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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

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
  I got you: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/ https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...
- argimenes 7y ago
  I can't even tell if this is parody anymore.
FussyZeus 7y ago
So how do you square this with the employees you recruited using the kitchen stock as part of the benefits package sold to them? If you're cutting $30k per year in food expenses, is that then given to the employees to buy the snacks they want, or is it going to your bottom line?
- cannaceo 7y ago
  I didn't sell them on a kitchen benefits package. Where is the money going? I don't know. I have ~50 expense categories from utilities, raw materials, labor, transportatation, insurances, rent, interest expenses, accounting, taxes, etc. A dollar doesn't disappear from the kitchen budget and arrive in my pocket. Maybe it went to the R&D budget or maybe it went to buying a new dining room table.
  - FussyZeus 7y ago
    Well that's my point isn't it? You saved money but you have no idea why or where it went. If the company was in dire straights, you could probably answer that question. This is what middle management does, in my experience. They cut costs in different parts of a company without care of why, the point is only to make themselves look better. Who cares if employees are less happy, we saved almost enough to pay 1/4 of a new employee's salary! Who cares if the steel we're using is a lesser quality, do you have any idea how much money that saves? Who cares if our product now only works for 1/5 of the time because we removed voltage protection in a few spots, that saved us literally whole pennies per hundred units! I mean it's not like the kitchen just appeared from the ether now is it? At some point, your company put it there, and decided to stock it with certain food and drink. So what changed? This is why I will never work in a big corporation if I can help it. It's just a race to the bottom in every aspect.
nitwit005 7y ago
If you're genuinely spending that much on snacks, vending machines to limit spend might help. A number of companies have set up IT equipment vending machines that limit spend per employee. I admit the downside is that you harm the kitchen appearance, which some companies seem to put huge efforts into.

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
I got you: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/ https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...
argimenes 7y ago
I can't even tell if this is parody anymore.

FussyZeus 7y ago

So how do you square this with the employees you recruited using the kitchen stock as part of the benefits package sold to them? If you're cutting $30k per year in food expenses, is that then given to the employees to buy the snacks they want, or is it going to your bottom line?

cannaceo 7y ago
I didn't sell them on a kitchen benefits package. Where is the money going? I don't know. I have ~50 expense categories from utilities, raw materials, labor, transportatation, insurances, rent, interest expenses, accounting, taxes, etc. A dollar doesn't disappear from the kitchen budget and arrive in my pocket. Maybe it went to the R&D budget or maybe it went to buying a new dining room table.
- FussyZeus 7y ago
  Well that's my point isn't it? You saved money but you have no idea why or where it went. If the company was in dire straights, you could probably answer that question. This is what middle management does, in my experience. They cut costs in different parts of a company without care of why, the point is only to make themselves look better. Who cares if employees are less happy, we saved almost enough to pay 1/4 of a new employee's salary! Who cares if the steel we're using is a lesser quality, do you have any idea how much money that saves? Who cares if our product now only works for 1/5 of the time because we removed voltage protection in a few spots, that saved us literally whole pennies per hundred units! I mean it's not like the kitchen just appeared from the ether now is it? At some point, your company put it there, and decided to stock it with certain food and drink. So what changed? This is why I will never work in a big corporation if I can help it. It's just a race to the bottom in every aspect.

nitwit005 7y ago

If you're genuinely spending that much on snacks, vending machines to limit spend might help. A number of companies have set up IT equipment vending machines that limit spend per employee. I admit the downside is that you harm the kitchen appearance, which some companies seem to put huge efforts into.