4 ms·

This situation sucks. On one hand, it might lead to higher wages being offered if you can't sell "free food" as a perk of employment. On the other hand, this

This situation sucks. On one hand, it might lead to higher wages being offered if you can't sell "free food" as a perk of employment. On the other hand, this makes me feel very libertarian and enraged that a local gov is trying to limit where I can get food. Currently I work in IT, and my employer has occasionally made food available with enough regularity that I stay onsite. I don't like having to hike back to my rental car, navigate to the venue, wait to order and pick up food, and suffer in what is usually a dirty public area while eating it. I acknowledge the insulation and welcome it. Often there isn't enough time to eat, so the whole experience is stress away from the stress of customer support. Sometimes I just don't eat if it means going outside. My work has me travelling a lot and it's difficult to r/mealprepsunday from a hotel mini fridge. There has to be a better way to attract people with access to free food to local restaurants, and it's not this. If local venues are saying they're missing out on patrons that should be available then they should adapt to offering a corporate experience? Starbucks became much more successful when they became a spot for people with Macbooks to vegetate all day in. You could have the company give an allowance to their employees to go out and spend it on local food, and then give the company a tax break for encouraging investment in said local venues (based on how much was spent). (maybe?)

nostrademons 8y ago
Agreed that the situation sucks. I loved the free food in the Googleplex. As for other solutions - personally I'd love to see some form of vouchers + electronic ordering system where employees at local businesses could go online, select from the menu, have their employer pick up the tab (perhaps with some quota or auditing so you aren't always eating gourmet on the employers dime), and your phone beeps when your food will be ready in 5 minutes and you can go walk in, flash your employee badge, and pick it up. That gets a lot of the in-house benefits of higher efficiency and less hassle for workers, but also directs money to local restaurants and gives additional consumer choices for workers. It'd likely cost more for the company (who is paying retail prices rather than contracting with a catering company), but that's because the restaurants have more negotiating leverage when they're also open to the public and aren't held hostage by a single customer, which if you're in favor of consumer choice is exactly how it should work. 90% of this system already exists, too, between company credit cards, Concur or other expense-reporting software, online ordering for DoorDash/Yelp/etc, mixed-use developments, decent restaurants, food-is-done buzzers at sit-down restaurants, etc. It's just there's no integrated portal where you can eg. swipe your badge when you order instead of having to pull out your company credit card or get notifications when it's time to walk over.
- null000 8y ago
  My fiance worked at a company that had pretty much literally this system, just without the "free" part of it. Go online, pick food from one or two places, get a text when the food arrives for the office. My understanding was that it worked decently well, just was a bit expensive compared to bringing lunch from home (obviously) and sometimes the food got repetitive.

nostrademons 8y ago

Agreed that the situation sucks. I loved the free food in the Googleplex. As for other solutions - personally I'd love to see some form of vouchers + electronic ordering system where employees at local businesses could go online, select from the menu, have their employer pick up the tab (perhaps with some quota or auditing so you aren't always eating gourmet on the employers dime), and your phone beeps when your food will be ready in 5 minutes and you can go walk in, flash your employee badge, and pick it up. That gets a lot of the in-house benefits of higher efficiency and less hassle for workers, but also directs money to local restaurants and gives additional consumer choices for workers. It'd likely cost more for the company (who is paying retail prices rather than contracting with a catering company), but that's because the restaurants have more negotiating leverage when they're also open to the public and aren't held hostage by a single customer, which if you're in favor of consumer choice is exactly how it should work. 90% of this system already exists, too, between company credit cards, Concur or other expense-reporting software, online ordering for DoorDash/Yelp/etc, mixed-use developments, decent restaurants, food-is-done buzzers at sit-down restaurants, etc. It's just there's no integrated portal where you can eg. swipe your badge when you order instead of having to pull out your company credit card or get notifications when it's time to walk over.

null000 8y ago
My fiance worked at a company that had pretty much literally this system, just without the "free" part of it. Go online, pick food from one or two places, get a text when the food arrives for the office. My understanding was that it worked decently well, just was a bit expensive compared to bringing lunch from home (obviously) and sometimes the food got repetitive.