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Shenanigans in the Microkitchen
- alex_young 7y agoWe used to call these First World Problems. I guess it just shows you that privilege doesn't magically create culture, and that post-it notes are something like the workplace equivalent of YouTube comments.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- alanbernstein 7y agoSimplest solution: stop providing the snacks that people want to hoard
- cbsks 7y agoOr just buy more? Then people won’t have to hoard them. I don’t understand why someone’s first reaction would be to email the group asking people to stop taking multiple items, instead of emailing the person in charge of the snacks and requesting more.
- millstone 7y agoRight, it's bimodal. Absence or abundance; just avoid scarcity!
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tbyehl 7y agoA company I worked for when the first bubble burst took away our free (canned) beverages. Allegedly because some temp employees were witnessed exiting the facility carrying significant quantities of drinks but in reality the costs had crossed $5,000/m as we'd grown and that was the magic number where someone began to question it... nevermind that headcount had grown from 150 -> 350 since the free beverages had been implemented and the expenses had been fairly linear. My current employer provides fountain drinks. BYOC.
- sneak 7y agoUnlimited vacation is the new unlimited soda. There’s actually a limit, but we’re not going to tell you what it is.
- phnofive 7y agoIn both cases, your peers will shame you when you cross the line.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoAs it should be. It's the most basic mechanism by which groups regulate themselves.
- rainyMammoth 7y agoIsn't that mechanism broken lately with the vocal minorities playing that game?
- sneak 7y agoA workplace is not a social peer group, it is a financial transaction wherein services are provided for compensation. The compensation and terms should be known up front, not after crossing some invisible line. When I pay to go to a buffet, it’s not “all you can eat until we get annoyed and shame you”. Services in, payment out. It’s a transaction and changing the terms passive-aggressively after the deal is struck is shady at best.
- jevgeni 7y agoI like how the person argues how hoarding the bottles is good for _them_, hence it’s OK. I bet their face is getting orange. “It saves me time, so it’s not rude” jfc
- AkshatM 7y agoThis is like saying it's rude to choose not to give all your money to charity - after all, that too is a choice that is only justified by benefitting the would-be giver. Doing what you want with the resources available to you is a perfectly valid choice within any system - unless there was a corporate decree saying you can only use so many Tejava bottles, that person's not doing anything problematic. Their behaviour may be an inconvenience to other people, but that behaviour itself is not the root cause behind the inconvenience. The short supply in the office is an artificial constraint, and could easily be increased at nominal cost, which the bottle taker rightly points out.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoYou miss the point of the author. "Doing what you want with the resources available to you is a perfectly valid choice within any system" isn't valid social behavior when resources are constrained. That's how societies fail. This is called "tragedy of the commons", which author explicitly references. Sure, in this case the company could easily increase the amount of resources at little cost. Then again, said person may then start taking a dozen bottles home, because they've already displayed antisocial behavior. There are two separate problems here: one is unnecessarily constrained resources. Second is a person who defects instead of cooperating when faced with resource constraint.
- AkshatM 7y agoThis is a good point. I hadn't considered it from that angle, and I hadn't understood the significance of the "tragedy of the commons" remark. In my original answer, I had talked about how choosing not to give money to charity is a valid choice. It seems to me this is similar to choosing not to cooperate when money is a resource constraint, and my conclusion there was that defection is perfectly alright. However, your argument would mean that defection wouldn't be the valid choice in this case, so I'm interested in understanding this discrepancy/my error. Under what circumstances would you say is defection valid?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- machinelearning 7y agoIdeas: Install a vending machine that requires people to badge for high demand snacks/beverages. Stock items wrt locality based demand. Allow users to specify a couple favorite snacks and guarantee a floor of a certain quantity. Implement using distributed resource sharing algorithms already used in production systems. Lastly googles culture does already prize selflessness and sharing. It’s surprising the author didn’t mention any pushback to this kind of behavior on the mailing list.
- millstone 7y agoA subsidized vending machine is really powerful. The 25 cent barrier is enough to keep me from buying that candy bar that I don't reaaally want, and it thereby also ensures adequate supply.
- machinelearning 7y agoSure, even if it was completely free, the fact that you have to badge for it provides an air of accountability which would prevent hoarding.
- opportune 7y agoThis is probably more expensive than just stocking more of the item
- Negitivefrags 7y agoWe had a situation like this with chocolate milk at our company. It was suddenly popular and there were people doing stuff like this. The office people who stocked the fridges were talking about rules for how many you could take and other dumb things like that. I told them “stock twice as many”. They reply “but then people will take twice as many”. “So double the stocks again. And keep doubling until there are some left in the fridge at the end of the day”. They looked at me like I was insane. There isn’t any actual limit. The company isn’t going to run out of money because people drink too much chocolate milk. I mean, if people want it then just give it to them! After a few days of oversupply, the popularity waned and now people take chocolate milk at roughly the rate of any other soda. The fad had past.
- raldi 7y agoEvery company I've ever worked at that had drinks and/or snacks followed this antipattern. At my current job it's spearmint Orbit gum vs peppermint. Last job, blackberry Hint vs .. I think pomegranate? They'd stock identical amounts of two or three varieties of thing, never noticing (or deliberately ignoring feedback about) how one was the clear favorite and disappeared immediately, and another was kinda gross and nobody took any until it was all that's left. Not that I'm complaining about "free" food; it just baffles me that this is so pervasive when the solution is so obvious. Why don't companies select flavors proportional to demand? It costs the same as buying identical amounts of each flavor.
- JimboOmega 7y agoOne could argue that unmet demand saves money; assuming they only pay for what gets stocked.
- Terretta 7y agoWho is “they” and how would they know one was done before the other? At restock time having both used up in the dispenser looks like both are popular and both need to be replaced. There would have to be a rate of sale number available to the stockist. From the deliveries I’ve observed they don’t seem to have an algo more complex than refill what’s empty.
- lph 7y agoI've never heard "microkitchen". Where I work, it's just a kitchen. A pretty big kitchen, actually, so prepending "micro" would feel strange. Are Google's microkitchens small?
- colonelxc 7y agoNo, they are quite large. The joke is that the "micro"kitchens are larger than people's expensive bay area apartments.
- bradfitz 7y agoWe have real kitchens too. Saying "micro kitchen" distinguishes it from the big cafes. IIRC, there's some legal definition too: a micro kitchen can't have ice or something. Once it does it's subject to different rules, so we need to go to the real kitchens to get ice.
- imron 7y agoSecond paragraph: > Some other companies have the same sort of thing going on. They don't always get the same name applied (sometimes they're just "kitchens"), but similar behaviors seem to follow them around.
- loeg 7y agoOurs are called kitchenettes. They differ from an actual kitchen in that they don't have real food, cooking ware, or cooking appliances (except perhaps a microwave or coffee machine).
- bww 7y agoYour company should provide enough of a given amenity that everyone can enjoy it as much as they like or it shouldn’t provide that amenity at all. Offering an insufficient amount invites this kind of behavior and the animosity this kind of behavior engenders.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jcims 7y agoThat's ridiculous, sorry. I spent a very short time at one of those places you hear of and enjoyed the little bags of dried mango that I had never had before. I took one a day because anything beyond that started to be gluttonous. Same with the 'Dang' coconut chips...so good. Point being that it's obvious these are provided for convenience and a way for folks to get a little break. If you just horde everything for yourself when it's obvious you're denying everyone else a share, you've achieved pathological status in your behavior. On a side note the floor also had a location where folks could bring in their spirits of choice to share with the 150 or so folks that they worked with. It was a beautiful thing.
- ergocoder 7y agoHorde everything seems exaggerated. It's 6 bottles. If we substitute the story with 6 bottles of water (as in I need to drink 6 bottles of water to be productive), we would immediately shift blame to Google as to why Google doesn't provide abundant drinking water for everyone. Because we can easily imagine that we need to drink water to be productive at work. We only think this story is ridiculous because we couldn't possibly imagine how these sodas help with productivity. I don't drink soda (which isn't healthy), so I can't imagine how it helps with productivity. But people are different... This story just screams extreme lack of empathy.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoLack of empathy is hoarding. There are other people who may need that water/soda for productivity just as much. And if one has so specific needs that they really need 6 times the expected allocation of something that's meant for more people, why don't they buy it themselves? Or at least raise an issue with management that they need more of the drink to stay productive?
- RandomBacon 7y agoEither supply more, or encourage employees to bring their own if they're addicted to it.
- jonbronson 7y agoOr that employee could just stop engaging in selfish behavior. Company cohesion matters more than one toxic employees fixation on a bubbly drink.
- quickthrower2 7y ago> You can pick your jaw up off the floor now. I certainly can ... my jaw dropped that this deserved a blog post.
- Teever 7y agoIt's a blog post, not a Nobel Winning paper.
- MoronInAHurry 7y agoSomehow rachelbythebay links always seem to jump to the top of HN, no matter how banal they are. I never understand it. Not being able to get the specific type of free iced tea that she wanted annoyed her so much that she saved an email about it for (presumably) years so she could make a blog post complaining about how mildly rude her coworker was.
- akhilcacharya 7y agoIt’s pretty bizarre, but I guess it’s instructive about the bubble many HN users are in. (My company doesn’t have a micro kitchen...)
- luismedel 7y agoYou're right. Adults debating about an imaginary problem, while it's a mere education issue. I find more than normal not taking the last piece of cake or choosing another flavor of tea (or drinking water) if my favourite flavor is out of stock. Oh, and I don't find so offensive going to the nearest supermarket or café to buy any groceries I need.
- rainyMammoth 7y agoThat is the one take away from this post. This is really a weird bubble of people with too much time and not enough issues.
- rachelbythebay 7y agoNot my tea. Not my company. I am none of the people in the post. I share things from other people and places, you know.
- ergocoder 7y agoThe person in the story is right. There's a simpler solution. A company can easily stock more stuff. It's not that hard. If my colleague says that they need to take 6 bottles a day because it makes them 0.01% more productive, I'll be totally fine with that. It costs so little. I'll probably request the company to stock more. Different people have different needs. Why would Google want to create an environment where employees need to fight for food? Why would Rachel blame that person instead of Google?
- mattigames 7y agoIs right about future actions the company should take, is extremely wrong about what he/she _did_ already, if one person takes all the stock intended to be distributed company-wide that raises thousands of red flags as team player, doesn't matter if tomorrow they get a magic fridge that has an infinite amount of Tejava bottles, I still wouldn't want that person near any executive positions in the company.
- ergocoder 7y agoIf 6 bottles make them 0.01% more productive, I'd be okay with that. Actually, take 10, just in case. This person takes 6 bottles. You are exaggerating that number to infinity. Really? To add to your point, we don't want an exec who aims to blame a particular person instead of a system as well.
- mattigames 7y agoDon't you dare to fire me from your hypothetical company! In a more serious note, where did you find that drinking Tejeva is making them more productive? It sounds like an mild addiction wish I suspect is doing the opposite. The infinity was to make a point about resources, you put much focus into it and is just a silly hypothetical scenario to state a point. In organizations there is always problems with people and always problems with the system, pointing out the former doesn't mean one doesn't acknowledge the later; and like I said their solution for the future of just buying more stock is correct, so I agreed the system is flawed, their previous behavior is _also_ on the wrong and the one that raises red flags in a personal level.
- eugenekolo2 7y agoFree snacks is all fun until somebody ruins it by deciding they can take an exorbitant amount of them home.
- ChuckMcM 7y agoI restocked the fridge at Blekko. Its a surprisingly interesting problem to solve efficiently, which is to say if you want to always have consistent stock of things people want. I had set up a model with a couple of feedback loops to set up orders such that the quantity on hand remained consistent. And adding in new things to replace things that were out of favor. The toughest was flavored water which came in a variety pack but not all varieties were equally popular. If I could have the vendor make a special mix it would have been easier.
- ejcho623 7y agoAll I know is that now I want to try out a bottle of Tejava
- nindalf 7y agoI think the issue is with lack of data. The folks stocking the kitchen notice that at the end of the day all snacks are exhausted. From that they conclude that everything is equally popular and there is no need to change the proportions in which each is stocked. Instead if they measured twice or thrice during the day they’d realise that some items are more popular than others and stock more of them. Often this issue is cast as the company refusing to spend more money on snacks but I don’t think it’s the money. It’s the fact that they don’t know which snacks are truly popular and which people are eating because they’re hungry and have no choice.
- peteforde 7y agoSort of creeped out to realize how many of the folks here think that they're being contrarian by defending socially obnoxious behaviours. Ultimately, it's just a funny story but it's also a potent allegory about blindness to privilege. To everyone else on the planet, this is the literal equivalent of stealing the red stapler. Meanwhile, it's shocking that nobody has created a startup for employees to request and give feedback on free snacks at startups.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoThe phenomenon described is a significant source of social woes in every place on the planet. This is how you get overfishing, overgrazing, and other forms of overexploitation of natural resources. This is how you get people not caring about pollution prematurely killing others because hey, it's cheaper for me to burn actual trash in my stove. This is how you get companies like Uber and AirBnB, all too happy to strip mine the non-material, social commons. This is exactly why "we can't have nice things". Sure, in a microkitchen this is just obnoxious. But this exact - not similar, but exact - pattern of thinking causes trouble everywhere. So I'm more than creeped out to see people defending it.
- floatingatoll 7y agoMaybe not contrarian, but game theory and denial. If they prefer to take socially obnoxious actions for some benefit, then they would either have to react by defending the actions of others that parallel their own, or confront that they are being socially obnoxious to others. Humans are, sadly, prone to doubling down on defending the right to be socially obnoxious rather than admitting that they are being socially obnoxious :( And since this is a denial problem, it’s usually paired with “Theoretically”, “Not that I would”, “It’s fair game” and my personal favorite “They should work harder to prevent this” — which is beautiful as a cognitive dissonance: 1) They support acting selfishly (socially obnoxious) to some benefit to themselves at the expense of others; 2) They want everyone to fairly have access to that same benefit, as long as that does not interrupt their own benefit. Thus, the ‘obvious’ solution to ‘stock more Tejava’: it combines the selfishness of #1 and the moral high ground of #2 without requiring any extra effort or loss of benefit.
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y agoI don't get it. Is it in a food desert? Can't they bring their own, or restock from a shop/kiosk nearby during breaks? I mean it's not like the sites are in Area51, or are they?
- auiya 7y agoA co-worker once admitted to me she uses the communal tea kettle to make hard boiled eggs. I now have to go to another part of the building for my hot water. :/
- jiofih 7y agoWhy? A metal kettle will not contain any trace of whatever was in it after washing.
- draw_down 7y agoMy company has the kitchens, I’ve never seen this or heard of this. If something runs out they should be stocking more or more often. Shit like this is so silly. If the company is making billions it’s not acceptable. Stock more. Also, just speculating, but I bet this is more prone to happen in places that don’t treat their food staff like real employees.
- posix_me_less 7y ago> it was me - taking 6 Tejava bottles and stocking them into our team's minifridge... if I don't stock up in the morning, there is no Tejava left in the fridge by noon and I have to scavenge ALL surrounding microkitchens in the same building and in ALL adjacent buildings to quench my thirst. While the article and comments here suggest that one should get outraged by the perpetrator's selfish behaviour and shameless response, it is good to realize the power dynamic here. The stuff is provided by the employer as an advertised benefit. By taking what he needs and defending his actions, he is clearly signalling to the coworkers and to the management that if they want to have cool as-advertised working environment, they should stock the fridge with more stuff. This kind of behaviour empowers the employees and forces the employer to put the action where the words are. Any other interpretation is a mistaken application of socialism in a capitalist enterprise. In other words, the stuff is provided by employer for every employee there, not for some imaginary community of employees which then should organize and share in socialist way. The company does not want employees to organize. In a coop enterprise I would agree that this was wrong, but if you're working for capitalists, you should strengthen your power and negotiating position because otherwise the managers will wipe the floor with you.
- jasone 7y agoThis would have to have been at Facebook. Rachel and I worked in close physical proximity for quite a while, and as it happens, I was a major Tejava consumer (but not an actor in this particular incident). For years, Facebook routinely maintained ample Tejava supplies, but then suddenly the 0-6 bottles per day stocking became the new norm. Many here fault the participants for making the commons tragic; my take remains that someone made a terrible decision to limit supply (probably due to cost), and it turns out that several of us employees countered with negative sentiment that made it a net loss for the company. I did not begrudge those who beat me to the inadequate supply, but I did begrudge the shortage.
- mhb 7y agoThis Tejava must be amazing stuff!