We got Griswolded

Yes, you read that right. We said Griswolded. Remember National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation? How Clark Griswold was planning to use his Christmas bonus to have a pool installed and then found out his "bonus" was a fruit-of-the-month club? (Seriously, if you have no idea what we are talking about, go and watch that movie. You won't regret it.) That totally just happened to us. Almost exactly.

It's left us a little crazed

Here's the set-up:

Every Christmas we get a gift from our Board. Call it a present, a Christmas bonus, whatever. It's always money. Specifically, it's something called Chamber Bucks, which can be used like cash at any Chamber of Commerce business (though it turns out most chamber businesses have never heard of the program and won't accept the bucks, making them significantly less useful than real money. Almost useless really). Usually we receive our bonus in early December. 

This year, around the time of the annual gift delivery (now about two weeks ago), a member of our board dropped off a basket of fruit. In the basket was a single card from the board, thanking us for all our hard work. That was it. No Chamber Bucks. Just a dozen oranges, half a dozen bruised apples, two pears, a couple pounds of grapes, and some cheap chocolate. 

This is a gift?

We were OUTRAGED. Some of us count on that bonus to buy our Christmas dinner (we are significantly underpaid, compared to the industry standards but that's a story for another time).

Our story ends much like Clark's (though without any kidnapping). 

Not that we wouldn't have enjoyed that

We suspect word of our discontent made it back to the board. Because today, out of the blue, a stack of cards showed up to be passed out to the staff. And the cards contained our recently purchased Chamber Bucks.

We concede that it is possible the Board planned to give us the bonus all along, but it seems more likely, given the mistreatment they've dealt in the last year, that they scrambled to appease their angry workers.