4 ms·

Parking-- problem is, when you have to source it yourself you can end up working for a company where there is not enough parking in the area. Spent a year deal

by MCRed 12y ago

Parking-- problem is, when you have to source it yourself you can end up working for a company where there is not enough parking in the area. Spent a year dealing with this, couldn't get a spot to rent on a monthly basis, there was more demand than parking supply in the area. The company got a deal on the office rental and so ignored this. Them having to source it forces them to take it into account. Convenient to transit plus a transit pass can work for some employees and having that as an option would work for me some of the time. The situation that caused this to go on the list was one where there was no convenient access to transit and I lived in a place without access to transit. A better phrasing would be "have transportation and parking if necessary be convenient and not a significant distraction from work." I worked with Bezos dealt with him on tickets etc. 1 year cliff is terrible when you get "laid off" in month 11. There's absolutely no reason for it, really. It's not like it takes a year to figure out if an employee is any good or not. It's just greed. It may be "standard" but so are open office plans and I'm no longer interested in "standard".

rdl 12y ago
OK, so rule zero really should be "don't work for idiots, assholes, or idiot assholes" -- that covers a lot of things.
- nilkn 12y ago
  Perhaps rule -1 then might be "you can't always predict who the assholes are."
  - MCRed 12y ago
    The rest of the rules could be called "asshole detectors"
bane 12y ago
I could take or leave about half of your list, but parking...I'll never work for a company that doesn't provide parking for their employees. Either get space in a building with free parking, rent a space for your employees (it's not that much even in big cities) or give the option of heavily subsidized mass transit. My last place rented near a subway station, 2hr on-street parking, no nearby garages, would only cover $250/year for parking. Running out of the office every 2 hours to spend 10 minutes driving around looking for another open spot is a stupid way to spend your workday. Spending $4k-$5k for personal parking is a stupid thing to ask employees to do. The offered free mass transit at another office, but wouldn't provide any subsidy at mine until there was a virtual walk out and then they offered what was basically 3 days worth of transit subsidies. And then they wondered why they could never get any customers to visit their office for meetings. Seriously, get office space your employees can actually get to. I'll never make that mistake again.
- rdl 12y ago
  CloudFlare is at 665 3rd St; it's 3rd/Townsend. 90% of the employees live nearby, take Chariot or other services, take BART (20-25 min walk), or take Caltrain (3 minute talk). 5 of us drive and park. I am paying $260/mo for my parking spot. It's not awesome, but it's not the end of the world.
  - bane 12y ago
    Do you think it'd be okay to rent your computer from your company and pay for your office space and desk? Or split the costs of their servers or cloud costs with their employees? No, nobody sane thinks this. My point is that parking (or some reasonable transit alternative) should be figured into the operating costs for the company. Acting like employees don't need to actually get to work is not a good way to run a business. It should be $0/mo for your parking, your company should be getting you the space as part of your overall compensation/operating costs. I should add, the office I worked at now sits empty, every single employee who worked there left (including myself). Real companies understand that as part of their facility costs, they need to provide this stuff. So they pay for a parking lot when land is cheap, or pay for monthly parking in cities. Or they pay to subsidize mass transit. If a company doesn't want to pay for the cost of running a business in a place with expensive parking, then they should office where parking is cheap. If they don't want to pay for the cost of actually running their business, they shouldn't be in it. It's the employee's cost to figure out how to get to work, it's the company's cost to figure out what to do with them once they get there.
    - smm2000 12y ago
      When deciding between two offers just monetize all perks that you expect to use including convenience factor. Parking not provided? Subtract (Daily parking rate + parking_timehourly_rate)200 / (1-marginal_tax_rate) from salary. Provides CalTrain pass? Add $45 dollars to salary (I expect to use it 3 times/year).
      - bane 12y ago
        Not a bad point, just don't forget to tax your salary before you start counting it towards transport.

by MCRed 12y ago

rdl 12y ago

OK, so rule zero really should be "don't work for idiots, assholes, or idiot assholes" -- that covers a lot of things.

nilkn 12y ago
Perhaps rule -1 then might be "you can't always predict who the assholes are."
- MCRed 12y ago
  The rest of the rules could be called "asshole detectors"

bane 12y ago

I could take or leave about half of your list, but parking...I'll never work for a company that doesn't provide parking for their employees. Either get space in a building with free parking, rent a space for your employees (it's not that much even in big cities) or give the option of heavily subsidized mass transit. My last place rented near a subway station, 2hr on-street parking, no nearby garages, would only cover $250/year for parking. Running out of the office every 2 hours to spend 10 minutes driving around looking for another open spot is a stupid way to spend your workday. Spending $4k-$5k for personal parking is a stupid thing to ask employees to do. The offered free mass transit at another office, but wouldn't provide any subsidy at mine until there was a virtual walk out and then they offered what was basically 3 days worth of transit subsidies. And then they wondered why they could never get any customers to visit their office for meetings. Seriously, get office space your employees can actually get to. I'll never make that mistake again.

rdl 12y ago
CloudFlare is at 665 3rd St; it's 3rd/Townsend. 90% of the employees live nearby, take Chariot or other services, take BART (20-25 min walk), or take Caltrain (3 minute talk). 5 of us drive and park. I am paying $260/mo for my parking spot. It's not awesome, but it's not the end of the world.
- bane 12y ago
  Do you think it'd be okay to rent your computer from your company and pay for your office space and desk? Or split the costs of their servers or cloud costs with their employees? No, nobody sane thinks this. My point is that parking (or some reasonable transit alternative) should be figured into the operating costs for the company. Acting like employees don't need to actually get to work is not a good way to run a business. It should be $0/mo for your parking, your company should be getting you the space as part of your overall compensation/operating costs. I should add, the office I worked at now sits empty, every single employee who worked there left (including myself). Real companies understand that as part of their facility costs, they need to provide this stuff. So they pay for a parking lot when land is cheap, or pay for monthly parking in cities. Or they pay to subsidize mass transit. If a company doesn't want to pay for the cost of running a business in a place with expensive parking, then they should office where parking is cheap. If they don't want to pay for the cost of actually running their business, they shouldn't be in it. It's the employee's cost to figure out how to get to work, it's the company's cost to figure out what to do with them once they get there.
  - smm2000 12y ago
    When deciding between two offers just monetize all perks that you expect to use including convenience factor. Parking not provided? Subtract (Daily parking rate + parking_timehourly_rate)200 / (1-marginal_tax_rate) from salary. Provides CalTrain pass? Add $45 dollars to salary (I expect to use it 3 times/year).
    - bane 12y ago
      Not a bad point, just don't forget to tax your salary before you start counting it towards transport.