Author: Bill Fold

Basically, Graham Walker sold his family business Fibrebond Corp for $1.7 billion (a million million) dollars but put aside $240 million dollars from that sale to pay every one of his workers about $443,000 each.

But imagine being the guy who sees the sale on the horizon, your contract’s about to run out, you’ve got another potential job offer and you’re like, yeah, it’s 100% time to jump ship. And then just DAYS after you leave it all behind you hear that everyone got almost half a million dollars??

I’d be pissed.

Or what about the contract workers, the people just on the fringes of qualifying for whatever conditions you need to get this bonus? Tough brakes, man.

OK, but don’t get annoyed on behalf of these hypothetical people you’ve never met, just yet, because there’s one massive string attached to this deal that’s so big it’s more like a noose.

To get this massive payout, you have to stay on at the company for another five years.

FIVE YEARS?! That’s a death sentence! In five years I could be the CEO. I’m not going to be but I could. I’m just saying it’s a long time is all. Is it really worth the money?

The reasoning is of course so people don’t immediately quit and retire to a carrot farm, but as Fortune puts it, this has to be “one of the largest—and stickiest—retention packages in recent memory.”

You know what, the Fortune coverage of this is better than anything I could plagiarise, go read that instead, I’m just going to copy and paste the next bit:

“When envelopes detailing the surprise payouts landed, reactions on the factory floor ranged from disbelief to tears, with some workers initially assuming it was a prank or a camera trick. Longtime employee Lesia Key, who started at Fibrebond in 1995 at $5.35 an hour, told the Journal that she used her bonus to pay off her mortgage and open a clothing boutique after years of living paycheck to paycheck. Others cleared credit-card balances, paid college tuition, or boosted retirement savings, even as many were startled to see taxes claim close to a third of their checks and to realize that quitting early would mean walking away from hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

“However, the five-year requirement did spark some friction. A few employees “grumbled” that the annual payout structure made it difficult to quit if they wished, and others were surprised by the heavy tax burden that claimed nearly a third of their checks. Walker carved out a crucial exception to the five-year rule: Employees over 65 were exempt.”

A rare CEO W. We’ll take it. Be more like Graham Walker guys.