A pleasant surprise

I walked into the office last Friday and saw my boss delivering little white envelopes on everyone's desk. I got one too. I opened it up to find a summary of my 2010 bonus payout, and I was extremely surprised (in a good way)  at the amount!  You see, I work for a retail company. Our main objective is to drive sales and earn profits for the company by buying the right products to sell to customers.  This might be an understatement - but I have a highly stressful job with lots of responsibility and accountability.  I'm dealing with hundreds of million of the company's dollars afterall.  I get paid a decent salary, but what really motivates me is our annual bonus. If I meet all my targets (and there are few of them) then I can earn a bonus equivalent to 30% of my salary. During a good year, this 30% can easily jump up to 40% or 50%, etc.  But there are hardly any "good" years... the targets are usually aggressive and some even impossible to reach.  If I get at least 15% at any given year, I am content.

Well, last year, in 2010, the company had a "good" year.  Overall, sales were great, and profitability was outstanding.  Within my area of management, I've exceeded on some targets and missed some.  But net-net, I got a great bonus %.  Although I got a great %, I only worked for 5 months last year... So I figured that even a great % against my 5 months worth of pay is not going to yield any big dollars.  So here was my surprise when I opened the envelope.  The great % was calculated against my full year salary! What a pleasant surprise! It's too good to be true. I can't quite believe it....

I guess with everything in life - if you don't have high expectations, then you won't be disappointed.  If you don't expect it but end up getting it, you will be so ecstatic to receive such a pleasant surprise!!

So my sister (she got a big bonus too) and I decided to celebrate our bonuses by treating our family to a nice dinner at Koi Palace.  Koi is pretty well-known for their great and innovative Chinese dishes. Or maybe I should use the verb in past tense, was known.  We ordered a set menu, which came with Shark Fin Soup, Abalone, scallops, crab, etc just to name a few.  We also added a Westlake Minced Beef soup (for non Shark Fin eaters) and Peking duck.  I must say that all the dishes were kinda bleh.  It's not that they weren't good, but I guess I expected them to be great.. (the higher expectation = the bigger disappointment).  I definitely didn't get the WOW factor - you know, the memorable dishes that had everyone at the table talking and reminiscing and thinking about when's the next time we'll all go again?  Well, didn't happen with this dinner at Koi's.  And of course, service was mediocre.  It'll be a long time before I revisit Koi's...at least until my memory of this meal fades and I accidentally put them back to my good restaurant list again.