You seems to have a very 'personal' view of the employee/employer relationships. But i think the core of the issue is that for the last 40 years, corporation in

You seems to have a very 'personal' view of the employee/employer relationships. But i think the core of the issue is that for the last 40 years, corporation in general, have work very hard to "depersonalize" this relationship to the point where most employee have lost any sense of loyalty. So the way to see this is as a legal business relationship where every party maximize they own interest and they is nothing wrong about that. An employer should'nt takes is personally. I see this weird dichotomy every time on asker news or in corporate america : Companies treat employee like a resources and try to extract maximum value out of them (like promising a vague bonus and giving only 30% of the target without clear explanation) and get confused when employee do the same. > But to threaten to resign if he didn't get it, and then resign anyway once he did get it, is just poor form No the bonus was paid for service rendered. After that his continue employment was subject to renegotiation. Let's not forget that the employment term were probably "at will" on the demand of the employer. OP felt that his employer broke his trust ? Would you work with someone you don't trust ? > That should not be a controversial statement. I honestly think it is. And i think your statement are really pro employer and doesn't reflect the current state of the average modern employer/employee relationship. > One can't be unreliable in a company, and expect that not to be a problem for future job opportunities. That OP did meet his requirements meant he is not unreliable. If OP wasn't providing value at the company , he would have been fired a while ago. Reliability, as everything has a cost, in this case it was paying the full amount of the bonus...