Compensation is quite important as it requires us to live the lifestyle we desire. The common thought when I think of compensation I think of a paycheck for doing some type of work/service. I also think of compensation regarding safety as I have seen employees get compensated from a company due to safety hazards. With that being said the most common story I can think of was something that happened to my family at beginning of COVID. My dad worked at a very large sporting goods company in the pacific northwest for around 10 years. Within the first few weeks of being at home during the pandemic, he got an email to a zoom link with his supervisors and a 10-minute heads up. My dad told our family after the meeting that once he saw the link he knew what the meeting was for.

My dad was asked to leave the company immediately and be compensated for his loyalty to the company with a generous severance package and payout of his company stock options. Or he could take a year of non-paid sabbatical with no guarantee of the same job when he gets back. My dad explained with the uncertainty of not having a job when he gets back he decided to leave the company immediately and take the severance package. He felt that the compensation was more than generous although personally he felt lost as he has been in the industry for 30 years and has never been fired, or even had a bad performance review. With the uncertainty of COVID my dad did not feel comfortable not accepting the money to support our family. His job title was Vice President of a certain group but he explained that he has held that position for 3 years with remarkable growth each year, which lead the company to compensate him each year with a large bonus and a pay raise each year for the business he was creating the company. With that being said at the start of the pandemic the company must have felt that Sports were going to struggle and they realized they need to start cutting people and it seems reasonable to get rid of some executives that are highly paid compared to lower-level employees who still have remarkable growth to make.

Work Cited

Booth, Adam. “What Is Money?” In Defence of Marxism, In Defence of Marxism, 21 Sept. 2016, https://www.marxist.com/what-is-money-part-one.htm.