a certain “big corp” (I won’t name names) staff enjoy incredible perks, including completely free dental care with no questions asked. In the UK, they have an exceptional corporate rate for David Lloyd gym, far surpassing typical discounts, likely due to sharing the same office campus. Employees can order virtually anything through a breakout store, delivered anywhere in the world—even a 3D printer in Brazil. This, however, became a slight issue during the pandemic when someone asked on an 8,000-strong Slack channel about ordering office furniture for home, leading to a surge in worldwide requests. They had to send a message out saying speak to your line manager and local office and if you want anything from the offices go and help yourself since they were shut anyway. Also if you work on certain parts of the cloud team you get to create and spin up whatever you want for “testing”.
Ask HN: What's the most unique job perk you've had?
11–20 of 29 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's the most unique job perk you've had?
#12I worked in the classical streaming music industry and "Friday afternoon drinks" was often a 6-piece orchestra coupled with a handful of (opera) singers - with their music composed by another team member. The majority of employees were trained musicians.
No other post-work Friday office drinks experience comes close!
Re: Ask HN: What's the most unique job perk you've had?
#13Worked on a billionaires yacht when I was a kid. It always had to be stocked in case they showed up but they hardly ever did. So we had to eat all the lobster and steak before it went bad, and the owner’s chef made the meals for practice and experimenting. I’ve never worked at FAANG but I’d be shocked if anyone south of the C suite had as good office lunch on a regular basis.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most unique job perk you've had?
#14At 17, I was a lot boy at a motorcycle dealer. Push the bikes out, push the bikes in, gopher this and that.
Sometimes after work the mechanics would get me high, and we'd sit out back and watch the ocean.
It was nice.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most unique job perk you've had?
#15Working at Microsoft in the late 1990s with the creators of MS-DOS, Turbo Pascal/Delphi/Typescript/C#, and Visual Basic was unique and definitely the best perk imaginable.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most unique job perk you've had?
#16At 17, I was a lot boy at a motorcycle dealer. Push the bikes out, push the bikes in, gopher this and that. Sometimes after work the mechanics would get me high, and we'd sit out back and watch the ocean. It was nice.
So simple and yet so deep.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most unique job perk you've had?
#17The ability to show my young children preserved human brains.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most unique job perk you've had?
#18Unlimited mice. Sometimes helped the folks who ran a rodent ranch that supplied feeder mice and rats etc to much of Chicago. they necessarily had a relaxed attitude towards inventory shrinkage and and explicit employee discount of 100%. No restocking fees either.
Congrats on being the blatantly clear winner of this thread and for forcing me to consider what I would/could do with an infinite supply of mice. Curious to know how many mice you availed of during your time?
Re: Ask HN: What's the most unique job perk you've had?
#19Unlimited mice. Sometimes helped the folks who ran a rodent ranch that supplied feeder mice and rats etc to much of Chicago. they necessarily had a relaxed attitude towards inventory shrinkage and and explicit employee discount of 100%. No restocking fees either.
Congrats on being the blatantly clear winner of this thread and for forcing me to consider what I would/could do with an infinite supply of mice. Curious to know how many mice you availed of during your time?
i had a line of fancy mice for a while there, I'd borrow pretty calico studs from their stock on occasion.
I think i actually gave them more than I took, all told.
everybody working there seemed to have a "you have a problem" grade pet habit. I didn't even have hardly any snakes or anything then.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most unique job perk you've had?
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Congrats on being the blatantly clear winner of this thread and for forcing me to consider what I would/could do with an infinite supply of mice. Curious to know how many mice you availed of during your time?
i had a line of fancy mice for a while there, I'd borrow pretty calico studs from their stock on occasion. I think i actually gave them more than I took, all told. everybody working there seemed to have a "you have a problem" grade pet habit. I didn't even have hardly any snakes or anything then.
Apologies. Took me a while. Actual mice. Not computer mice. Nice.-