreciation Gift From One Of The Largest Hospitals In The Metroplex…
#86
I'm Back With Another "Employee Appreciation Day" Gift From My Work!
Michael Largey 1 year ago
Think positive? Yeah, there must be a better place to work out there.
#87
Co-Worker Won This Cup And Bag, As A Gift In A Raffle, During Our Hospital Staff Appreciation Week. They Also Only Alloted Us $12 To Spend On Our Appreciation Lunch They Baught Us. I Feel Really Appreciated Now!
April Pickett 1 year ago
Unless you are really into McDs, etc., a sandwich alone can cost $12, with no drink, and no side.
#90
I Got A King Size Payday For Christmas Bonus. For The Past 4 Years I’ve Gotten $1000 In Amazon Gift Cards. This Year Was Candy And $100 To Walmart
#91
My Reward For Being Top Sales, Top Customer Engagement, Going Above And Beyond, And Being A Team Coach. Yay
#92
Our Office Gave Us This To Say "Thanks For Your Hard Work" After There Has Been A Serious Sickness Spread Around The Office. I Would Rather Had A Pizza Party
#93
Mcdonalds Will Reward You For Working 30 Long Years With $300
Picked up a part time second job to pay down credit cards/save for a vacation and saw this in the break room. This is a franchise, so I’m not sure if this is normal for McDonalds or not. But imagine putting in your 30 years, getting ready to retire, and being presented with $300 and getting told to buy yourself something "special".
#94
Saw Someone Post The Cup They Received From Their Job As A Thank You For Working During The Pandemic And I Raise You A Bracelet Dollar General Gave Out
#95
My Husband’s Gift For 5 Years Of Employment Arrived Today
#97
Employee Appreciation Day, Somehow This Seems Worse Than Pizza
#98
Got Mailed A Pen For A Years Worth Of Work
#99
3 Year Gift Bag
After 3 years of working for the local McDonald's almost 50 hours a week this is what they got me.
A non working hamburger pen A broken telescopic pipe cleaner I think with a red metal case A card caddy for my phone I can't use due to my phone case An unmarked gift card for Walmart A free cone voucher A free meal voucher A 3 years of service pin
It's the thought that counts I guess. What do yall think
#100
Our Company Is Giving Us Gifts Instead Of Holiday Pay. This Was Today. I Am In A Mood
#101
Today For Employee Appreciation Day, (Which Was 6 Days Ago, Mind You) We Were Gifted… Earplugs That Are Slightly Better Than The Ones They Already Supply!
#102
My Bonus For Working 5 Years With The Same Company. Not A Pay Raise, Not Cola. This
#103
My Christmas Bonus This Year
#104
We Got Our Christmas Bonus Today. Not Even Handed Out. Just A Pile In The Break Room
#105
Asked For A Raise 2 Months Ago And Was Passed Over For A Promotion That I Was ‘Guaranteed’ To Get After A Colleague Retired. Got This For My 2 Year Anniversary Today. I Also Have A Chocolate Allergy
#107
Company Made 5 Billion Last Year And All I Got Was A Candy Bar
#108
Just Received My Christmas Bonus From The Company…
#109
A Bunch Of Techs At My Husband’s Hvac Company Want To Quit. This Was Management’s “Gift” To Them To Smooth Things Over
#110
10 Year Work Anniversary Present From Work
#111
Reward For 5 Years Service At A Fortune 500 Bank
#112
My Job Decided To Throw Us A "Pizza Party" A Day Late. They Could Give Us A Raise, Or Even Staff Us More Than The Absolute Bare Minimum. Instead, We Are Given Pizza And A Cake While We Work, Not Even An Extra Break To Eat It
#113
Employee Appreciation Day Gift Where I Work
Michael Largey 1 year ago
An employer who can't chew gum and appreciate employees at the same time.
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What do you think ?
Blah Blah Blah 1 year ago
And in the meantime the CEO gets a 40 million dollar yearly bonus. These are disgusting to say the least! F**K corporate America and its entire slave culture it's built on!
Zet 1 year ago
people get treated like garbage for sticking around and then they proceed to vote for a fascist who is against taxing the rich .. people proceed to say "they are rich they worked for it they earned it so why do they have to pey taxes" .. so are you carla, you worked 30+ years for the same multimillion company and the onlly little appreciation token you get is a day of homeofficework.. work you would do anyways but in the office .. while your CEO is getting payed 100% more than what you get for being already rich and he gets all the money because you are treated lously.... what a great deal!
Blah Blah Blah 1 year ago
And in the meantime the CEO gets a 40 million dollar yearly bonus. These are disgusting to say the least! F**K corporate America and its entire slave culture it's built on!
Zet 1 year ago
people get treated like garbage for sticking around and then they proceed to vote for a fascist who is against taxing the rich .. people proceed to say "they are rich they worked for it they earned it so why do they have to pey taxes" .. so are you carla, you worked 30+ years for the same multimillion company and the onlly little appreciation token you get is a day of homeofficework.. work you would do anyways but in the office .. while your CEO is getting payed 100% more than what you get for being already rich and he gets all the money because you are treated lously.... what a great deal!
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