Violin Memory is cutting staff while rewarding chief financial officer Cory Sindelar with a bonus to persuade him to stay for another two months. Merry Christmas, Silicon Valley style.

Chief marketing officer Amy Love told The Register today: “Violin is resizing the company as part of its overall turnaround efforts. More news regarding this to be forthcoming next week.”

The all-flash array pioneer is suffering from persistent falling revenues and growing losses, plus layoffs and a share price plunge that lead to its ejection from the NYSE and entry to the OTCQX exchange. Some insight into its fall from grace can be found here.

On November 25, Violin filed some 8K paperwork with US financial watchdog the SEC that revealed Sindelar had been awarded a bonus to stay until Jan 31, 2017 – which is little over two months away.

Here’s the relevant paragraph from the 8K submission:

On November 19, 2016, the Board of Directors of Violin Memory, Inc. (“Violin”) approved the award of a bonus payment of $150,000.00 to Cory J. Sindelar, Violin’s Chief Financial Officer (the “Bonus”). The Bonus was awarded to Mr. Sindelar as the result of significant additional responsibilities recently assumed by him and his recent professional performance and anticipated contributions to Violin including, among other things, leading Violin’s ongoing internal restructuring efforts to reduce expenses and his important contributions to Violin’s ongoing consideration of strategic alternatives.

Workers facing layoffs will no doubt be pleased that Sindelar is facing a merrier Christmas than them.

Was Sindelar threatening to leave the company? Is that why he was given $150,000? Simply to stay until the end of January? What happens then? We have asked Violin and will let you know if the Santa Clara, California-based biz responds.

We also understand that Violin’s senior veep for worldwide sales and field operations Said Ouissal resigned to go to a stealth startup in October 2016. Sales at Violin have been a continued disappointment. ®