For me, it was pretty good. I was working at a medical devices company on a new product. Upper management was all too aware of what was happening out in the .co

For me, it was pretty good. I was working at a medical devices company on a new product. Upper management was all too aware of what was happening out in the .com world. They didn't want to risk losing the core developers to .com riches, so a few of us got "shhh, don't tell anyone else" retention bonuses to make it less likely that we'd quit. It was nice getting free money with no strings attached for a few years while still doing a job I loved. Kinda sucked when the gravy train stopped, though.