5 ms·
I went to a job interview last year (at a trendy SF-type start-up) during which the interviewer boasted, "We have amazing catered dinners every night at 7pm." T
by verisimilidude 13y ago
I went to a job interview last year (at a trendy SF-type start-up) during which the interviewer boasted, "We have amazing catered dinners every night at 7pm." To some, that may sound like a perk. To me, it sounded like late nights. That was actually the red-flag that convinced me I was a bad fit for their culture (despite otherwise having really complementary domain knowledge/skills).
Though I'm not sure how much of that anecdote applies to Google, it's still worth noting that not all perks are interpreted as such by employees.
- meerita 13y agoI would answer: "Thanks, but I have an special diet and I cook my meals." :D
- mayanksinghal 13y agoSome of us actually do cook dinner at home. I come in to work quite late, stick around till 8PM but skip the dinner at Google. I have a few teammates who leave at 5PM, some others who leave at 6PM and the rest who leave around the same time as me. There is really no requirement to stay in late, but the availability of dinner for days when I am too bored to cook is a great thing.
- meerita 13y agoI think I feel privileged in my current job. While I don't have the perks, the salary of any Googler or any hot startup (I'm located in Barcelona, Spain) I can go to make my lunch and dinner all days. I have 2 hours to eat and nap and then i come back at 8PM to make dinner at 9PM.
- verisimilidude 13y agoMy actual answer: "While that does sound cool, is there a place here for the kind of guy who likes his wife's awful casserole?"
- jusben1369 13y agoStraight talk: "As a startup we expect you to work long hours - often into the evening. To offset this somewhat we do pay for you dinner with some pretty good catered meals" Passive Aggressive: "We have amazing catered dinners at 7PM"
- grinich 13y agoThe company is probably mostly young single professionals, for whom cooking meals not economical (time+$). Sure, it lets you stay late, but for most of these folks, having catered food is more like the college dining hall than a sign of workaholics. You probably should have brought it up more explicitly during the interview. Twitter has 3 types of Kombucha on tap in their cafe, and they seem to have a pretty good culture. ;)
- verisimilidude 13y agoAh, I definitely brought the conversation around to my concerns during the interview. He confirmed their young, fresh-out-of-school, workaholic-type culture. I said, "As much as I love what you guys are doing, I'm probably not a good fit for your culture at this stage in my life." And he said, "That's fine. It's better to find out now than later, etc." It was a very reasonable, amicable parting. That's good, because it's a small industry, and now I don't have to avoid him at conferences, etc.
- zdw 13y ago7PM? Ah, that means work starts at 11AM, right? Sounds great for night owls.
- corresation 13y agoMandatory Scrums scheduled daily for 8am. But they aren't compliance status meetings....they're agile.
- LockeWatts 13y agoDepends where you work, I suppose. I just got told that 8-6 was the standard working day around here, and that I need to start coming in earlier, or it would start to reflect poorly on me. Glad I'm leaving soon.
- arkitaip 13y agoIs that a startup or established business?
- LockeWatts 13y agoIt would be <redacted>, a very well known large software company, that deals primarily in online sales.
- alanlewis 13y agoIf the employer is in California, and if you are making less than 88K a year, what they are doing may be illegal (IANAL) http://www.dir.ca.gov/t8/11170.html http://www.dir.ca.gov/t8/11170.html
- LockeWatts 13y agoWe're based in Seattle. I don't think there's much to be done, except leave.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
- BadassFractal 13y agoTake the free dinner and bring it home, done.
- joonix 13y ago"Oh, cool. Can my wife come? She doesn't much enjoy eating dinner at home." At which point you are shunned anyways for being one of those strange "old people" who somehow had time to bond with another human being in a non-professional setting.
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoNow, now, no point mocking those strange "young people" for living in a location with such an insanely skewed gender balance that pairing everyone off is mathematically impossible. Haters gon' hate.
- joonix 13y agoHah. It's funny what's happened to our generation. The young men are all apparently in the Bay Area, and the young women are all in New York. The ratio here in NYC is unbelievably skewed!