[samstave]

OK, so that's a great explanation made on some assumptions; let me give you some actual experience though which is what gives me my bias:

I worked for a company that was already established as a design consultancy... so all the above that you lay out was already calc'd in their overhead...

They went after a contract for a large project and they didn't have the expertise in house to land the project.

They poached me to be able to gain the contract. They made several million on this contract, which they would have been incapable of getting without me joining and actually doing the work.

They billed me out for exceedingly profitable work; I did 100% of the work, their overhead for all the shit you mention did not increase, and they piled more work onto my efforts which they billed for.

they promised me a multi-tens-of-thousands bonus based on all this work and met with me on five separate occasions to go over documented revenue/bonus projections and confirm this amount (this was with the CEO) -- then when it came time to pay; they paid me 8% of the promised, documented bonus. and made excuses that "they weren't being paid by the client" -- and later had a seperate manager (known as "the snake") come in and tell me "tough luck - the CEO's calcs were wrong"

So, While your story sounds all nice and whatever... I can guarantee that it is not true in all cases.

David Marks; if you read this - Fuck you.

[grey-area]

so all the above that you lay out was already calc'd in their overhead...

The cost per employee is not just salary, no matter how many employees you add. Taxes, healthcare, pension, equipment all scale linearly with employee count.

Of course the company then wants to make a profit on top, or they'd be better off just shutting down. Companies extract extra value from their employees, in exchange for taking on risk and providing funding and stability. In some cases that's justified, in some cases they're not adding much while extracting most of the value - as an employee that's a judgement call you make - as patio11 says above, you can always choose to start on own, and usually you'll make more money doing so.

You may well have been cheated by your former employer (we can't possibly comment sensibly on that), but there are high overheads associated with each additional employee.

[djt]

There are a few things here that I can see are overhead.

- It was an established design consultancy, that takes time and money to create.

- They charge the customer 3x what they paid you, but you dont know if the customer paid up. The had a contract, but then so did you, and you only got 8% of the bonus. You got pad your wage regardless of if they got paid.

- The pulled in the big client, this is almost important as a solo contractor, its their reputation on the line if you mess up. Its really hard to get those contracts or you need to have a contact. It's not uncommon for sales people to make 30% on big sales to land the contract on good terms.

- You did all the work, but could they have employed someone else, or are you the only person that could do it?

- Did they pay for health insurance, sick days etc?

- Have you thought about suing for your bonus?

[danielweber]

> Its really hard to get those contracts or you need to have a contact.

Tech people often view this almost as an abstraction problem, or one that rightly wouldn't/shouldn't exist if nerds ran the world. I don't know if it would or wouldn't if us nerds ran the world, but in our actual world, finding and maintaining those relationships is very hard and very valuable.

[gaius]

If they have breached their contract with you, then you want to get a lawyer onto that.

[ChuckMcM]

I was thinking the same thing, if they paid 8% that means 92% was left, and half of that might entice a lawyer to do it on a contingency basis, at least in the US. You would only net about half of the promised bonus, and probably not work for any agency again, but it would be much more than the 8% you did get paid.