4 ms·
Holy carp! When they took away the free soda at KFC I started updating my resume. I worked at the KFC headquarters for over 10 years and for most of that time
by Corrado 2y ago
Holy carp! When they took away the free soda at KFC I started updating my resume. I worked at the KFC headquarters for over 10 years and for most of that time they had free soda in the lobby. Then the cafeteria management got turned over to a 3rd party, I'm guessing as a way to save money. Setting aside a food company not managing their corporate cafeteria, this 3rd party wanted to sell sodas and that's really hard when the company is providing them for free. So, KFC took out the free soda machines in the lobby.
I'm not joking when I say that free soda was a huge selling point to new recruits in the IT department. We even used it as a "smoke" break for those of us who didn't smoke. Feeling that after lunch malaise? Walk down 5 flights of stairs to get a small Pepsi. Need to talk out some tech problem with a co-worker? Grab a soda together and take a walk. It was great.
When they announced they were removing the soda machines one of the KFC VPs even offered to pay for the supplies out of their own budget. Rumor has it that the total cost was in the neighborhood of $30k / year, which was nothing in the grand scheme of things. But the higher ups said no and the machines were removed. That's when I (and others) started to update our resumes.
- rightbyte 2y agoOh dear. I agree with your point, but man, I do not handle free soda at work well. I do comfort drinking way too much.
- alecco 2y agoIf corporate starts sharpening their pencils at the small things they will sure cut on the bigger things like bonuses and raises. Time to leave if you are an over-performer looking for merit rewards.
- kcplate 2y agoI was in the break room at a former company when one of the warehouse workers who had been with the company for nearly 30 years and who had been through multiple ownership changes, made this comment to me: “well, the company is for sale again, the are buying Maxwell house coffee”. Within a week I was answering due diligence type questions from “consultant” who turned out to be the CTO of the company that acquired us, and became my boss a few months later. That was 20 years ago. Ever since through the 4 companies I have been through in that time frame, I have always used the break room as the barometer for corporate change.
- tasuki 2y ago> Feeling that after lunch malaise? Walk down 5 flights of stairs to get a small Pepsi. Need to talk out some tech problem with a co-worker? Grab a soda together and take a walk. It was great. It sounds like hell. How do you not get fat doing this?
- HDThoreaun 2y agoSo strange how even within the same country our cultures differ enough to have stuff like this which actually disgusts me. Have southerners never heard of coffee? How fat do you have to be to take soda breaks instead of coffee or smoke breaks?
- red_admiral 2y agoSugar-free soda is a thing.
- HDThoreaun 2y agoEveryone I know who drinks sugar free soda is fat.
- Corrado 2y agoActually, it was quite the opposite. We would walk down 5 flights of stairs, grab a small soda, and then walk back up them. Sometimes we would walk 1.5 miles around the pond before heading back to our desks. It was a bit of a workout, all told.