Biglaw, Bonuses

Bonuses: This Is How They Get You

Bonuses are not given out for your benefit.

By  
on

It’s bonuses season, don’t ya know. Everybody look under their chairs, in an envelope is some deferred compensation law firms have all but colluded to give you.

Bonuses are nice, but firms are not giving you that money for free and they’re certainly not giving you that money as a “reward” for previous performance. What firms are buying with their bonuses is “retention.” Associate attrition dries up as people wait for their bonuses, and then it takes people a while to get their walking boots on after the payments go out. Every time you want to get out, the bonuses suck you back in.

A tipster called “an unhappy associate at a V50 firm,” explains the cycle more eloquently than I possibly could:

Someone please print this email and save it for me. And if I don’t quit by the end of February, litter my office with it and laugh at me and call me a piece of shit pussy. Because that’s what I will be if I continue to work this job past then. I have fucking had it. I would rather be homeless sucking dick for money than to continue working here.

They key is that the email our future sexworker wants printed out is NOT the bonus email. Something else baked his noodle. The firm matches bonuses. Bonuses are the thing that is keeping this unhappy person locked in their Biglaw job until February… at least.

The reality is that when you pull back and see the whole board, you’ll see that bonuses has kept this person locked into Biglaw for a lot longer than a few months. Here’s the cycle of dependency bonuses create:

Jan-March: You are waiting for your money, and spending your money. Everybody thinks that they’re going to find a job at the beginning of the year, but guess what… everybody thinks that! Competition is at its highest.

Sponsored

And remember, most people who leave Biglaw are going to have to take a paycut to get out. But the simple act of getting even more money tends to mitigate one’s willingness to S some D in order to leave a job. “I hate this place… that just gave me $100,000 on top of my high base salary. I’LL DO ANYTHING TO GET OUT!” Bonuses are Soma.

April-May: The bonus drugs are wearing off, but how does that help you? Nobody is hiring anymore. Companies spend the end of the year budgeting for their staffing needs in the next year. Then they go out and hire up to point they need. By April (and usually much earlier), they’ve hired everybody they intend to hire, and haven’t yet felt enough pain to alter their plan. For you to get another job in April or May, somebody who has the job you want pretty much has to die. Good luck with that.

June-August: Problem 1: you are now halfway to your next bonus. You’re halfway to money that you’ll never see if you don’t hang in there through the end of the year. Problem 2: SUMMER ASSOCIATES ARE HERE. Lunches are here. Slightly decreased workloads are here. But please, go put on your suit and walk all across town in the boiling heat taking interviews to get a job that isn’t going to hire you until the fall.

You should start looking for your next job for next year in the summer of the current year. But… are you going to? Or are you just going to “update your resume” during your week long vacation to Costa Rica and plan to “hit the ground running” in the fall?

September-December: Everybody should be leaving. Nobody leaves. Epic, bridge-burning departure memos should be flying into ATL’s inbox. Instead all we get is “do you have any bonus news/where are the bonuses/I hope bonuses are good this year.”

Sponsored

The mere expectation of bonuses locks down the lateral market at the exact time attrition should be happening. Which is why they exist. Instead of positioning themselves in the best jobs for their futures, bonuses make people desperately hang onto their old jobs until the money comes through.

So, I mean, I hope this unhappy associate beats the odds and the handcuffs and actually makes it out. Life is too short to work a job that you can’t stand, especially when you have the option to do something else.

But the issue is not getting out “by the end of February,” the key is getting out “as soon as possible.” Don’t let the bonus calendar run your life.

Bonus Time

Enter your email address to sign up for ATL's Bonus & Salary Increase Alerts.

Topics

,