5 ms·

The company I'm with now recently started implementing "cost cutting measures." Coffee is no longer free (.50 cents per cup). Annoying, but not really a huge de

by archon 13y ago

The company I'm with now recently started implementing "cost cutting measures." Coffee is no longer free (.50 cents per cup). Annoying, but not really a huge deal. You can pay once a month and get it out of the way instead of having to keep quarters on hand. The bigger issue, to me, is that management decided to stop using a cleaning service. The 30-employee workforce is now part of a cleaning rotation. So, once a week, we are all expected to stop what we're doing and spend 30 minutes to 2 hours cleaning something, depending on our assigned area. How can that possibly be cost efficient? You derail the thought processes of all 30 of your employees for at least a half hour every week. 15+ man hours that your highly skilled employees could be using elsewhere. In the case of the half-dozen programmers here, it's even less efficient. It takes a lot of concentration for me to get into a mental state conducive to good programming. 30+ minutes of cleaning is enough to get me out of that programming "mode", and it is very difficult to regain that state of mind once lost. I think that's at least part of the reason why these progammers were so up in arms about the soda machine: Because now they have to think about it. The company has introduced an annoyance and distraction (I'll admit, a trivial one) into their work day, for very little apparent effect on the company's bottom line.

rdl 13y ago
This seems like one of those cases where having your email address in profile would get you spammed by recruiters :)
michaelochurch 13y ago
The bigger issue, to me, is that management decided to stop using a cleaning service. The 30-employee workforce is now part of a cleaning rotation. So, once a week, we are all expected to stop what we're doing and spend 30 minutes to 2 hours cleaning something, depending on our assigned area. Wow. You only clean (aside from desk clutter and kitchen spills) at work if: (A) Your job is literally to be a full-time cleaner. (B) You are a partner in the company (0.05% stock options don't count.) Ask for (B)-- being a real owner means you do some of that unpleasant stuff-- but if that doesn't happen, then quit.
- archon 13y ago
  See, here's the thing: I'm actually pretty torn about whether I think the cleaning is an unreasonable request. On the surface, being asked to clean is not a big deal. I clean my bathroom at home, cleaning the one I use at work doesn't seem like a big deal. At the same time, as snooty as it sounds, my job is to write code, not to spray cleaner on a toilet bowl. But it's what it says about the company that concerns me. It seems like they're saving pennies at the risk of employee happiness.
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    Also, it's up to you how you get your home cleaning done. You can hire a once-a-week maid service (it's not that expensive). You get to decide how clean you want your toilet bowl to be. It's your choice, though, and the only people you have to answer to (if applicable) are your family. Having someone who can turn off your income and damage your professional reputation tell you that you have to drop everything at 4:00 and clean a toilet is a different thing altogether. That's ridiculous. Again, if you're a real partner/owner (0.05% equity does not count) you do a bunch of undesirable work (including cleaning toilets, if it makes sense) because the buck stops with you. If you're an employee, you simply should not stand for this.
    - narag 13y ago
      You can hire a once-a-week maid service (it's not that expensive). Oh, thanks, now I know what I would do in that situation: pay some professional cleaner to come to the office when it's my turn.
  - EliRivers 13y ago
    They're surely not making savings. Your time doing your job is more valuable than cleaning things. They make a small (but easily defined saving) by not hiring a cleaner, and a much larger loss by having their staff stop doing their (presumably more expensive, skilled work) to clean things. What's your hourly rate? More than a cleaner? It's not an unreasonable request to you, in that the company buys your time and this is what they want you to do. It's a fantastically unreasonable request if they're actually in business to make money and you should take a good look around at the company; this could be an early warning to jump ship. Be assured that other people are already thinking this, and that in such situations the people leaving first are the smarter, better employees; as each one leaves, the company will struggle a little bit more. Edit: As I read your post, I heard this low blaring horn kind of noise, getting louder and louder, much as during Heath Ledger's scenes in Dark Knight. :p I reckon you could probably have a go at estimating the new cost of cleaning by estimating how much time everyone spends cleaning and what their hourly rate is - this might give you a better idea of how badly things are really going. It might be really scary :)
namdnay 13y ago
Suggest a further cost-cutting idea: Fire all developers and hire cleaners to do the coding. Since apparently all jobs are interchangeable :)
purplelobster 13y ago
50 cents per cup? That's gotta be with a profit even. Charging for coffee is not really acceptable to me. What I could see as fair is not providing unhealthy stuff like soda and snacks (because it creates unhealthy habits), but at least replace it with coffee, tea, fruits and nuts. I'll clean my own desk, but make me clean the office and I'm out of there, unless it's a scrappy start-up in which case it's OK. I hope your company has many other redeeming qualities, cause they sure sound cheap!
- hga 13y ago
  If you don't set out to make a profit, you're probably going to have a loss. So, unless the true cost of a cup of coffee is below 25 cents (I don't think it makes much sense to charge in between, although I could be wrong), it's not necessarily unreasonable (ignoring all issues if that's a change from free coffee).
- lmm 13y ago
  Wouldn't the health damage from coffee be much bigger than from "soda and snacks"?
  - yyqux 13y ago
    No. There's mixed evidence about whether coffee is moderately good/moderately bad/neutral for you in sane quantities (i.e. a few cups a day). There's plenty of evidence that eating salty/sugary sodas and snacks is bad for you in similar quantities.
  - reverius42 13y ago
    What makes you think there is health damage from coffee? All the evidence I've seen points to health benefits.
onemorepassword 13y ago
It can be cost effective if there is currently no way to fully monetize the full productivity of the team, and the company is trying to survive without lay-offs. The only issue is that if you have a valuable workforce that has the option to leave instead of desperately needing the job, you need everyone's buy-in, or at least full understanding of the circumstances. Apparently that hasn't been done, which is incredibly stupid, especially in such a relatively small company, but not uncommon. A simple alternative would be to let one programmer go, and start hiring again when business picks up. However, once you go down that road, it's a lot harder to rebuild the team again. With that as the alternative, it shouldn't be too hard to sell, at least not in the short term.
seivan 13y ago
Charging for coffee is just fucked up in general. Doesn't matter the cost of it.
- walkon 13y ago
  Indeed. The ROI on providing coffee free of charge to employees has to be huge. All that (free) caffeine works wonders for helping people stay awake and productive.
TeMPOraL 13y ago
> I think that's at least part of the reason why these progammers were so up in arms about the soda machine: Because now they have to think about it. You rise a very important point here. The benefit of free soda or food at work is not that employees can save money; it's that they don't have to think about food. It is abstracted away. One of the reason those problems appear is probably the wrong mindset of management layer. They think of themselves as the bosses, while they should be thinking they're doing service jobs. Software companies sell software to make money. Software is made by developers (and designers), and sold by sales people. Anything else is support structure. Developer abstraction layer [0] to help translate software to money. But often the structure is inverted, and managers become "shit funnels" instead of "shit umbrellas" [1] - forcing developers to be concerned with things not related to developing. And then productivity declines and good devs leave. [0] - http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/DevelopmentAbstraction.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/DevelopmentAbstractio... [1] - http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/key-to-gmail/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/key-to-gmail/
- dennisgorelik 13y ago
  I'm surprised that this Joel's article was never discussed on HN before. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5761414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5761414
h2s 13y ago
There is nothing wrong with cleaning offices for a living. It's good, hard, honest work. But did you really bust your ass learning to program just to clean toilets so that somebody getting paid more than you can make the numbers on their spreadsheet look nicer? There are good reasons for you to leave that situation. For one, the fact that your employer can't afford a cleaning service is a very bad omen. Secondly, programmers don't usually like being deprived of their programming like that, so even if your employer isn't about to go under, it's likely that some of your colleagues are planning their own exits. It's also almost certainly a departure from the job description you signed up for. I have to admit, I am wondering why you're still working there. There must be some good mitigating circumstances, right?
- archon 13y ago
  > I have to admit, I am wondering why you're still working there. Several reasons. These cost cutting measures are new, and I've been trying to decide whether they are a big enough reg flag for me to start getting serious about finding a new job (I've decided they are). Also, I have some personal life changes coming up in the next 6 months as well, and I'm hesitant to add a job change to those big personal life changes unless I have no choice. > There must be some good mitigating circumstances, right? Definitely. I like the team I'm working with, and other than the slightly ridiculous cost cutting, the work environment is remarkably low stress and friendly.
  - marcosdumay 13y ago
    > I'm hesitant to add a job change to those big personal life changes unless I have no choice. And what other evidence are you waiting for untill you decide that you have no choice?
geon 13y ago
> .50 cents per cup Is that how it's supposed to be written, or did you just tell me you get coffee for half a cent? (Serious question. English isn't my first language.)
- greenyoda 13y ago
  I'm sure he meant "50 cents per cup".
- jgross206 13y ago
  This is very common usage, though technically incorrect. The poster meant 50 cents.
- sib 13y ago
  No, it should be written $0.50 per cup or 50 cents per cup :) Verizon Wireless had an issue with charging for wireless data like this a few years ago that made for a funny story.
nickzoic 13y ago
Get your CV ready ...
noonespecial 13y ago
We call that the "we're paying them anyway" fallacy. The idea is that once you've paid someone a salary, its a sunk cost so assigning them any extra task is "free".

by archon 13y ago

rdl 13y ago

This seems like one of those cases where having your email address in profile would get you spammed by recruiters :)

michaelochurch 13y ago

The bigger issue, to me, is that management decided to stop using a cleaning service. The 30-employee workforce is now part of a cleaning rotation. So, once a week, we are all expected to stop what we're doing and spend 30 minutes to 2 hours cleaning something, depending on our assigned area. Wow. You only clean (aside from desk clutter and kitchen spills) at work if: (A) Your job is literally to be a full-time cleaner. (B) You are a partner in the company (0.05% stock options don't count.) Ask for (B)-- being a real owner means you do some of that unpleasant stuff-- but if that doesn't happen, then quit.

archon 13y ago
See, here's the thing: I'm actually pretty torn about whether I think the cleaning is an unreasonable request. On the surface, being asked to clean is not a big deal. I clean my bathroom at home, cleaning the one I use at work doesn't seem like a big deal. At the same time, as snooty as it sounds, my job is to write code, not to spray cleaner on a toilet bowl. But it's what it says about the company that concerns me. It seems like they're saving pennies at the risk of employee happiness.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  Also, it's up to you how you get your home cleaning done. You can hire a once-a-week maid service (it's not that expensive). You get to decide how clean you want your toilet bowl to be. It's your choice, though, and the only people you have to answer to (if applicable) are your family. Having someone who can turn off your income and damage your professional reputation tell you that you have to drop everything at 4:00 and clean a toilet is a different thing altogether. That's ridiculous. Again, if you're a real partner/owner (0.05% equity does not count) you do a bunch of undesirable work (including cleaning toilets, if it makes sense) because the buck stops with you. If you're an employee, you simply should not stand for this.
  - narag 13y ago
    You can hire a once-a-week maid service (it's not that expensive). Oh, thanks, now I know what I would do in that situation: pay some professional cleaner to come to the office when it's my turn.
- EliRivers 13y ago
  They're surely not making savings. Your time doing your job is more valuable than cleaning things. They make a small (but easily defined saving) by not hiring a cleaner, and a much larger loss by having their staff stop doing their (presumably more expensive, skilled work) to clean things. What's your hourly rate? More than a cleaner? It's not an unreasonable request to you, in that the company buys your time and this is what they want you to do. It's a fantastically unreasonable request if they're actually in business to make money and you should take a good look around at the company; this could be an early warning to jump ship. Be assured that other people are already thinking this, and that in such situations the people leaving first are the smarter, better employees; as each one leaves, the company will struggle a little bit more. Edit: As I read your post, I heard this low blaring horn kind of noise, getting louder and louder, much as during Heath Ledger's scenes in Dark Knight. :p I reckon you could probably have a go at estimating the new cost of cleaning by estimating how much time everyone spends cleaning and what their hourly rate is - this might give you a better idea of how badly things are really going. It might be really scary :)

namdnay 13y ago

Suggest a further cost-cutting idea: Fire all developers and hire cleaners to do the coding. Since apparently all jobs are interchangeable :)

purplelobster 13y ago

50 cents per cup? That's gotta be with a profit even. Charging for coffee is not really acceptable to me. What I could see as fair is not providing unhealthy stuff like soda and snacks (because it creates unhealthy habits), but at least replace it with coffee, tea, fruits and nuts. I'll clean my own desk, but make me clean the office and I'm out of there, unless it's a scrappy start-up in which case it's OK. I hope your company has many other redeeming qualities, cause they sure sound cheap!

hga 13y ago
If you don't set out to make a profit, you're probably going to have a loss. So, unless the true cost of a cup of coffee is below 25 cents (I don't think it makes much sense to charge in between, although I could be wrong), it's not necessarily unreasonable (ignoring all issues if that's a change from free coffee).
lmm 13y ago
Wouldn't the health damage from coffee be much bigger than from "soda and snacks"?
- yyqux 13y ago
  No. There's mixed evidence about whether coffee is moderately good/moderately bad/neutral for you in sane quantities (i.e. a few cups a day). There's plenty of evidence that eating salty/sugary sodas and snacks is bad for you in similar quantities.
- reverius42 13y ago
  What makes you think there is health damage from coffee? All the evidence I've seen points to health benefits.

onemorepassword 13y ago

It can be cost effective if there is currently no way to fully monetize the full productivity of the team, and the company is trying to survive without lay-offs. The only issue is that if you have a valuable workforce that has the option to leave instead of desperately needing the job, you need everyone's buy-in, or at least full understanding of the circumstances. Apparently that hasn't been done, which is incredibly stupid, especially in such a relatively small company, but not uncommon. A simple alternative would be to let one programmer go, and start hiring again when business picks up. However, once you go down that road, it's a lot harder to rebuild the team again. With that as the alternative, it shouldn't be too hard to sell, at least not in the short term.

seivan 13y ago

Charging for coffee is just fucked up in general. Doesn't matter the cost of it.

walkon 13y ago
Indeed. The ROI on providing coffee free of charge to employees has to be huge. All that (free) caffeine works wonders for helping people stay awake and productive.

TeMPOraL 13y ago

> I think that's at least part of the reason why these progammers were so up in arms about the soda machine: Because now they have to think about it. You rise a very important point here. The benefit of free soda or food at work is not that employees can save money; it's that they don't have to think about food. It is abstracted away. One of the reason those problems appear is probably the wrong mindset of management layer. They think of themselves as the bosses, while they should be thinking they're doing service jobs. Software companies sell software to make money. Software is made by developers (and designers), and sold by sales people. Anything else is support structure. Developer abstraction layer [0] to help translate software to money. But often the structure is inverted, and managers become "shit funnels" instead of "shit umbrellas" [1] - forcing developers to be concerned with things not related to developing. And then productivity declines and good devs leave. [0] - http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/DevelopmentAbstraction.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/DevelopmentAbstractio... [1] - http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/key-to-gmail/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/key-to-gmail/

dennisgorelik 13y ago
I'm surprised that this Joel's article was never discussed on HN before. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5761414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5761414

h2s 13y ago

There is nothing wrong with cleaning offices for a living. It's good, hard, honest work. But did you really bust your ass learning to program just to clean toilets so that somebody getting paid more than you can make the numbers on their spreadsheet look nicer? There are good reasons for you to leave that situation. For one, the fact that your employer can't afford a cleaning service is a very bad omen. Secondly, programmers don't usually like being deprived of their programming like that, so even if your employer isn't about to go under, it's likely that some of your colleagues are planning their own exits. It's also almost certainly a departure from the job description you signed up for. I have to admit, I am wondering why you're still working there. There must be some good mitigating circumstances, right?

archon 13y ago
> I have to admit, I am wondering why you're still working there. Several reasons. These cost cutting measures are new, and I've been trying to decide whether they are a big enough reg flag for me to start getting serious about finding a new job (I've decided they are). Also, I have some personal life changes coming up in the next 6 months as well, and I'm hesitant to add a job change to those big personal life changes unless I have no choice. > There must be some good mitigating circumstances, right? Definitely. I like the team I'm working with, and other than the slightly ridiculous cost cutting, the work environment is remarkably low stress and friendly.
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  > I'm hesitant to add a job change to those big personal life changes unless I have no choice. And what other evidence are you waiting for untill you decide that you have no choice?

geon 13y ago

> .50 cents per cup Is that how it's supposed to be written, or did you just tell me you get coffee for half a cent? (Serious question. English isn't my first language.)

greenyoda 13y ago
I'm sure he meant "50 cents per cup".
jgross206 13y ago
This is very common usage, though technically incorrect. The poster meant 50 cents.
sib 13y ago
No, it should be written $0.50 per cup or 50 cents per cup :) Verizon Wireless had an issue with charging for wireless data like this a few years ago that made for a funny story.

nickzoic 13y ago

Get your CV ready ...

noonespecial 13y ago

We call that the "we're paying them anyway" fallacy. The idea is that once you've paid someone a salary, its a sunk cost so assigning them any extra task is "free".