5 ms·

Why are people getting weird things like corporate food stamps when they are being paid 400,000 anyway?

jffry 2y ago
> Meta [...] usually feeds staff for free from canteens at its larger offices, including its sprawling Silicon Valley headquarters. But those at smaller sites are given daily credits to order food through delivery services such as UberEats and Grubhub. Daily allowances include $20 for breakfast, $25 for lunch and $25 for dinner. So probably a perk they decided was worth it or necessary for morale at some point
- Eumenes 2y ago
  > Daily allowances include $20 for breakfast, $25 for lunch and $25 for dinner. Dayum, I could make a weeks worth of meals with the daily allowance of each of these.
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    My thoughts exactly. $70/day to eat is mystifyingly generous. I don't spend $70/week.
- potato3732842 2y ago
  I suspect this is a result of acquisitions. They buy some startup, bring them all under Meta's HR umbrella with all the rules and perks that comes with. Since these recently acquired guys are running out of random offices in random places they just give them a stipend rather than force them to all relocate to a campus with dining. The $400k employee was probably a higher up (or key SME Meta felt they needed to put in golden handcuffs) at one of these acquired companies and was probably already on his or her way out.
  - questionableans 2y ago
    At Meta, $400k would be high E4 or low E5. That’s someone earlier in their career who probably feels fairly anonymous and is used to taking all the deals they can get to live cheaply, even if they don’t need to anymore.
- tivert 2y ago
  > So probably a perk they decided was worth it or necessary for morale at some point I always thought that stuff (along with the snacks) was a ploy to keep employees working longer hours. Needing to get food/coffee/whatever is a transition that can allow people to decide to disengage from work. A strategically placed coffee station can prevent a longer trip to the cafeteria or a coffee shop, and free food in the cafeteria can prevent a trip offsite to a restaurant or the worker's home for a meal. Plus it can seem like a plus to the employee, because people often pay a lot more attention to money than time.
  - HDThoreaun 2y ago
    Of course it is. That doesnt mean it isnt also a perk. I am happy that my office has coffee even though it also benefits my employer with the increased productivity. Same with lunch, its a win win for the company and the employee.
    - tivert 2y ago
      > Same with lunch, its a win win for the company and the employee. I don't think it's that simple. Sure, on some level it's a win for you (free food) and a win for them (more time spent working), but on another level you might be winning more if the perk wasn't influencing your decision-making to take the employer-preferred path. I think it's a little more clear when thinking about employer provided dinner, like Facebook apparently provides.
    - dns_snek 2y ago
      I don't think it's a win for the employee if they're getting $100 worth of extra labor out of you in exchange for $25 worth of food. And not just financially, I always thought that these "perks" make it harder to disconnect and relax from work which is likely to take a toll on mental health - I know it would for me.
      - s1artibartfast 2y ago
        It isnt an exchange of extra labor for food. They are demanding the work either way for the salary.
- jerlam 2y ago
  Now we know who's paying all those food delivery companies $20 to deliver them a single coffee.
- joezydeco 2y ago
  We use a Doordash voucher as an incentive to go hybrid and come into the office once or twice a week. Seems silly to spend all that time commuting and then you go leave for another 60-90 minutes to get lunch. At some point it will disappear and go to a hard RTO, but for now it kind of works. I've seen others ask how is buying toothpaste and wine is possible on a voucher, Doordash definitely does this "add groceries in the next 15 minutes!" thing once you've ordered lunch.
potato3732842 2y ago
Because that's better for morale and has a lower administrative overhead than the administrative overhead of having a cutoff or whatever.
- jcgrillo 2y ago
  It would be even less administrative overhead to just give everyone the $18.2k/yr in their regular paycheck.
  - bathtub365 2y ago
    The idea is to keep them in the office by giving them free food they’re only supposed to eat while they’re there, without paying overtime.
    - salawat 2y ago
      IT people are overtime exempt. Overtime doesn't factor into the calculus.
      - bathtub365 2y ago
        I used to make overtime pay as a software developer. It’s just been widely accepted by a lot of software developers that they don’t deserve overtime.
throwaway19972 2y ago
Who cares? Have you seen the profit margins at these stingy-ass companies?
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  >Who cares? Have you seen the profit margins at these stingy-ass companies? Should stealing be excused just because you're doing it to some wealthy entity? The problem with the "it's OK to steal from them because they're in a position of privilege and I'm not" justification logic, is that then the poor/homeless guy around the block should also be ok to rob you or break into your car because "who cares, have you seen the fat wages those techies are raking in?" Have Meta done a lot of nasty stuff that they should be punished for? Definitely. But that's another topic they need to be held accountable for by the law, and should never be a justification to green light stealing since two wrongs don't make a right and you don't want to live in a society where stealing is normalized as long as you think you're doing it to someone more priviledged than you.
  - salawat 2y ago
    How convenient that that line of thinking's ultimate outcome is to solidify the security of the haves goods over the have nots access to what they need. Much like taking second servings before the children have had their fill. Funny bit is no one ever seems to want to contemplate how to defang the power laws that yield winner takes all, fostering massive inequality at the expense of the majority of the population. That'd make being rich harder though. No one wants that.
  - archagon 2y ago
    How is this stealing?
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      How is it not? It is basically lying on an expense report. They were given permission to use funds to dinner if they were working late. Instead they treated the program as a personal credit card.
SkyPuncher 2y ago
I, for one know, some people like this. They grew up in struggling families where food and resources were scarce at times. My impression is that's created a deeply rooted sense of need. That sense of need stays, even when you clearly have great salaries.
- beepbooptheory 2y ago
  I have only worked at pretty bad startups I guess, but for me I could get paid well but if there is some strong sense of job insecurity (as there always seems to be in this world), I will never leave a certain level of survival/hoarding mode. I have savings and everything but to this day I will still only buy a car I can potentially live out of. Every day I am ready to go back to the kitchen, but until then every morsel must be collected and appreciated.
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    This is (depending on how extreme you are, I suppose) wise. Once you're making more than a subsistence income, one of the keys to long-term financial stability and security is to live well below your means[1]. Doing that also gives you freedom in the sense that you are no longer "trapped" in whatever job you have, because you can develop a long enough runway that you can leave a job before you've found a replacement. [1] In my youth, I dated the daughter of one of the richest people in my city. I asked him what the key to getting rich is, and his response was "spend less than you earn". At the time, I thought it was a way to to avoid answering my question, but in the decades since I've realized that was actually the correct answer and everything else is just expanding on that.
mrtksn 2y ago
People love free stuff just as much as they love spending money I guess. There are deals even in upscale stores for brands used by people who don't know how much money and how many properties they own.
rsynnott 2y ago
Not sure how it works in the US, but at least here, if an employer wants to provide meals to some employees and not have it seemed to be a benefit in kind (and thus liable for income tax), they have to provide them to _all_ employees (or at least all employees working at a given site). I'd wonder if that was part of the issue here, actually; are these sorts of meal vouchers treated specially for tax in the US?

> Meta [...] usually feeds staff for free from canteens at its larger offices, including its sprawling Silicon Valley headquarters. But those at smaller sites are given daily credits to order food through delivery services such as UberEats and Grubhub. Daily allowances include $20 for breakfast, $25 for lunch and $25 for dinner. So probably a perk they decided was worth it or necessary for morale at some point

Eumenes 2y ago
> Daily allowances include $20 for breakfast, $25 for lunch and $25 for dinner. Dayum, I could make a weeks worth of meals with the daily allowance of each of these.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  My thoughts exactly. $70/day to eat is mystifyingly generous. I don't spend $70/week.
potato3732842 2y ago
I suspect this is a result of acquisitions. They buy some startup, bring them all under Meta's HR umbrella with all the rules and perks that comes with. Since these recently acquired guys are running out of random offices in random places they just give them a stipend rather than force them to all relocate to a campus with dining. The $400k employee was probably a higher up (or key SME Meta felt they needed to put in golden handcuffs) at one of these acquired companies and was probably already on his or her way out.
- questionableans 2y ago
  At Meta, $400k would be high E4 or low E5. That’s someone earlier in their career who probably feels fairly anonymous and is used to taking all the deals they can get to live cheaply, even if they don’t need to anymore.
tivert 2y ago
> So probably a perk they decided was worth it or necessary for morale at some point I always thought that stuff (along with the snacks) was a ploy to keep employees working longer hours. Needing to get food/coffee/whatever is a transition that can allow people to decide to disengage from work. A strategically placed coffee station can prevent a longer trip to the cafeteria or a coffee shop, and free food in the cafeteria can prevent a trip offsite to a restaurant or the worker's home for a meal. Plus it can seem like a plus to the employee, because people often pay a lot more attention to money than time.
- HDThoreaun 2y ago
  Of course it is. That doesnt mean it isnt also a perk. I am happy that my office has coffee even though it also benefits my employer with the increased productivity. Same with lunch, its a win win for the company and the employee.
  - tivert 2y ago
    > Same with lunch, its a win win for the company and the employee. I don't think it's that simple. Sure, on some level it's a win for you (free food) and a win for them (more time spent working), but on another level you might be winning more if the perk wasn't influencing your decision-making to take the employer-preferred path. I think it's a little more clear when thinking about employer provided dinner, like Facebook apparently provides.
  - dns_snek 2y ago
    I don't think it's a win for the employee if they're getting $100 worth of extra labor out of you in exchange for $25 worth of food. And not just financially, I always thought that these "perks" make it harder to disconnect and relax from work which is likely to take a toll on mental health - I know it would for me.
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      It isnt an exchange of extra labor for food. They are demanding the work either way for the salary.
jerlam 2y ago
Now we know who's paying all those food delivery companies $20 to deliver them a single coffee.
joezydeco 2y ago
We use a Doordash voucher as an incentive to go hybrid and come into the office once or twice a week. Seems silly to spend all that time commuting and then you go leave for another 60-90 minutes to get lunch. At some point it will disappear and go to a hard RTO, but for now it kind of works. I've seen others ask how is buying toothpaste and wine is possible on a voucher, Doordash definitely does this "add groceries in the next 15 minutes!" thing once you've ordered lunch.

potato3732842 2y ago

Because that's better for morale and has a lower administrative overhead than the administrative overhead of having a cutoff or whatever.

jcgrillo 2y ago
It would be even less administrative overhead to just give everyone the $18.2k/yr in their regular paycheck.
- bathtub365 2y ago
  The idea is to keep them in the office by giving them free food they’re only supposed to eat while they’re there, without paying overtime.
  - salawat 2y ago
    IT people are overtime exempt. Overtime doesn't factor into the calculus.
    - bathtub365 2y ago
      I used to make overtime pay as a software developer. It’s just been widely accepted by a lot of software developers that they don’t deserve overtime.

throwaway19972 2y ago

Who cares? Have you seen the profit margins at these stingy-ass companies?

FirmwareBurner 2y ago
>Who cares? Have you seen the profit margins at these stingy-ass companies? Should stealing be excused just because you're doing it to some wealthy entity? The problem with the "it's OK to steal from them because they're in a position of privilege and I'm not" justification logic, is that then the poor/homeless guy around the block should also be ok to rob you or break into your car because "who cares, have you seen the fat wages those techies are raking in?" Have Meta done a lot of nasty stuff that they should be punished for? Definitely. But that's another topic they need to be held accountable for by the law, and should never be a justification to green light stealing since two wrongs don't make a right and you don't want to live in a society where stealing is normalized as long as you think you're doing it to someone more priviledged than you.
- salawat 2y ago
  How convenient that that line of thinking's ultimate outcome is to solidify the security of the haves goods over the have nots access to what they need. Much like taking second servings before the children have had their fill. Funny bit is no one ever seems to want to contemplate how to defang the power laws that yield winner takes all, fostering massive inequality at the expense of the majority of the population. That'd make being rich harder though. No one wants that.
- archagon 2y ago
  How is this stealing?
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    How is it not? It is basically lying on an expense report. They were given permission to use funds to dinner if they were working late. Instead they treated the program as a personal credit card.

SkyPuncher 2y ago

I, for one know, some people like this. They grew up in struggling families where food and resources were scarce at times. My impression is that's created a deeply rooted sense of need. That sense of need stays, even when you clearly have great salaries.

beepbooptheory 2y ago
I have only worked at pretty bad startups I guess, but for me I could get paid well but if there is some strong sense of job insecurity (as there always seems to be in this world), I will never leave a certain level of survival/hoarding mode. I have savings and everything but to this day I will still only buy a car I can potentially live out of. Every day I am ready to go back to the kitchen, but until then every morsel must be collected and appreciated.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  This is (depending on how extreme you are, I suppose) wise. Once you're making more than a subsistence income, one of the keys to long-term financial stability and security is to live well below your means[1]. Doing that also gives you freedom in the sense that you are no longer "trapped" in whatever job you have, because you can develop a long enough runway that you can leave a job before you've found a replacement. [1] In my youth, I dated the daughter of one of the richest people in my city. I asked him what the key to getting rich is, and his response was "spend less than you earn". At the time, I thought it was a way to to avoid answering my question, but in the decades since I've realized that was actually the correct answer and everything else is just expanding on that.

mrtksn 2y ago

People love free stuff just as much as they love spending money I guess. There are deals even in upscale stores for brands used by people who don't know how much money and how many properties they own.

rsynnott 2y ago

Not sure how it works in the US, but at least here, if an employer wants to provide meals to some employees and not have it seemed to be a benefit in kind (and thus liable for income tax), they have to provide them to _all_ employees (or at least all employees working at a given site). I'd wonder if that was part of the issue here, actually; are these sorts of meal vouchers treated specially for tax in the US?