Today in Communism: A Chinese Company Gave Out Bonuses By Laying $8 Million On A Table And Having Employees Grab At It

So technically this blog should be titled "Last Month in Communism", because this video is from a full month ago. But today was the first I saw of the Chinese money table bonus game. This is the Henan Mining Crane Company. They laid out 60 million Chinese paper dollars (i.e. yuan) on a long table. The rules of the game are simple. Employees are divided into teams of 30. Each team picks their 2 fastest money counters. However much money the money counters can count in 15 minutes is divided among the team for all to take home. 

I still got some questions about the rules that I can't seem to find definite answers to. When they say, "how much money you can count", are the counters having to count out loud? Does each team have an official watching over them? I did read in one of the many very obscure articles written about this incident that there was a penalty deducted from teams whose money counter reported the wrong amount of money. But exactly how much was deducted is unclear. Either way, in that second video it seems like the money counters aren't going nearly fast enough. I would really like to know the exact rules of Chinese money table bonus game. But regardless of the exact stipulations, imagine the pressure of being a money counter? To have the bonuses of 29 of your co-workers resting on your shoulders. That's a lot of responsibility. Imagine how terrible you would feel if at the end of the 15 minutes, you see the person across the table counted SO MUCH more money for their team than you did? Think how badly your teammates would rightfully want to beat you with baseball bats when they go home that night with 1/5th of the money their stupid underachieving co-workers went home with. All because your company just had to do fucking Chinese money table bonus game... 

It takes a lot of balls for a company to give out a bonuses based on a game of chance (which is all it is for the non-money counters). There are plenty of companies who don't give out bonuses based on merit. But at least they typically divide them up equally. Even in that case, it's going to rub some people the wrong way. There's not a single company in the world where every employee deserves an equal bonus. Still, most people can at least accept the fact that their company decided to split up bonuses evenly. But to run the risk of your company's biggest asshole... someone who makes your other employees' lives more difficult on a daily basis... to have him walk out the door with triple the amount of bonus as the most hard working, well-liked person in the entire Chinese crane industry. You're just asking for trouble. That's communism for ya, folks

But from what I gather, Chinese money table bonus game is only a portion of the bonuses given out by the Henan Mining Crane Company. So I'm guessing there's not too overly much riding on the money counters shoulders. In fact, the amount of money these employees gained from the money table game in particular actually sounds like it was shockingly low. Take a guess. Give a ballpark number for how much the average Henan Mining Crane Company employee took home from this game. Scroll past the picture of Covid Yao Ming for the answer.

CHINE NOUVELLE. Shutterstock Images.

If you said less than $500 USD, you're exactly right. According to reputable source The Times of India, the highest counting employee managed to count 100,000 yuan in 15 minutes. That's about $13,700 USD. Divided by 30 people, before whatever China takes out for taxes, that's $456.

The Times of India - The staff compete against each other to count huge heaps of cash within a few short minutes allocated for the activity. One worker allegedly clocked 100,000 yuan, or S$18,700 in just 15 minutes, and most workers quickly began to stack piles of money in a bid to collect as much as they can take out of work. The video, taken when it went viral, captured the character of the event-an interesting site to see in this case of the employees rushing to collect their bonuses in cash.

Unless I'm interpreting that wrong, and that was what a single person walked away with, that's so underwhelming. That's a whole lot of pomp and circumstance for a grand prize of a couple pairs of Nike Dunks. That might be incorrect though, because the math seems kinda off there.. That would imply there's around 20,000 people in that room who the money is being split between? I guess that might be right. That's a pretty big, and pretty packed room. Who am I to question The Times of India.

In conclusion, if any company should be doing something like this it's Barstool Sports. Just an idea, Dave. Next year, instead of divvying out bonuses based on who brings most value to the company (which I think I can speak for everyone at Barstool when I say nobody really likes that), how about you fly everyone out to the Chicago office and drop millions of dollars onto the basketball court and let us fight for it. All you gotta do to fund it is execute a single rug pull. It'd be so easy. You've got your fans, and the entire crypto world's trust now. It's time to scam them all and give their money to us. It'll be great content.