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Maggie Secara wrote:
>
> Unhappily, my landlord doesn't take stock options in lieu of rent, so I find
> I have a little use for them. Short-sighted? Maybe.
A friend who knows about such things tells me that, 19 times out of
20, by the time employees can actually sell their stocks (somewhere
from two to five years after they get them), the stocks are only
worth what they bought them at.
In other words, unless you like gambling, you are much better to
follow Maggie's example and choose a decent salary than a mediocre
one with stock benefits. You might win big, but the odds are against
it.
Anyway, who do you think becomes a millionaire (even a paper one) on
stock options? It's the officers of the company, not a tech writer
nor even a documentation director.
As an aside, stock options are supposed to be a morale builder, but
they can have the opposite effect. I know of one company where,
during last spring's bubble, everyone was walking on air because the
company stock had quadrupled in a week. Then the collapse came, and
morale fell so low that you needed an electron microscope to see it,
and stayed that way for weeks. Everyone was surly, absenteeism rose,
and many people left.
--
Bruce Byfield, Outlaw Communications
Contributing Editor, Maximum Linux
604.421.7189 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com
"A polite conformity with the notions of fools is a necessary
protection."
- Edgar Pangborn, "Davy"
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