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I wonder how we got a cultural thing where coffee is usually expected to be provided free, but other beverages fall into a different class. I assume that if it
by CWuestefeld 4y ago
I wonder how we got a cultural thing where coffee is usually expected to be provided free, but other beverages fall into a different class.
I assume that if it was provided from dispensers like at McD's, it would be similar in expense to coffee.
- gwbas1c 4y agoWhen I worked for Intel, the coffee was absolutely not free. The only freebies were filtered water and toilet paper. It never bothered me that much, but when I joined a company with freebies, it was like a breath of fresh air.
- ajross 4y agoCoffee is free at Intel. Or was, back when people worked in offices.
- selimthegrim 4y agoNot if you're a green badge it isn't.
- ajross 4y agoContractors don't get perks like that anywhere, thanks to Vizcaino v. Microsoft. Withholding resources afforded to permanent employees is weird and counterintuitive, but it's how employers demonstrate compliance.
- gwbas1c 4y agoI think a lot of that changed after I left. (In 2005-2007) It just felt petty to have to use a coffee vending machine.
- NtGuy25 4y agoRecently joined a company with legit soda machines(the fancy ones with exotic stuff like cream sodas), slim jims, ice cream, cookies, cakes and which buys lunch for the engineers every weekend. It's amazing. I came from a place where you had to pay 2 $ for a soda! It's definitely one of the things that you don't realize when you don't have it, but when you do it's like heaven. It's really helped me get more work done since I can snack away and it encourages me to get up for walks around the office.
- rootusrootus 4y agoYears ago (like, 1993 or so), our college CS class visited Jones Farm. One of the stops on the tour was a break room. All of the drinks were free at the time, whether it was coffee or coca cola. One of the engineers there remarked that at Microsoft only the caffeinated drinks were free. LOL. I just about believe it.
- saalweachter 4y agoEh, there's a downside to freebies, which is curation. No matter how luxurious and all-encompassing, your free corporate fridges are not the supermarket, your free corporate cafeterias are not an east coast diner. They don't have everything you might want, just a decent selection. We're deep in first world problems here, but there's a certain frustration to always drinking the drink that doesn't quite hit the spot, to searching the cafeteria menu for the least bad menu option. At least when you are paying the money yourself in the wider world, you can actually pick what you want.
- jbay808 4y agoDid you ever consider contacting the people responsible for the selection and making a request? They were probably just going by their best guess.
- gwbas1c 4y ago> At least when you are paying the money yourself in the wider world, you can actually pick what you want Office vending machines have the same problem. If I want a specific item with me, I bring it.
- rhino369 4y agoCoffee is a productivity increaser.
- erwinkle 4y agoas is caffeinated soda
- philwelch 4y agoNot as much as you'd think; for me, at least, the sugar crash counteracts the caffeine.
- gnulinux 4y agoThere are a lot of caffinated seltzers now that don't have any sugar but do have flavoring and CO2
- philwelch 4y ago> caffinated seltzers...that don't have any sugar but do have flavoring and CO2 I think you've just defined sugarfree energy drinks.
- gnulinux 4y agoI mean, some brands such as "Aha Sparkling Water" literally sell them as caffeinated seltzer instead of energy drinks. https://www.caffeineinformer.com/caffeine-content/aha-sparkling-water https://www.caffeineinformer.com/caffeine-content/aha-sparkl...
- philwelch 4y agoFucking hipsters.
- rootusrootus 4y agoI once heard that Microsoft subsidized caffeinated soda, but you had to pay for the caffeine-free options. That may just be an old wives' tale.
- acchow 4y agoYou want to feed your employee healthy foods because healthy bodies are more productive. Also health insurance costs.
- gowld 4y agoCoffee is extremely popular, and too easy and cheap to meter when produced on site. Soda costs more and more hassle to buy (in cans/bottles), is extra work to make cheaply (install and maintain a tap), and mostly is grossly unhealthy and most people (outside of coder stereotype) don't want it at work. SodaStream-style device fits the coffee mold, but it's less popular and not traditional.
- CWuestefeld 4y agoI don't have numbers, but my expectation is that cost is of the same order of magnitude. I don't think coffee is all that cheap. I'm thinking of all the problems I've seen with the plumbing leaking, the machine being left on and burning requiring extensive cleaning, broken pots, and so forth, all on top of the material expense. Soda doesn't have to deal with the heat, but it does have pressure, so that probably kinda balances out.
- lol_what 4y agopeople really don't understand what a blessing it is to not have sodas be free. that kind of culture with an expectation of it (and 'snacks') being free will create a lot of fatness in the industry
- samatman 4y agoTwo thirds of Americans (European numbers are similar, higher if anything) drink coffee every day, which is, not to put too fine a point on it, an addiction. I'm one of them for sure. It's easier to just give people their fix, and there's a long history of this, paid coffee breaks were an early concession unions demanded during industrialization.