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We 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 sto

We 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 ago
Every 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 ago
  One could argue that unmet demand saves money; assuming they only pay for what gets stocked.
- Terretta 7y ago
  Who 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.
- fossuser 7y ago
  Where I work you end up in a funny situation since the contractor that stocks the snacks seems mostly to just stock whatever they see on the shelf. Popular stuff gets entirely taken and unpopular stuff remains, slowly you reach a state where the only things on the shelf are unpopular. You can try seeding an item which may get it stocked, but it doesn’t always work.
- minitoar 7y ago
  It's probably because those items come in a "variety pack" with e.g. 6 of each flavor to make an 18 pack of 3 different flavors. We have this problem with the green tea flavored Honest Teas. If you're ordering from Costco, in my experience many such items only come in a variety pack.
- drewg123 7y ago
  Popularity based stocking is probably best, but makes you scrounge when you like the unpopular flavor. When I was at Google, I loved Apple Hint. Sadly, it was an unpopular flavor, and never stocked in the MK in my building. I had to scour surrounding buildings to get my fix. I finally hit the jackpot in an MK a few buildings over, where they stocked Apple, AND Hint Fizz which one of my teammates loved (and which was also not stocked in our MK). So I'd bring back 2 Apples for me, and 2 Fizzes for him. I'd probably drink 4-6 Hint's per day when I was at Google. I remember emailing a friend after I left Google, joking that I could hardly believe I was paying for my own Hint now!
- mattmaroon 7y ago
  Sometimes it's because of multipacks. We used to stock La Croix, back when there weren't dozens of flavors and knock off brands. We'd get a 24 pack of them at Sam's that had three flavors, six lemon, six orange, twelve lime. Over time the limes would accumulate until one day we had a stack of them from the floor to the ceiling of the supply closet. We made a joke out of it, sneaking lime ones into people's fridges, replacing their lemon or orange with them mid-drink, etc. Our company was small enough that it never got hostile.
pdonis 7y ago
Why don't people bring in their own drinks if they want so much of one particular thing over the course of a day that they can't depend on the common stock of it to have enough?
- raldi 7y ago
  Hard to carry on the bike/bus/train. But imagine if a company was always running out of coffee and gave a response like yours.
  - mercutio2 7y ago
    That sounds... completely fine? Why do people deserve gratis expensive beans from tropical latitudes more than some carbonated water with a few drops of flavor oils?
- elindbe2 7y ago
  Free stuff always tastes better
nitwit005 7y ago
Yep. They always seem upset if anything is too popular. Other pattern seems to be replacing something with a healthier variant, then removing the healthier variant because no one is eating it.
FussyZeus 7y ago
This, so much. If the cost of chocolate milk is going to kill the company, we have way bigger problems than people drinking too much chocolate milk. If you're offering a kitchen, stock the damn thing. If you don't want to, then don't offer it.
- cannaceo 7y ago
  Boss here: Stocking the kitchen quickly gets out of hand. We cut our monthly spend from 5.5k to 3k by stocking cheaper, less desirable snacks. The popular stuff goes quickly and you can easily spend a ton of money providing them. If you're stocking as much Tejava as the employees want your kitchen budget is going to balloon. $9/day in Tejava for that woman alone. $198/mo in Tejava. That's significant monthly spend on beverages for one employee. Every expense kills the company. Every dollar is allocated somewhere.
  - wikibob 7y ago
    That’s $30,000 a year. Well less than 1/4 the annual salary of an engineer in any major metro. Is the reduction in employee satisfaction really worth it? Reduction of snacks and office perks is a classic canary in the coal mine for those in the know to beware of coming cutbacks and start interviewing elsewhere. Someone internet famous has written about this. I will try to find the link.
    - greenyoda 7y ago
      $30K/year may seem trivial if it's a VC-funded startup. However, if it's a bootstrapped company that's struggling to turn a profit, $30K/year could be the difference between life and death. For example, if you spend it on marketing you live, but if you spend it on snacks, you die. > Is the reduction in employee satisfaction really worth it? Not everyone cares about free food/drinks. The only freebies the company I work for provides are bad coffee and tea, but I don't care one way or the other. My decision to stay or leave is based on factors like the work I'm doing, the people I work with and the quality of management.
    - kop316 7y ago

raldi 7y ago

Every 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 ago
One could argue that unmet demand saves money; assuming they only pay for what gets stocked.
Terretta 7y ago
Who 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.
fossuser 7y ago
Where I work you end up in a funny situation since the contractor that stocks the snacks seems mostly to just stock whatever they see on the shelf. Popular stuff gets entirely taken and unpopular stuff remains, slowly you reach a state where the only things on the shelf are unpopular. You can try seeding an item which may get it stocked, but it doesn’t always work.
minitoar 7y ago
It's probably because those items come in a "variety pack" with e.g. 6 of each flavor to make an 18 pack of 3 different flavors. We have this problem with the green tea flavored Honest Teas. If you're ordering from Costco, in my experience many such items only come in a variety pack.
drewg123 7y ago
Popularity based stocking is probably best, but makes you scrounge when you like the unpopular flavor. When I was at Google, I loved Apple Hint. Sadly, it was an unpopular flavor, and never stocked in the MK in my building. I had to scour surrounding buildings to get my fix. I finally hit the jackpot in an MK a few buildings over, where they stocked Apple, AND Hint Fizz which one of my teammates loved (and which was also not stocked in our MK). So I'd bring back 2 Apples for me, and 2 Fizzes for him. I'd probably drink 4-6 Hint's per day when I was at Google. I remember emailing a friend after I left Google, joking that I could hardly believe I was paying for my own Hint now!
mattmaroon 7y ago
Sometimes it's because of multipacks. We used to stock La Croix, back when there weren't dozens of flavors and knock off brands. We'd get a 24 pack of them at Sam's that had three flavors, six lemon, six orange, twelve lime. Over time the limes would accumulate until one day we had a stack of them from the floor to the ceiling of the supply closet. We made a joke out of it, sneaking lime ones into people's fridges, replacing their lemon or orange with them mid-drink, etc. Our company was small enough that it never got hostile.

pdonis 7y ago

Why don't people bring in their own drinks if they want so much of one particular thing over the course of a day that they can't depend on the common stock of it to have enough?

raldi 7y ago
Hard to carry on the bike/bus/train. But imagine if a company was always running out of coffee and gave a response like yours.
- mercutio2 7y ago
  That sounds... completely fine? Why do people deserve gratis expensive beans from tropical latitudes more than some carbonated water with a few drops of flavor oils?
elindbe2 7y ago
Free stuff always tastes better

nitwit005 7y ago

Yep. They always seem upset if anything is too popular. Other pattern seems to be replacing something with a healthier variant, then removing the healthier variant because no one is eating it.

FussyZeus 7y ago

This, so much. If the cost of chocolate milk is going to kill the company, we have way bigger problems than people drinking too much chocolate milk. If you're offering a kitchen, stock the damn thing. If you don't want to, then don't offer it.

cannaceo 7y ago
Boss here: Stocking the kitchen quickly gets out of hand. We cut our monthly spend from 5.5k to 3k by stocking cheaper, less desirable snacks. The popular stuff goes quickly and you can easily spend a ton of money providing them. If you're stocking as much Tejava as the employees want your kitchen budget is going to balloon. $9/day in Tejava for that woman alone. $198/mo in Tejava. That's significant monthly spend on beverages for one employee. Every expense kills the company. Every dollar is allocated somewhere.
- wikibob 7y ago
  That’s $30,000 a year. Well less than 1/4 the annual salary of an engineer in any major metro. Is the reduction in employee satisfaction really worth it? Reduction of snacks and office perks is a classic canary in the coal mine for those in the know to beware of coming cutbacks and start interviewing elsewhere. Someone internet famous has written about this. I will try to find the link.
  - greenyoda 7y ago
    $30K/year may seem trivial if it's a VC-funded startup. However, if it's a bootstrapped company that's struggling to turn a profit, $30K/year could be the difference between life and death. For example, if you spend it on marketing you live, but if you spend it on snacks, you die. > Is the reduction in employee satisfaction really worth it? Not everyone cares about free food/drinks. The only freebies the company I work for provides are bad coffee and tea, but I don't care one way or the other. My decision to stay or leave is based on factors like the work I'm doing, the people I work with and the quality of management.
  - kop316 7y ago