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Expect google to start "optimizing" the cafeteria soon enough.
by gbronner 7y ago
Expect google to start "optimizing" the cafeteria soon enough.
- jedimastert 7y agoEmployees will go apeshit. Food is such a huge deal for the culture.
- novok 7y agoIf you work in a tech company, you'll quickly realize that the food is something everyone focuses on to a disproportionate degree. This guy knows what he is talking about.
- komali2 7y agoI know a QA ex Google engineer that refused to ever work for a company with a cafeteria again solely because he got tired of people complaining about food that was free. It annoyed him that much.
- shantly 7y agoI see the general principle guiding this and agree with it, but "free" food from an employer is just another form of comp and complaining about it's no more ungrateful than complaining about health benefits or salary. It's not like complaining about a Christmas gift or something.
- jjeaff 7y agoHe should read up on the economic principle, tanstaafl (there ain't. O such thing as a free lunch), then it won't bother him so much.
- gbronner 7y agoI asked a millennial why she cared so much about the free coffee, and she told me that it symbolizes the employer's 'caring' about the staff.. Personally, I'd rather earn an extra $25k and buy a few cups of coffee with it than get "free coffee".
- badfrog 7y ago> Personally, I'd rather earn an extra $25k and buy a few cups of coffee with it than get "free coffee". I don't think there are any companies that spend $25k per employee per year on coffee???
- Apocryphon 7y agoThat is a dilemma that not a single worker in the history of this species has ever had to grapple with.
- jjeaff 7y agoCoffee is so bargain basement cheap when bought and prepared in bulk too.
- Junk_Collector 7y agoSimple perks like free coffee are a canary for the corporate coal mine. When you look at the cost of coffee or soda, providing it free may cost the company in the ballpark of $500 a year per employee (though often less) which is minuscule in the total annual cost of an employee. Taken in a vacuum however, the number looks big. We spent how much on Coffee last quarter! When companies get to the mostly investor owned squeezing for growth stage, it's almost always among the first thing that gets cut. This is then usually followed by other more important quality of life cuts like training, equipment, and bonuses. Many companies hit this stage and start increasing margins by letting inflation eat their employee's high salaries over time for instance.
- neekburm 7y agoIt reminds me of this: 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...
- ChuckMcM 7y agoYeah, and there will be some noisy exits while people say "man Google has really lost its way" and they will open up the hiring spigot a bit and replace all of those exits with new employees for whom Google has always had a pay per meal policy (or no cafes in the satellite offices) or what ever method Google used to prevent the hit to their profitability. After a few years nearly everyone will think this is the 'regular' Google and won't know anything about the 'old' Google way. When I was working there, there was a tool called 'percent' that would tell you what percent of the employees were newer than you were. What astonished me was how rapidly one became an 'old timer' in the sense that > 50% of the employees had arrived after you had[1]. I watched this process in real time as people got fed up and left because they felt that the company had "let them down" or "failed to meet their commitments." It was a lot like university where every 4 or 5 years its an entirely different set of undergraduates. You tell them "how it was" and they believe you because, you are there and they just arrived. [1] That particular astonishment, combined with the reported employee numbers, led to another investigation which was how Google could replace 50% of the staff without anyone noticing, and discovered that churn was a pretty big thing.
- mikestew 7y agoMany moons ago, Microsoft’s cafeterias were subsidized. And then they weren’t. Remember that mass exodus from Microsoft in the 90s over the cafeteria stink? Neither does anyone else, because what noise there was didn’t amount to much.
- jjeaff 7y agoEspecially considering that the recent tax law changes are phasing out some fringe benefits that corporations could previously deduct. Regular meals provided for employees on site is one of the deductions that has been nixed. Obviously, the kitchen salaries will be deductible. But none of the food cost and other ongoing expenditures related to providing that food.