Some companies love to disguise exploitation as opportunity.

Once one retail employee calculated what they’d actually earn on an ill-advised gift card selling scheme, they felt more insulted than motivated.

Read on for the full story.

My company is giving us a 1% bonus if we sell a $100 gift card.

Long story short, I just read the new announcement.

For every $25 gift card we sell, we get 25 cents. For every $100 gift card we sell, we get $1.

They told us that their goal is for us to bring in $500,000 in gift cards sold this winter.

This employee immediately saw this for what it was and called it out.

They then told us if we do that, that’s $5,000 spread out amongst all team members, as if that’s a good incentive??

When I brought up how pathetic the “commission” is, my manager literally said, “they don’t even have to pay you if they don’t want to.”

Employment lawyers might disagree with that last statement.

What did Reddit think?

Managers are often pretty out of touch with what makes a good incentive.

Many employees would rather no “reward” at all than be insulted by a blatantly crappy one.

Once you see just how unfair the system is, it’s hard to unsee it.

This manager could learn a thing or two about how to actually build morale.

Now that they’ve seen the truth, this employee knows it’s time to find a workplace that pays more than lip service.

In the end, no amount of corporate spin can make pennies feel like a prize.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.