6 ms·

A Google Employee working from home could save $200/day versus getting a fancy limousine to go to work. Nobody buys prepared food every day, and the costs of f

A Google Employee working from home could save $200/day versus getting a fancy limousine to go to work. Nobody buys prepared food every day, and the costs of food are negligible for a Google employee.

whiddershins 5y ago
> Nobody buys prepared food every day I get what you are trying to say, but empirically false
httpsterio 5y ago
Yeah if I made Google wages I would not want to waste an hour or more a day on commuting. Plus, you can easily make food for 10-20 dollars a day so saving by eating the company food will cost you more just by colmuting and losing your time (or potential wages).
- ghaff 5y ago
  I certainly don't worry about what I spend on food and I spend a few dollars a day on breakfast and lunch. Maybe $10-15 typically on dinner (if that). Most people don't have the free breakfast/lunch/dinner some tech employers do. And my utilities might differ a few dollars per day if I'm home or not.
- jameshart 5y ago
  Do you think googlers are paid by the hour?
randycupertino 5y ago
> Nobody buys prepared food every day, I know many people who don't cook at all and live solely on prepared food.
- bartvk 5y ago
  Do you see more-than-usual overweight people in this group? (Never cooking is very, very rare here in The Netherlands so I'm curious about any anecdata here).
  - cco 5y ago
    In my experience it is a horseshoe, people that eat out for every meal tend to be either on the high end of the income spectrum and thin or the very low end and obese. These are broad strokes, but my experience in rural America and in SF bears this out, rich people eat out very often and tend to be fit and the very poor also eat out more than average but tend to be obese. Everyone else is in the middle.
  - gargs 5y ago
    Also depends on the cuisine. Quite a few cuisines take extraordinarily long to cook, and at that point, you're better off just eating out to save time (if you have the money) than deal with those meal-kits that are either not sustainable, or healthy, or often-times, both. In The Netherlands, the cuisine tends to be really simple, and salad-kits and meal-kits are extremely popular. The fanciest food that people 'cook' is often a soup or pasta, and I'd say it's extremely rare for anyone to make pasta or sauces from scratch.
staticassertion 5y ago
> Nobody buys prepared food every day, and the costs of food are negligible for a Google employee. Of course they do? When I've been crunching, like just putting insane hours in, I've gone weeks without cooking and just ordering in. It costs a fortune, even at Google salary - or in my case, 'SF' salary. Not to mention the cost of living is already absurd due to rent - your salary gets eaten up faster than you might imagine.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
gnicholas 5y ago
I know Googlers who literally never buy groceries because they eat all of their big meals at the office, grab a bottled smoothie on their way out the door, and get restaurant food on the weekends. It is cheaper to get groceries than to buy prepared food, but there’s a lot of spoilage that happens when you’re only cooking 2 days/week.
- travisjungroth 5y ago
  There’s a big jump that happens when you have no food in the house. No spoilage, no dishes, no pantry to stock. I didn’t even work for a company and this is how I lived immediately pre-covid in Mexico City. I kept the ingredients to make a protein shake, and had one at 11am after the gym every day. Then went out for dinner. That was the distinct downtime. If I wanted a snack, I walked to the corner store and bought one. It was a sweet setup.
- chris11 5y ago
  I'm not at Google, but while my office was open I didn't stock much breakfast food. The breakfast food at my job was better than I usually bought, so I didn't need to buy it.
- plantain 5y ago
  I did not own a fridge or any cooking appliances for my first year at Google. 3 meals a day at work + takeout on weekends.
  - TranquilMarmot 5y ago
    This is disgusting
    - gravypod 5y ago
      Is there any particular component of this that disgusts you? You could likely do that and end up spending less money than buying food and cooking for yourself. If you don't cook you can free up your time for other revenue generating activities, chores, etc. Total cost of 2x to 4x delivered meals in my area could be $20 to $80. That's ~$320 or 80 less then the $400 number quoted in other places in this thread. It's pretty rational behavior from the employees side of things. And, even before Google, when I started living alone I realized I couldn't buy milk anymore because I don't drink enough milk fast enough to not let it spoil. I've switched to soy purely because it lasts months I'm my fridge safely.
rblatz 5y ago
I buy prepared food multiple times a day.
cm2012 5y ago
My wife and I together spend about 3k per month on food. We're outliers but it surely happens.

whiddershins 5y ago

> Nobody buys prepared food every day I get what you are trying to say, but empirically false

httpsterio 5y ago

Yeah if I made Google wages I would not want to waste an hour or more a day on commuting. Plus, you can easily make food for 10-20 dollars a day so saving by eating the company food will cost you more just by colmuting and losing your time (or potential wages).

ghaff 5y ago
I certainly don't worry about what I spend on food and I spend a few dollars a day on breakfast and lunch. Maybe $10-15 typically on dinner (if that). Most people don't have the free breakfast/lunch/dinner some tech employers do. And my utilities might differ a few dollars per day if I'm home or not.
jameshart 5y ago
Do you think googlers are paid by the hour?

randycupertino 5y ago

> Nobody buys prepared food every day, I know many people who don't cook at all and live solely on prepared food.

bartvk 5y ago
Do you see more-than-usual overweight people in this group? (Never cooking is very, very rare here in The Netherlands so I'm curious about any anecdata here).
- cco 5y ago
  In my experience it is a horseshoe, people that eat out for every meal tend to be either on the high end of the income spectrum and thin or the very low end and obese. These are broad strokes, but my experience in rural America and in SF bears this out, rich people eat out very often and tend to be fit and the very poor also eat out more than average but tend to be obese. Everyone else is in the middle.
- gargs 5y ago
  Also depends on the cuisine. Quite a few cuisines take extraordinarily long to cook, and at that point, you're better off just eating out to save time (if you have the money) than deal with those meal-kits that are either not sustainable, or healthy, or often-times, both. In The Netherlands, the cuisine tends to be really simple, and salad-kits and meal-kits are extremely popular. The fanciest food that people 'cook' is often a soup or pasta, and I'd say it's extremely rare for anyone to make pasta or sauces from scratch.

staticassertion 5y ago

> Nobody buys prepared food every day, and the costs of food are negligible for a Google employee. Of course they do? When I've been crunching, like just putting insane hours in, I've gone weeks without cooking and just ordering in. It costs a fortune, even at Google salary - or in my case, 'SF' salary. Not to mention the cost of living is already absurd due to rent - your salary gets eaten up faster than you might imagine.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

gnicholas 5y ago

I know Googlers who literally never buy groceries because they eat all of their big meals at the office, grab a bottled smoothie on their way out the door, and get restaurant food on the weekends. It is cheaper to get groceries than to buy prepared food, but there’s a lot of spoilage that happens when you’re only cooking 2 days/week.

travisjungroth 5y ago
There’s a big jump that happens when you have no food in the house. No spoilage, no dishes, no pantry to stock. I didn’t even work for a company and this is how I lived immediately pre-covid in Mexico City. I kept the ingredients to make a protein shake, and had one at 11am after the gym every day. Then went out for dinner. That was the distinct downtime. If I wanted a snack, I walked to the corner store and bought one. It was a sweet setup.
chris11 5y ago
I'm not at Google, but while my office was open I didn't stock much breakfast food. The breakfast food at my job was better than I usually bought, so I didn't need to buy it.
plantain 5y ago
I did not own a fridge or any cooking appliances for my first year at Google. 3 meals a day at work + takeout on weekends.
- TranquilMarmot 5y ago
  This is disgusting
  - gravypod 5y ago
    Is there any particular component of this that disgusts you? You could likely do that and end up spending less money than buying food and cooking for yourself. If you don't cook you can free up your time for other revenue generating activities, chores, etc. Total cost of 2x to 4x delivered meals in my area could be $20 to $80. That's ~$320 or 80 less then the $400 number quoted in other places in this thread. It's pretty rational behavior from the employees side of things. And, even before Google, when I started living alone I realized I couldn't buy milk anymore because I don't drink enough milk fast enough to not let it spoil. I've switched to soy purely because it lasts months I'm my fridge safely.

rblatz 5y ago

I buy prepared food multiple times a day.

cm2012 5y ago

My wife and I together spend about 3k per month on food. We're outliers but it surely happens.