88 points
*

More accurate caption: Someone saw a movie about some people who expected a bonus and didn’t get one. And from that they got the weird idea that most people in the 80’s got bonuses.

I don’t know what movie that’s from, but sorry to tell you as someone who was there: No, most people in most jobs didn’t get bonuses in the 80’s or any other time. It was the same as today–only certain kinds of management types or financial sector types got bonuses. I’ve had some pretty decent jobs and never got a bonus and no one thought they’d get one.

Edit to Update: Yes, of course I know that some jobs gave bonuses. My point is that the post’s entire raison d’etre is the incorrect assertion that bonuses were something that everyone, or most people, routinely expected to get in the 80’s and that those people sure had it easy compared to people today. That is not the case at all. Most jobs didn’t give you a bonus back then either.

And BTW kids, this isn’t the first time there’s ever been inflation either… Look up inflation rates in the mid-late 70’s and early 80’s. A lot worse than now.

permalink
report
reply
10 points

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

"Ya don’t get extra teefs just because it’s tha end of tha year, git! Get ta krumpin’, NOW!

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

To be fair, the krumpin’ is the year end bonus to an Ork.

permalink
report
parent
reply
43 points

Not to call you a liar directly, but I don’t get how “you were there” but you didn’t recognize National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. The movie was no. 2 in the box office only behind Back to the Future Part 2. The various National Lampoon movies have been ran on TV countless times during the 90s.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-35 points

Not all people watch movies. Some people had four kids and are lucky to have 5 minutes to themselves while they shower.

permalink
report
parent
reply
50 points
*
Deleted by creator
permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Because national lampoons where bullshit movies which, if you had a brain cell or two didnt bother with. And weren’t that popular in the rest of the world. Like porky’s.

Now airplane on the other hand… Or kentucky fried movie… That we did see in the EU.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

I only saw the summer vacation one. I think it was the first of all of them.

permalink
report
parent
reply
17 points

I get a “profit sharing” bonus as a factory floor welding press operator.

It’s, like, eighty bucks.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

Don’t spend it all in one place kiddo!

permalink
report
parent
reply
16 points

Damn, even my shitty floor cleaning and sales jobs gave me a Christmas bonus. It wasn’t a lot, but it was a nice little surprise.

permalink
report
parent
reply
12 points

You don’t remember pensions do you?

permalink
report
parent
reply
-1 points

Yes, I do remember pensions.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Lol, yeah, as another older guy I must always laugh when “the youth” paints this “rainbows and unicorns” picture of the 80s. It was fucking dark. Constant fear of total annihilation. Reagan. Thatcher. Mass layoffs everywhere. Housing crisis. Most unemployed ever. Mass demonstrations every month/week. Stop the bomb. Stop the layoffs. I want a place to live. I just want to live. Credit crisis. (15% on your mortgage? Yeah man, that’s just how it is.) Or lets talk about drugs. Or rather… … Let’s not. The police was losing control everywhere. That’s when carpenter thought “escape from new york” up. And that wasnt the only movie with that theme of complete anarchism in the streets.

Just really listen to the music of the 80s. Really listen to stuff like 99 luftballons. Dancing with tears in my eyes. Land of confusion. Really look at the movies. Why do you think that Terminator was so god damn popular? Mad max was thought up in that era. (late 70s and 80s) Don’t you think alien /aliens products of their time? Corps which literally kill their workers, fuck them over only for a better percentage? Gordon Gecko… When was he thought up? Ever red “red storm rising” ? Sure, great book. But… What’s it about? Red October? Same.

Movies and music are a window to that time. Sure you also had the bright colors of miami vice. But what was the theme of that series: criminals everywhere and heavy handed cops to get back at them.

No man. The 80s where bleak. Glad that’s over. We got a little taste of the 80s back in 08-12. Just a little.

Do we have problems now? A lot. Sure. But I don’t live under the constant fear of a Russian nuclear missile strike. There are almost no terrorist cells active anymore (RAF, IRA, Those basks and the Indonesian train hyjackers in Holland.)

I dare to say: these days are better by a mile then back then.

Be careful for what you wish for. And know the past so you can learn from it.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

I didn’t exist during the 80s.

However, I notice we got thrash metal, black metal, and death metal, all from the 80s. All dark and heavy music, with common themes of violence, often extreme, suicide, and drugs in thrash’s case. Probably not without reason.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point
*

Glad to see someone else on Lemmy who knows how shitty it really was in the 70’s and into the 80’s, from economics to violence to corruption. I think it’s natural to want to believe that the past was a golden age where the previous generation had it so good and then ruined things for the younger generation. Doesn’t every generation think that? Mine did too, though of course we knew about the Great Depression and WWII that our grandparents went through and our parents were kids in.

There have been good and wonderful things, and also bad and terrible things throughout time. Which things are which vary over time, but it’s always a mix. There were always the rich assholes and the poor people struggling to get by in every generation. Read Ecclesiastes. There’s nothing new under the sun.

permalink
report
parent
reply
30 points
*

Clark is a well paid employee. Upper class. He approves and oversees food additives. He’s near the executive level but not an executive. He’s close enough to walk into the office of the company president and feel bad about the gift he brought with him. He’d be expecting a Christmas bonus.

That’s the movie.

I’m not making a point beyond Clark would be expecting a Christmas bonus at his job. Joke might be bad, the movie was accurate.

A better joke might be pointing out Clark was a ditz in the movies but had a high paying job. However he was also very imaginative in the movies so that might be why he’s successful in research and development.

They are complicated movies lol

permalink
report
parent
reply
27 points

European here, I get a nice bonus every year. But then, my job is unionised, maybe that’s the difference?

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

I work part time at a non unionized bakery and I got €100

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

I had a union job in the 80’s. We didn’t get bonuses. Possibly some of the upper management may have.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

I imagine “is the position union or not” is far from the only factor deciding whether you got a bonus or not.

permalink
report
parent
reply
17 points

How dare you come here with your happiness, social safety net and psychological safety, you dirty European. What is the GDP per capita of a European?! Can’t you see they’re having a much worse life than we Americans are?!

permalink
report
parent
reply
30 points

… a white middle class family …

permalink
report
reply
37 points

What was then middle class

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points
*

Clark was never middle class. He’s rich. If the huge house, and fancy neighbors, and all the presents, and the grandiose annual family vacations, and installing a swimming pool in a place where it snows half the year, and taking a whole family to Europe doesn’t give that away, then idk what to say.

permalink
report
parent
reply
11 points

Didn’t they win the Europe trip on a game show?

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

Having regular vacations used to be normal

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

Fair Point, but I guess vacation in Europe was not that expensive for Americans in the 80s because of the strong Dollar.

permalink
report
parent
reply
11 points

Honestly, he had more of a corporate management position. I wouldn’t say they were ultra wealthy by any means, but I would put them on the upper end of middle class for sure

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

He was a biochemist food products inventor. Dude was upper class, he just acted trashy.

permalink
report
parent
reply
52 points
*

Eh, Clark was rich, even by the standards of the time. He had a posh executive position. He was easily in the top 10%, probably more like the top 5%. You saw what kind of neighbors he had. He was well off enough that he was going to spend his entire annual bonus on a swimming pool in a place that snows half the year.

permalink
report
reply
109 points

I got $100 and a video from a bunch of dead-eyed execs I’ve never seen before in my entire life thanking me for all the hard work that I do. I’d almost have rather just gotten nothing at all.

permalink
report
reply
24 points

You can send me the $100 and the video if it’s that big of a deal

permalink
report
parent
reply
65 points

I got nothing, can I have your $100?

permalink
report
parent
reply
10 points

Maybe you two can split it 50/50? Or give me a cut, and split it 33/33/33?

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

I’ll split it 50/50/50 with you guys that way we all get a little more

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

No he doesn’t want it, so you me and the other guy can split. $30 is $30 bucks as far as I care, turn it into a bag of weed.

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

My direct manager gives out lottery scratch-off tickets at the winter holiday party. Last year I won $5.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-4 points

This is a classic tactic cause you can scan them without scratching them at the store and filter out any actual winners and just leave people with essentially nothing.

When I worked as a cashier there was a real estate agent who bought scratchers all the time and did exactly this. If one of them won more than like 50 bucks he cashed it and took all the worthless/low value ones. Then all his clients would get them in the mail for Xmas.

permalink
report
parent
reply
15 points
*

What? That’s not how a lottery ticket machine works. Part of the front has to be scratched off to determine if it is a winner, even with the machine. I know, because I remember having to scratch this part off myself for customers redeeming tickets back when I sold them. (The part the machine needed was along the edge, and many didn’t scratch there.) (This is specific to Tennessee, but I doubt any state used a system where you can tell if it’s a winner without anything being scratched.)

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

Was this a decade or two ago? There was a mathematician that figured out how to separate winners and losers without scratching them off back in 2003. But I suspect tickets have gotten more sophisticated since then.

Anyways, I trust my manager isn’t doing anything sketchy. She’s generally awesome.

permalink
report
parent
reply
17 points

the video is so funny to me. showing a canned response to an employee they’ve never met has me in hysterics

permalink
report
parent
reply
17 points

It was so eerily dystopian. Telling me how much they appreciate me and how valued I am as an employee, as their eyes trail from side to side while they read the prompter.

permalink
report
parent
reply
12 points

suits buy into the corpo crap so hard

it’s just amazing that they can convince themselves into thinking that a video like that would make your day

permalink
report
parent
reply
15 points

Bonuses are typically tied in as a salary expectation. If you have a job good enough that you expect a bonus then its dictated in the terms of your employment. Its usually some amount like 10-15% of your salary based on performance review along with a multiplier for the company’s overall performance. Companies use this as incentive while giving dirt annual raises. Not getting a bonus when its expected as part of your salary is definitely getting the shaft. Clark has every reason to be pissed.

permalink
report
reply
8 points

This is why I never count the bonus as salary. More and more companies are shafting their employees like that.

My GF’s bonus is tied to something she has no control over, and the company uses the bonus to justify a lower salary. Fuck that noise.

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

Exactly. I was hired into one job with a decent salary plus a 10% bonus, paid quarterly. Pretty exciting, right? What I wasn’t told until after I started was that bonuses were on a freeze for the foreseeable future, at least for a year. Next job!

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

That’s worst haha. It’s straight up lying.

I worked at a company that explicitly said that there was no bonus and that the salary was increased to reflect that. They were paying 17k over similar posting, so it was true

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Yeah but a lot of ‘good’ jobs these days don’t even have bonuses. There has been a change since the 80s with this practice in a lot of industries.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Microblog Memes

!microblogmemes@lemmy.world

Create post

A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, Twitter X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.

Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.

Rules:

  1. Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
  2. Be nice.
  3. No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
  4. Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.

Related communities:

Community stats

  • 13K

    Monthly active users

  • 1.5K

    Posts

  • 46K

    Comments