Company Gifts Employees A Potato As Christmas Bonus, Takes Tax Out Of Their Paycheck

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Happy Christmas Bonus season everybody. It's that time of year where your employer is forced to put a monetary value on how much they appreciate your hard work. Or maybe it's just the time of year where you learn how well your company is doing financially. I suppose it's a combination of both. 

I don't think that chart actually makes sense, but you get the idea. Either way, here's hoping your company is overcome by the holiday spirit, and you receive a bonus significant enough to make your life a little easier for the next month or so. Or better yet, here's hoping you receive a bonus so insultingly bad that it goes viral online. Because the only thing better than cold hard cash is millions of views from complete strangers on the internet.

These Christmas bonus posts make the rounds on Twitter and Instagram and Threads every year. Every time, people are blown away that a company could have such a shockingly low amount of respect for their employees. Whether the bonus is a free massage from your boss, a single Popeyes chicken leg, or a coupon to leave work 30 minutes early one time, there are no limits to how little employers can give a shit about the people who make their company run. 

Here's a tip, if you're an employer at a struggling place of business, and you simply don't have it in the budget to give your workers anything significant. Just give nothing. Tell your employees, "I'm sorry, we just don't have it in the budget this year." They won't love it, but it's less insulting than passing out tubes of Chapstick at 4pm the afternoon before you're allotted 2 days off work for the holiday's. 

But back to the story at hand. I'm especially fond of the Christmas Potato. If I heard my company was providing a potato bar for the holiday, I wouldn't even be mad. You can't be too mad at a free lunch. At least it's somewhat enjoyable. But to specifically go out of your way to define the Christmas Potato as "a bonus" to the point where you have to TAKE MONEY OUT OF YOUR EMPLOYEES PAYCHECK FOR TAX PURPOSES. That's truly sinister. 

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This company so easily could have just purchased some potato's and passed them out. They didn't need to tax them. They went out of their way to have their accountants file the potatoes as a bonus. They created more work for themselves just so they could take money out of their paychecks. For what I can only assume was so management could pat themselves on the back and say, "Good job guys. I know money is tight this quarter, but we dug deep and make sure everyone was taken care of this holiday season."

Although I will say, I think the Christmas Potato was an improvement on this unnamed company's last year's Christmas gift. 

I'd give up a potato's tax worth of money out of my paycheck in a heartbeat if it meant I didn't have to sit through whatever the hell a Wexbex is.