4 ms·

I've worked at two startups while they slowly took away the free stuff. It sucks, but it's a phase that successful (okay, and not-so-successful, in their death

by ax0n 17y ago

I've worked at two startups while they slowly took away the free stuff. It sucks, but it's a phase that successful (okay, and not-so-successful, in their death throes) companies eventually need to go through. Also, thank you for removing the apostrophe, icey. gnashes teeth at stray apostrophes

algorias 17y ago
Why do they need to go through it? free soda will always be a tiny expense in relation to everything else. Sure 10K sounds like a lot of cash for soda, but a company with 50 employees is spending millions on salaries.
- mechanical_fish 17y ago
  10K sounds like a lot of cash for soda This, by the way, is the very definition of bikeshedding. Everyone knows about soda; everyone has bought it before. So cutting out soda is something that the entire executive team feels competent to discuss -- unlike, say, the efficiency of the QA department's staffing schedule, or climate control zones, or the use of electricity for lighting offices at 3am, or the difficult politics of downsizing particular business units. Soda is a simple theatrical stunt for making the CFO look good. It's a good show. Of course, as Steve points out, it sends a very clear message to the people who've been drinking those sodas: Your work is no longer considered an investment in the future. Now you're a cost center.
  - pwnstigator 17y ago
    Soda is a simple theatrical stunt for making the CFO look good. It's a good show. Nailed it.
  - noonespecial 17y ago
    Unfortunately, shows are just that. Pure signaling. If you cut $10k for snacks but the executive keeps his $30k company car lease, what have you just told the engineers who made the company possible in the first place? To them its about respect. Its worth more than money to most of these types, and when it dries up, they're gone. Most "I will work harder" types at startups just kind of know when the pigs are trading them to the glue factory for a case of whiskey.
- m_eiman 17y ago
  A quick calculation says that $10k for 50 employees is roughly $16 per person and month. Less than one percent of the salary cost. If the margins in the company are so thin that this expense matters, they've definitely got bigger problems.
- qjz 17y ago
  In a startup, every expense is potentially a total loss, whether it's for a computer, a soda or a consulting fee. But when a business establishes a revenue stream that is insufficient to cover expenses and generate a profit, it has to differentiate between essentials and luxuries. Free soda will always be considered a luxury, whether or not it is a cost effective employee incentive. Personally, I hate working in places with these kind of perks. I think they're abused by both management and employees. If your salary isn't enough to cover your personal needs, free soda doesn't solve the underlying problem.
  - algorias 17y ago
    If a company is not making profits, it will hardly make a difference whether or not they're giving away soda. The larger a company gets, the more inefficient it becomes. A single unproductive employee is a much larger money leak than free snacks. Not spending on soda gives them what? 3 more hours of runway before going out of business? The crucial point here is that every minute management and/or engineers are thinking about soda, is a minute wasted. A classical case of "penny-wise, pound foolish".
    - qjz 17y ago
      We're talking about soda, but in a culture ingrained with perks, there's no limit to waste, especially as you move up the ladder. In hard times, it sucks to see your boss fly first class instead of coach, take a limo instead of a cab, consider illegal parking tickets a necessary business expense, and all other kinds of excesses. If the business can't afford luxuries, things like free soda can be just one symptom of a far greater problem. In good times, go ahead and splurge. But even then it can create compensation inequities due to abuse and feelings of entitlement.
    - mmt 17y ago
      engineers are thinking about soda, is a minute wasted This probably the most often forgotten argument in favor of freebie snacks: time/attention saving. A good engineer can easily cost a company $1/minute (and be worth much more). Even if going out to ones car to grab some change takes 2 minutes, that $.50 soda just got a 400% markup. Actually having otherwise productive employees think about this as an issue is an even greater waste of talent. In a large enough company, though, the ratio of dead weight to productive people, can be high enough that charging for soda isn't a false economy.
- assemble 17y ago
  10k pays for half the janitor's salary. We don't get free anything where I work, and I'm fine with that. My company's job is to make more money, not baby me with things that I'm perfectly capable of paying for on my salary.
  - pyre 17y ago
    There's no free coffee? Every place that I've ever worked had free coffee. From the crappiest of the low-level jobs to the awesome job that I have now.
    - assemble 17y ago
      Nope. Most groups have their own coffee machines and stock their own coffee. I work at an aircraft company. While I'm a salaried employee, the effects of the union being present at this site hit everyone. It's nice in some cases (benefits), but often it really screws us (hard to lose ineffective employees, no little 'fringe' benefits, etc). I'd be surprised if most companies w/ union involvement are much different.
    - whatusername 17y ago
      http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/apr/15/bcrisis-no-more-free-tea-coffee-for-ibm-staff.htm http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/apr/15/bcrisis-no-mor...
      - pyre 17y ago
        I'm not just talking IT firms though. I've never worked any job where there wasn't free coffee. Even the retail jobs had free coffee. It was definitely really really cheap stuff, but it was still there.
        whatusername 17y ago
        I've worked in a wholesale nursery where I was in the middle of the paddock all day. Obviously there wasn't coffee there. But yes - most offices (and retail) have some form of coffee.
- ax0n 17y ago
  Everywhere I've worked that's not a startup, I've had to pay for all my stuff. The startups I worked for, as they became non-startups, started ditching perks like beer:30 Fridays, catered on-site lunches, free soda and the like. One took off and is wildly successful these days, the other became a non-startup by becoming a non-company. It's my personal observation. Of course, it's probably different here on the prairie (Kansas City) than it is in The Valley. Maybe the Oracles, ciscos, Googles and Yahoos of the world still provide plenty of goodies for free out there. I agree with many others in this thread that expenses are expenses. $16 per person per month is $10k at 50 employees. What about the 18-kilohuman corporation I work for right now? $16 per head per month turns into a $3.5M line item per year at that point. When does free soda become impractical? Also, the original article posits that it's more a symptom of the culture change than anything. Having to rifle through your pockets to score that Mountain Dew that used to fall out of the machine with only a button-press is often the first tangible effect of that culture change.
  - mattm 17y ago
    It's all relative. If MegaCorp is making $1 billion revenue and spending $3.5 mil on sodas, that is just 0.35%. To break it down, if you are making $100k a year, then that would be equivalent to you spending $350 on soda...or about 1 per day. It's almost nothing and it's definitely not something to try to spend time cutting.
jameskilton 17y ago
Sorry, I've never seen a "need" here. Google gives free lunch, massages, has exercise equipment rooms, the works that they'll never charge employees for. No, this is too much tunnel-vision focus on the bottom line without even a simple thought of the people.
- endtime 17y ago
  Didn't they stop offering free food to the non-engineers a little while ago?
- lallysingh 17y ago
  Common, I think, amongst people who work just for the money, and don't actually enjoy or care about the work itself.
markkanof 17y ago
Why does any company need to go through this phase? It's such a small cost relative to any pretty much any other expense that a business might have. I know this is just an anecdote, but I worked for a non-profit for a number of years that had free soda fountains for employee use. It was a nice touch, and didn't cost them very much at all to maintain versus all the other costs of keeping the organization running.
- iuytgfghjmk 17y ago
  Because the managers all learned in MBA school that results are measurable, Removing sodas saves a measurable few $K/year, and the only downside is the unmeasurable loss of all your good people. It's the same with banning personal web use, flexi-time etc - the downside isn't measured, therefore there is no downside.

by ax0n 17y ago

algorias 17y ago

Why do they need to go through it? free soda will always be a tiny expense in relation to everything else. Sure 10K sounds like a lot of cash for soda, but a company with 50 employees is spending millions on salaries.

mechanical_fish 17y ago
10K sounds like a lot of cash for soda This, by the way, is the very definition of bikeshedding. Everyone knows about soda; everyone has bought it before. So cutting out soda is something that the entire executive team feels competent to discuss -- unlike, say, the efficiency of the QA department's staffing schedule, or climate control zones, or the use of electricity for lighting offices at 3am, or the difficult politics of downsizing particular business units. Soda is a simple theatrical stunt for making the CFO look good. It's a good show. Of course, as Steve points out, it sends a very clear message to the people who've been drinking those sodas: Your work is no longer considered an investment in the future. Now you're a cost center.
- pwnstigator 17y ago
  Soda is a simple theatrical stunt for making the CFO look good. It's a good show. Nailed it.
- noonespecial 17y ago
  Unfortunately, shows are just that. Pure signaling. If you cut $10k for snacks but the executive keeps his $30k company car lease, what have you just told the engineers who made the company possible in the first place? To them its about respect. Its worth more than money to most of these types, and when it dries up, they're gone. Most "I will work harder" types at startups just kind of know when the pigs are trading them to the glue factory for a case of whiskey.
m_eiman 17y ago
A quick calculation says that $10k for 50 employees is roughly $16 per person and month. Less than one percent of the salary cost. If the margins in the company are so thin that this expense matters, they've definitely got bigger problems.
qjz 17y ago
In a startup, every expense is potentially a total loss, whether it's for a computer, a soda or a consulting fee. But when a business establishes a revenue stream that is insufficient to cover expenses and generate a profit, it has to differentiate between essentials and luxuries. Free soda will always be considered a luxury, whether or not it is a cost effective employee incentive. Personally, I hate working in places with these kind of perks. I think they're abused by both management and employees. If your salary isn't enough to cover your personal needs, free soda doesn't solve the underlying problem.
- algorias 17y ago
  If a company is not making profits, it will hardly make a difference whether or not they're giving away soda. The larger a company gets, the more inefficient it becomes. A single unproductive employee is a much larger money leak than free snacks. Not spending on soda gives them what? 3 more hours of runway before going out of business? The crucial point here is that every minute management and/or engineers are thinking about soda, is a minute wasted. A classical case of "penny-wise, pound foolish".
  - qjz 17y ago
    We're talking about soda, but in a culture ingrained with perks, there's no limit to waste, especially as you move up the ladder. In hard times, it sucks to see your boss fly first class instead of coach, take a limo instead of a cab, consider illegal parking tickets a necessary business expense, and all other kinds of excesses. If the business can't afford luxuries, things like free soda can be just one symptom of a far greater problem. In good times, go ahead and splurge. But even then it can create compensation inequities due to abuse and feelings of entitlement.
  - mmt 17y ago
    engineers are thinking about soda, is a minute wasted This probably the most often forgotten argument in favor of freebie snacks: time/attention saving. A good engineer can easily cost a company $1/minute (and be worth much more). Even if going out to ones car to grab some change takes 2 minutes, that $.50 soda just got a 400% markup. Actually having otherwise productive employees think about this as an issue is an even greater waste of talent. In a large enough company, though, the ratio of dead weight to productive people, can be high enough that charging for soda isn't a false economy.
assemble 17y ago
10k pays for half the janitor's salary. We don't get free anything where I work, and I'm fine with that. My company's job is to make more money, not baby me with things that I'm perfectly capable of paying for on my salary.
- pyre 17y ago
  There's no free coffee? Every place that I've ever worked had free coffee. From the crappiest of the low-level jobs to the awesome job that I have now.
  - assemble 17y ago
    Nope. Most groups have their own coffee machines and stock their own coffee. I work at an aircraft company. While I'm a salaried employee, the effects of the union being present at this site hit everyone. It's nice in some cases (benefits), but often it really screws us (hard to lose ineffective employees, no little 'fringe' benefits, etc). I'd be surprised if most companies w/ union involvement are much different.
  - whatusername 17y ago
    http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/apr/15/bcrisis-no-more-free-tea-coffee-for-ibm-staff.htm http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/apr/15/bcrisis-no-mor...
    - pyre 17y ago
      I'm not just talking IT firms though. I've never worked any job where there wasn't free coffee. Even the retail jobs had free coffee. It was definitely really really cheap stuff, but it was still there.
      - whatusername 17y ago
        I've worked in a wholesale nursery where I was in the middle of the paddock all day. Obviously there wasn't coffee there. But yes - most offices (and retail) have some form of coffee.
ax0n 17y ago
Everywhere I've worked that's not a startup, I've had to pay for all my stuff. The startups I worked for, as they became non-startups, started ditching perks like beer:30 Fridays, catered on-site lunches, free soda and the like. One took off and is wildly successful these days, the other became a non-startup by becoming a non-company. It's my personal observation. Of course, it's probably different here on the prairie (Kansas City) than it is in The Valley. Maybe the Oracles, ciscos, Googles and Yahoos of the world still provide plenty of goodies for free out there. I agree with many others in this thread that expenses are expenses. $16 per person per month is $10k at 50 employees. What about the 18-kilohuman corporation I work for right now? $16 per head per month turns into a $3.5M line item per year at that point. When does free soda become impractical? Also, the original article posits that it's more a symptom of the culture change than anything. Having to rifle through your pockets to score that Mountain Dew that used to fall out of the machine with only a button-press is often the first tangible effect of that culture change.
- mattm 17y ago
  It's all relative. If MegaCorp is making $1 billion revenue and spending $3.5 mil on sodas, that is just 0.35%. To break it down, if you are making $100k a year, then that would be equivalent to you spending $350 on soda...or about 1 per day. It's almost nothing and it's definitely not something to try to spend time cutting.

jameskilton 17y ago

Sorry, I've never seen a "need" here. Google gives free lunch, massages, has exercise equipment rooms, the works that they'll never charge employees for. No, this is too much tunnel-vision focus on the bottom line without even a simple thought of the people.

endtime 17y ago
Didn't they stop offering free food to the non-engineers a little while ago?
lallysingh 17y ago
Common, I think, amongst people who work just for the money, and don't actually enjoy or care about the work itself.

markkanof 17y ago

Why does any company need to go through this phase? It's such a small cost relative to any pretty much any other expense that a business might have. I know this is just an anecdote, but I worked for a non-profit for a number of years that had free soda fountains for employee use. It was a nice touch, and didn't cost them very much at all to maintain versus all the other costs of keeping the organization running.

iuytgfghjmk 17y ago
Because the managers all learned in MBA school that results are measurable, Removing sodas saves a measurable few $K/year, and the only downside is the unmeasurable loss of all your good people. It's the same with banning personal web use, flexi-time etc - the downside isn't measured, therefore there is no downside.