'Bonus!' An In-House Perspective
Are you making as much money as you should? Or are your employers using a simple excuse to sell you short?
As Sean Penn’s grizzled face incessantly appears on television due to his “meeting” with El Chapo, I have a hard time separating him from his Spicoli character in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. For you young ‘uns, that movie was a semi-autobiographical account of Cameron Crowe’s high school foibles. It featured a young Sean Penn as a surfer dude who spoke in a lingo that is almost forgotten today, and one of his many signature lines was “bonus.”
The movie spawned fads such as Vans skater shoes, unceasing quotations of the best lines in the movie, and featured, to this day, one of the most memorable scenes of nubile nudity ever filmed. But, those folks are old now; Jennifer Jason Leigh is almost unrecognizable in “The Hateful Eight,” Mr. Hand passed away in 2001, and Phoebe Cates married Kevin Kline. It also featured then-unknowns — Eric Stoltz, Anthony Edwards, and a guy named Nicolas Cage. Man, did I go off on a tangent! Apologies all around, but us old folks need to reminisce at times.
You may also hear quite a bit of reminiscence around bonus time. Apocryphal tales of salaries in the low five figures, and a bonus consisting of a day off for Christmas, and an extra lump of coal for the stove. Stories of walking through feet of snow barefoot uphill both ways just to get a filing in on time, etc., resulting only in a nice pat on the back. And how attorneys of this generation should just be thankful to have jobs. To this I say, fie. Firms are performing well, and companies have come through the recession of 2008; that’s seven years ago for those of you counting. Employment is picking up, and there is money to go around.
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However, let’s not be naive and think that just because attorneys are performing more work than ever before, with fewer resources, that companies will somehow retroactively put salaries right, and on a pace commensurate with the state of the economy. I say nay nay. Let’s say you were under a pay freeze from 2008 until last year, 2014-15; considering a missing annual 3 percent COLA, you might at first blush consider that a company ought to raise your salary 15 to 18 percent. This would bring you to where you ought to be had there been no recession. Ah, but, don’t forget compounding. A person making $135,000 in 2008 should now be making approximately $156,500. But, did that happen for anyone last year? Anecdotes from far and wide tell me no. In fact, since many companies did away with COLAs, they’re not coming back; and if by chance they do come back, there is no way you’ll ever catch up. Then, there’s the insidious argument of “lucky to be employed.”
Where was this argument prior to 2008? When COLAs and bonuses were paid as a matter of course for doing good work, and benefiting the employer? Did anyone say “well done, here’s your raise and bonus, but don’t forget, ‘you’re lucky just to have a job?’” No, they did not. But, when the tide changed and the opportunities in the market dried up, requiring belts to be tightened, the powers-that-be found some sort of courage to remind employees that while there is no raise and bonuses are paltry, “you’re just lucky to have a job.” Nothing changed in that year, and those since, in fact the job is now likely more difficult given attrition and layoffs, but all of a sudden you, the valued employee of yesteryear, are now “lucky.” You know who’s lucky? That couple in Tennessee.
I wish you well in this season of raises and bonuses. I hope that attorneys, service employees that they may be, will begin to see some benefits of hard work in the form of pats on the back — paired with realistic jumps in pay.
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David Mowry is Senior Counsel to a large technology company. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the company’s position or opinion on issues raised herein.
David is a former litigator, two-time federal clerk, and former Chair of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s New to In House Committee, and is available for speaking engagements. If interested, you may reach him at dmowry00@gmail.com.
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