Bonus Season Comes Early

Today Nava, the HR manager in the office, came into my office and handed me an envelop and said “hiney matanah – shana tova”, or something like that, which translates to “here is a gift – happy new year.” (Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish new year is this week). I looked at her and thought she was kidding, I looked at Ori and he confirmed that it was infact a gift from GSE – my company gave me a new year’s present – mall gift certificates… That’s right folks in New York, Bonus Season comes early here. I am not going to disclose how much I got, but I will tell you three data points: (1) According to the Erroca (a sunglass store in every mall here) website, I can’t afford to replace my sun glasses with a pair of Oakleys with the certificates. It should be mentioned that brand name goods, or really goods in general are more expensive here. (2) It is more than I have received at certain “bonus” seasons in the past. (3) It was not a mythical creature or a box in a Super Bowl Pool (sort of an inside joke).