1 On the day our annual bonuses were supposed to be paid out, the boss suddenly tagged everyone in the company-wide group chat. 【In the face of intensifying external competition, we must adapt. Starting this year, bonuses will be allocated based on contribution. High contributors get more, low contributors get less, and those with no contribution get nothing!】 The moment the announcement dropped, cheers erupted from the departments around us. “The boss is a legend! I’ll work for this company for life!” “A fat bonus puts your mind at ease! I’m taking my wife to Hawaii for the New Year!” But in our tech department, there was only a dead, heavy silence. Mike, our most senior engineer, looked like he’d seen a ghost. “Boss… is there a mistake with the bonus payout?” “This amount… it’s eight dollars and eighty-eight cents… it’s nothing…” Sarah, one of the younger developers, had tears welling in her eyes. “Yeah, boss, my mom is waiting for this money for her surgery… Can you please go and check?” Jake, who had the shortest fuse among us, slammed his hand on his desk and shot to his feet. “What do you mean, a mistake?! Didn’t you see the boss’s announcement? He was talking directly to us!” “Eight dollars and eighty-eight cents! That won’t even buy a damn sandwich from the deli downstairs! Is he throwing scraps to beggars?” My phone buzzed. A private message from the boss. 【The tech department’s contribution this year was insufficient. However, out of humanitarian consideration, the company has issued each of you an $8.88 bonus. Your department needs to reflect on this and strive to contribute more next year.】 All fifteen of us in the tech department, from the seasoned veterans to the fresh-faced juniors, got the exact same insulting amount. Meanwhile, every other department was celebrating, their pockets bulging. As the technical backbone of the entire company, our department was always on call. We handled every request, pulled countless all-nighters, and worked ourselves to the bone. And in the end, we were deemed the department with the least contribution. The atmosphere was so thick with despair you could cut it with a knife. I could hear one of the younger engineers trying to stifle her sobs. I clenched my fists, my knuckles white, and took a deep, steadying breath. “I will get to the bottom of this. I will get us the justice we deserve.” I shot up from my chair and stormed towards the boss’s office. 2 The boss’s office was a party. People from Finance, Planning, and Marketing were all crowded inside, showering him with thanks and pledging their undying loyalty. Their beaming faces were a stark contrast to my own grim expression. The moment I walked in, the smile on the boss’s face evaporated. “Alright, everyone, back to work. Let’s finish the year strong before the holiday.” As the crowd dispersed, he gestured for me to sit. “What’s the problem? Not happy with your bonus?” I fought to keep the rage out of my voice. “That’s right. I don’t think it’s fair. If bonuses are based on contribution, then the tech department…” “Stop.” He cut me off, taking a slow, deliberate sip of his tea. “It seems the message I sent you was a complete waste.” “You’ve been in management for this long, Sam, and you still have no perspective. When your team’s bonus is small, instead of reflecting on your own shortcomings, you come storming into my office to complain about fairness?” A hot flare of anger shot through me. Perspective. Perspective. It was always about perspective! Earlier this year, during the company-wide salary review, everyone got a raise. Everyone except the tech department. We didn’t get a single cent. When I asked why, he had an answer ready. 【The average salary in your department is already higher than the others. If we raise it further, it will cause resentment and disrupt company harmony.】 【Sam, you’re a manager now. You need to see the big picture.】 【Just wait until the end of the year. I’ll allocate a larger bonus pool for your team. I won’t let you down.】 Our salaries might have been higher than some non-revenue departments, but they were miles below the industry average for our skills. 3 The promise of a raise was a carrot he dangled every single year. And this time, because he’d promised a massive year-end bonus, we all swallowed our pride and accepted it. I wrestled my anger back down. “Back then, we agreed to forgo the salary adjustment because you promised us a larger bonus at the end of the year. You said you’d make sure everyone was satisfied.” Clang! He slammed his teacup down on the desk, splashing hot tea everywhere. “Sam! Watch your tone!” “The company has its own evaluation methods. The market is tough right now, circumstances have changed, so of course the bonus structure has to be adjusted!” The market was tough, but our company’s performance wasn’t. And every other department had been handsomely rewarded. That was no excuse for giving us a bonus that was a literal joke. He didn’t give me a chance to speak, just sighed dramatically. “Do you have any idea what a bad impression you’re making, barging in here like this?” “Everyone from Finance and Planning just saw you. If you set this precedent, does it mean anyone who’s unhappy about anything can just come and yell at me?” “If everyone acted like you, how could this company possibly function?” I gritted my teeth, staring him down. “I’m willing to self-reflect. But first, you will pay our department the annual bonus we have earned.” He slammed his hand on the table. “Everyone says you’re an honest, straightforward guy. I guess it was all an act!” “Does being a good person mean I deserve to get screwed over?” 4 When I was hired, they promised an annual raise of at least 5%. In all my years here, that has never happened. The biggest raise we ever got was 3%. Every time, the excuse was the same: "We'll make it up to you when the company's performance improves." Year after year, the company rode the AI wave to new heights, with profits soaring. But for us in the tech department, our salaries remained stagnant, like a dead pool of water. “Screwed over? I think I’ve been more than fair with you!” “Let’s get something straight, Sam. What does ‘based on contribution’ mean? All your department does is write a few lines of code and fix a few bugs. What real contribution is that? The fact that I gave you eight dollars each is a sign of my generosity!” Write a few lines of code? Fix a few bugs? All those sleepless nights, all that brain-racking effort poured into elegant solutions—in his mouth, it was all worthless, meaningless fluff. My face flushed a deep, furious red. I ripped the ID badge from around my neck and threw it onto his desk. “That’s not what you said when the company’s expansion depended on us working through the night!” “You called us your strongest technical support! You said without us, none of the new business deals could ever get off the ground!” “So how is it that when it’s time to reward people, we suddenly become the most useless department in the company?” “You think you can just use us and toss us aside? We won’t stand for it!” I kicked over his trash can, the contents spilling across the floor, and stormed out, slamming the door behind me. 5 As I left, I saw heads ducking back into their cubicles. They’d all been watching the show. I didn’t care that I was the office joke. All I could think about was how I was going to face my team. They were my people. They followed me, worked overtime without complaint, fueled by passion and trust in me. And I couldn’t even get them the basic bonus they were owed… My eyes burned. “Sam. A word.” Mr. Davies, the VP, stood in my path. He had started at the company the same time I did, a veteran from the early days. He was in charge of HR and was usually a calm, reasonable man. He closed his office door behind us, sighing as he shook his head. “Was that really necessary?” I snapped my head up, my eyes wide with disbelief. “Necessary? Mr. Davies, my team is depending on that money to get through the holidays!” “Mike’s mother is eighty years old! He promised he’d take her to Washington D.C. after he got his bonus.” “Sarah’s mother is waiting for that money for her surgery, and Jake…” “The company is not a charity, Sam. We have to follow procedures. We can’t just hand out more bonus money because an employee has personal difficulties.” He said it so casually, so dismissively. “Fine. Let’s not talk about personal difficulties.” I pulled out a chair and sat down, my face set like stone. “Let’s talk about contribution.” “You said the bonus was based on contribution. The results imply that our department contributed nothing to the company this year.” I opened my laptop and pulled up the work orders from the business development team. “This year, the sales team brought in twenty new enterprise clients. That corresponds to twenty new, custom software suites to support their operations.” 6 “If you had outsourced the development of these systems, each one would have cost a minimum of $250,000 to build. That’s a total of five million dollars, not including ongoing maintenance fees.” “Our tech department has 15 people, with an average annual salary of about $72,000. Our total payroll is just over one million dollars.” “On development alone, we saved the company at least four million dollars this year! And that doesn’t even account for the ongoing value these systems generate! You call that ‘no contribution’?” Mr. Davies was speechless. After a long pause, he fumbled for an excuse. “Well, no one said you made no contribution. But your department’s salaries are, on average, higher than others.” I laughed, a cold, bitter sound. “AI is the hottest field in the world right now. Other companies are offering new graduates with no experience starting salaries of $200,000 a year!” “My team is experienced, and every single one of them has a top-tier degree. Yet their annual salary is less than half of what a rookie makes elsewhere! And you call that a high salary?” I pulled up the attendance records. “Fine. You’re worried about internal harmony. Let’s talk about our hourly wage.” “There were 249 working days in 2025. Our team’s average attendance was 350 days. We even worked through Thanksgiving, sleeping in the office, to launch a new system for a client.” “And on those 350 days, the earliest anyone clocked out was 8 PM. And the latest… well, there was no latest. For a hundred of those days, we worked straight through the night. Our total work time comes to over 5,900 hours per person!” 7 “Based on a $72,000 salary, our effective hourly wage is twelve dollars.” I paused, letting the number hang in the air, then delivered the final blow. “Twelve dollars an hour. In this city, the barista at Starbucks makes twenty-two dollars an hour.” “When you work overtime, the company provides dinner and late-night snacks. We don’t neglect you…” “Dinner and snacks that have a budget of less than ten dollars per person! We have to pay out of our own pockets every single time just to get a decent meal!” My voice was shaking with rage, my control slipping. Mr. Davies’s face hardened. “Sam, you can’t just focus on your own contributions. You have to compare horizontally. Compared to you, the Finance and Planning departments contributed far more.” I stood up, practically rolling my eyes. “What contribution? Denying expense reports?” “Oh, right. Our department submitted fifty thousand dollars in legitimate expenses this year that were never reimbursed. The boss’s niece, the head of Finance, just refused to approve them without giving a reason! I guess that did save the company money!” “And the Planning department? Run by the boss’s other relative, who couldn’t get into a local college, bought a degree from some diploma mill overseas, and came back as a director.” “They spent the last year making vlogs and forced us to build a useless app for them. Last month, they used the wrong photos in a presentation and lost us a major client!” “That’s what you call contribution?” The more I spoke, the deeper the injustice burned. “And your department, HR! All you do is make PowerPoint presentations and fine employees! Forget to clock in? That’s a $200 fine. Desk isn’t perfectly tidy? $200. Didn’t say hello to the boss in the hallway? $300!” A bitter laugh escaped my lips. “Truly incredible. All of you, what great contributors!” “Since this company refuses to pay us what we’ve earned, don’t ever expect us to work for free again!” “We may be honest, but we’re not stupid! And even a fool knows an empty promise is a lie when you’ve heard it enough times!” 8 Ignoring the ugly look on Mr. Davies’s face, I turned and walked out. I heard the sound of a chair crashing to the floor behind me. So much for his calm, reasonable demeanor. It only lasted as long as his own interests weren’t threatened. Ultimately, I knew he had to have a hand in this year's bonus distribution. I'd bet my life on it. When I returned to my department, fourteen pairs of hopeful eyes turned to me. A lump formed in my throat. I opened my mouth, but the words wouldn’t come out. Mike forced a smile, but it couldn’t hide the bitterness in his eyes. “My mom’s not getting any younger. Her legs aren't what they used to be. We’ll skip the trip to the capital this year. The bonus… forget it.” Sarah wiped her eyes. “Everyone just pitched in and gave me some money. It’s enough for my mom’s first round of surgery.” They swallowed their disappointment, their tears, their sense of betrayal. My fists clenched tighter. The conversation I’d had with the boss and Mr. Davies echoed in my mind. And then, another conversation surfaced. One I wasn’t supposed to have heard. “My cousin’s son just got his master’s and is back from overseas. He’s bringing a whole team with him. You need to clear out the tech department and make room for them!” “It’s happening. They won’t take this bonus nonsense. They’ll quit on their own, and we won’t have to pay them any severance.” “Besides, I have one more trick up my sleeve. They’ll be begging to leave…” They thought I had already left the executive suite. But I’d dropped my glasses and had gone back for them. And I heard their entire, despicable plan. “This time,” I said, my voice raw, “we can’t just let this go.” My eyes held the fierce determination of an honest man pushed to the edge. Why should good people always get screwed over?
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