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Comment by mock-possum | Hacker News Reader

I don’t get it, why not just say “oh we were 15 million short that quarter and 15 million ahead this one so it’s all good”

Like why get hung up on these arbitrary cutoffs

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This is what confuses me about tech sales too. Why do I always get a discount for buying right at the end of the quarter? Seems like you could just get ahead on the next one.

Because of how performance targets are defined. If sales figures “fell” or didn’t grow at the expected rate it can be worse than having a few more points over next quarter.

Why do they define performance targets that way then? Are they making it hard on purpose for some reason?

Sure but in most instances the system won’t change. Someone will usually define some reporting time period and some metrics to look at and agree when a lower threshold is reached that things start to look bad or alternatively, really good and they get an extra bonus or something.

What would you suggest? It sounds like you have a better system in mind already?

You have to set a deadline at some point. Now, I think any rational manager would agree if the sale shows up on April 1 instead of March 31st, that's totally fine. But HR/Finance systems aren't always rational.

Because many people are lazy and need deadlines or else they won't work.

It, unfortunately, always comes down to people being dumb. I wish there was an another answer, but that's always the essence of the issue.

I've seen someone trying to explain to an investor that the numeric change between quarters wasn't meaningful. Investor seemed to understand explanation, but was clearly deeply unhappy about the chart not being tidy. People respond to that by trying to make the chart tidy, even if it means losing the company money at times.

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