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That's hilarious. His letter to Ralph was so passive–aggressive. I would have left out these nuggets: 1)... now that I know it's so super-secret 2)... are mo

That's hilarious. His letter to Ralph was so passive–aggressive. I would have left out these nuggets: 1)... now that I know it's so super-secret 2)... are mostly people of color and cannot eat Google meals 3)... I wasn’t approaching this as an act of muckraking 4)... nice way to meet people who work right next to me but are very clearly not the same class as me

paganel 15y ago
> 2)... are mostly people of color and cannot eat Google meals That's a bummer, because those were indeed people of color who were not allowed to eat Google meals. Well, at least I know why it took you guys in the States 100 years to actually give equal rights to your fellow black citizens: you were all too afraid of losing your jobs.
- illumen 15y ago
  There are over 2 million african americans working for free in USA prisons. I'm not sure they've moved on all that much.
- AlexC04 15y ago
  Assume each "Google Meal" costs $5 in preparation labour, materials, plates & utensils (washing), fittings and fixtures, etc... 261 working days a year 1 employee $5 = $1305 per employee, per year How many workers in the 3.14 building? At 400 employees, that's half a million dollars. Does the board of director's fiduciary duty to their shareholders allow them to pay for the Scan Ops lunches? I don't know what minimum wage in the states is, but I'm pretty sure most of those workers would rather have that extra five dollars in their pockets and brown-bag it. It's also a lot easier to justify an extra dollar an hour above minimum wage. "Catered lunches" is a perk that (as far as I know) is very rare. Your company "not buying you lunch every day" is the norm. I can't see any outrage in their perfectly normal behavior.
  - adaml_623 15y ago
    You've presented some arithmetic and no information at all. If the story is that these employees are being employed at minimum wage then that's something that contradicts the "Don't be evil" ethos.
    - Maro 15y ago
      Please explain why employing someone at minimum wage evil.
    - cagey 15y ago
      Employing someone at the minimum wage rate is "evil"?
      - danilocampos 15y ago
        "I'd pay you even less, but it'd be illegal!"
        glenra 15y ago
        That perspective assumes pay is the only thing that matters in the bundle of benefits that counts as a job. Given that one can make a job better or worse in zillions of ways, mandating a minimum wage probably makes both the employer and the employee worse off compared to allowing them to reach a free mutual agreement on terms. It might make employees worse off by reducing their hours, by reducing the training budget, reducing flexibility of work hours, reducing job security...or by reducing perks such as free food. Here's an example: Suppose you're running a videogame company and you need to test your new videogame. If it were legal, one strategy might be to pay a small army of junior-high kids, say, $1/hour to test your videogame after school. The kids would go for it because they get the ability to play hot new video games in a relaxing, low-pressure environment, with free snacks and drinks and even a small amount of pay, where ordinarily it would cost them money to play videogames. As a side benefit, they'd get valuable exposure to the work environment, make business contacts, possibly discover a new career. Now pass laws demanding a minimum wage. The junior high kids are priced out of the market; if you have to pay a large wage you'll hire fewer but more qualified people rather than more, less qualified people. Now it's much harder to get started in the field. A $13/hour testing job is a different job than the $1/hour job. More stressful, harder to get, and quite possibly less effective. So change your quote to "You'd prefer to take less (in exchange for offsetting benefits that are more valuable to you than to me), but offering you that deal would be illegal!"
- mgcross 15y ago
  According to the author, they were "contracted to Google by another company." So that could be a consideration for excluding perks that are normally folded into salaries.
- JoshCole 15y ago
  I don't get this sentiment. I thought that most people with jobs like this weren't getting free meals. I mean, do data-entry workers in your country really get free food, hair cuts, gym access, and cleaning services, among other things? A while back Google offered a million dollar counteroffer to one of its engineers who was going to leave. Do you really expect them to offer millions to a data entry person who is going to leave?

paganel 15y ago

> 2)... are mostly people of color and cannot eat Google meals That's a bummer, because those were indeed people of color who were not allowed to eat Google meals. Well, at least I know why it took you guys in the States 100 years to actually give equal rights to your fellow black citizens: you were all too afraid of losing your jobs.

illumen 15y ago
There are over 2 million african americans working for free in USA prisons. I'm not sure they've moved on all that much.
AlexC04 15y ago
Assume each "Google Meal" costs $5 in preparation labour, materials, plates & utensils (washing), fittings and fixtures, etc... 261 working days a year 1 employee $5 = $1305 per employee, per year How many workers in the 3.14 building? At 400 employees, that's half a million dollars. Does the board of director's fiduciary duty to their shareholders allow them to pay for the Scan Ops lunches? I don't know what minimum wage in the states is, but I'm pretty sure most of those workers would rather have that extra five dollars in their pockets and brown-bag it. It's also a lot easier to justify an extra dollar an hour above minimum wage. "Catered lunches" is a perk that (as far as I know) is very rare. Your company "not buying you lunch every day" is the norm. I can't see any outrage in their perfectly normal behavior.
- adaml_623 15y ago
  You've presented some arithmetic and no information at all. If the story is that these employees are being employed at minimum wage then that's something that contradicts the "Don't be evil" ethos.
  - Maro 15y ago
    Please explain why employing someone at minimum wage evil.
  - cagey 15y ago
    Employing someone at the minimum wage rate is "evil"?
    - danilocampos 15y ago
      "I'd pay you even less, but it'd be illegal!"
      - glenra 15y ago
        That perspective assumes pay is the only thing that matters in the bundle of benefits that counts as a job. Given that one can make a job better or worse in zillions of ways, mandating a minimum wage probably makes both the employer and the employee worse off compared to allowing them to reach a free mutual agreement on terms. It might make employees worse off by reducing their hours, by reducing the training budget, reducing flexibility of work hours, reducing job security...or by reducing perks such as free food. Here's an example: Suppose you're running a videogame company and you need to test your new videogame. If it were legal, one strategy might be to pay a small army of junior-high kids, say, $1/hour to test your videogame after school. The kids would go for it because they get the ability to play hot new video games in a relaxing, low-pressure environment, with free snacks and drinks and even a small amount of pay, where ordinarily it would cost them money to play videogames. As a side benefit, they'd get valuable exposure to the work environment, make business contacts, possibly discover a new career. Now pass laws demanding a minimum wage. The junior high kids are priced out of the market; if you have to pay a large wage you'll hire fewer but more qualified people rather than more, less qualified people. Now it's much harder to get started in the field. A $13/hour testing job is a different job than the $1/hour job. More stressful, harder to get, and quite possibly less effective. So change your quote to "You'd prefer to take less (in exchange for offsetting benefits that are more valuable to you than to me), but offering you that deal would be illegal!"
mgcross 15y ago
According to the author, they were "contracted to Google by another company." So that could be a consideration for excluding perks that are normally folded into salaries.
JoshCole 15y ago
I don't get this sentiment. I thought that most people with jobs like this weren't getting free meals. I mean, do data-entry workers in your country really get free food, hair cuts, gym access, and cleaning services, among other things? A while back Google offered a million dollar counteroffer to one of its engineers who was going to leave. Do you really expect them to offer millions to a data entry person who is going to leave?