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Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

theguardian.com

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Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#391

Post by tptacek »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #323
eitally wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if this was a special circumstance, but I shared a table with a security guard during my noogler orientation. That made a similar impact on me (and we stay in touch even now, actually). But, at Google, there is also a strong differentiation between full time employees and everybody else (temps, vendors, contractors), with clear and consistently impressed rules about what non-FTEs are allowed to see and d…

After engineer pressure a few years ago Google opened their cafes and some other amenities to many of their contract staff; they used to be more restricted.

Why doesn't this happen more often?

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#392

Post by igorgue »

People here in the comments are so insensitive.

I got from the article that Mark Zuckerberg is traveling the US to find people struggling, while a person like that serves him food every day. He's a hypocrite, no need to look for a different meaning in the article.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#393

Post by no_one_ever »

imlina wrote: post #377

They own a dyson fan and a projector in the picture, and possibly more expensive gadgets off-screen. It's just sad that when people are not willing to work hard enough through school and end up in shitty jobs that pay less -- then complaining about the undesirable outcome. Suck it up and take an online coding class or something. Time to build some cafeteria robots so they will at least complain on someone else's turf…

School is an expensive endeavor, you'd have to shell out thousands of dollars or go into debt for years just to get a respectable degree. Without the degree, most employers wouldn't give these people the time of the day.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#394

Post by Danihan »

kafkaesq wrote: post #357
humanrebar wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what way that sarcasm is cutting. I'll say the "design the problem away" impulse is partly what causes corporatism and monopolies. For example, regulatory capture in which the regulated industries more or less control the regulators. So I'll say the regulate-the-problem-away impulse is a pipe dream in the long run.

So I'll say the regulate-the-problem-away impulse is a pipe dream in the long run. I'll call it "the lesser of nightmares". Being as we've seen where "just let property owners do whatever they want" has lead us to in the past.

Where's that?

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#395

Post by rlanday »

literallycancer wrote: post #386
SteveGerencser wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used to allow employees to take home any food left over at the end of the day. Worked great for about 4 months. Then the food cost started creeping up, then it nearly exploded. Seems that the late shift discovered that if they simply made a lot of food right before closing they could take it home so it wouldn't be "wasted". You know it has gotten bad when people are starting to argue about who gets to work the clo…

Sounds like a management issue. This is like designing public benches so that people can't sleep there - a passive-aggressive "solution" that really just avoids the problem. Why not let people buy the "waste" food at the purchase cost? Or just you know, fire the people who waste it on purpose for misconduct?

People respond to incentives. If you make it easy for homeless people to sleep on benches, that's what they'll do. If you make it difficult, they'll go somewhere else. It absolutely is solving the problem as far as keeping them from sleeping on the benches.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#396

Post by tptacek »

tyingq wrote: post #141
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #53

Everybody here is focusing on real estate. (because young wealthy programmers and older poorer workers have a shared interest in cheap real estate) But I'm really interested in how HN feels about this section: “I felt more secure at my other job. You didn’t have people looking down at you,” Nicole said. Now she works at cafeterias with names like “Epic” and “Living the Dream”, and the distance between the two classes…

They are excluded from events because they are working not for Facebook, but a food service company that contracts for Facebook. Works the other way around too. I've done contract programming, on site, for a blue collar heavy business. I didn't get invited to their functions either. I made more than the the average worker there, because our jobs were not the same.

I've done staff aug work for plenty of large companies and definitely had access to facilities and amenities.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#397

Post by tptacek »

tyingq wrote: post #141
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #53

Everybody here is focusing on real estate. (because young wealthy programmers and older poorer workers have a shared interest in cheap real estate) But I'm really interested in how HN feels about this section: “I felt more secure at my other job. You didn’t have people looking down at you,” Nicole said. Now she works at cafeterias with names like “Epic” and “Living the Dream”, and the distance between the two classes…

They are excluded from events because they are working not for Facebook, but a food service company that contracts for Facebook. Works the other way around too. I've done contract programming, on site, for a blue collar heavy business. I didn't get invited to their functions either. I made more than the the average worker there, because our jobs were not the same.

I've done staff aug work for plenty of large companies and definitely had access to facilities and amenities.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#398

Post by vl »

MarkPNeyer wrote: post #321
derekdahmer wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a lost opportunity that companies who view themselves as socially progressive and invest heavily in marketing and PR around inclusivity then continue inadvertently maintaining an internal class system of knowledge vs service workers.

It's almost like they value the image of being progressive more than actually being progressive.

It's almost like market demands them to be seen as progressive.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#399

Post by jimmywanger »

tptacek wrote: post #391
JeremyBanks wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After engineer pressure a few years ago Google opened their cafes and some other amenities to many of their contract staff; they used to be more restricted.

Why doesn't this happen more often?

If you give too many benefits to contractors, they become de-facto full time employees, and you have to pay for benefits and health insurance and all that stuff.

That happened back in the day with engineers at Google also. They hired a lot of contractors, but you could really only work 6 months out of the year, or else they'd have to classify you as full time with all the attendant benefits.

The food and fitness center costs are really a rounding error. Contractors also have to pay to use the shuttle, because again with the benefits/full-time or contractor designation.

Re: Cafeteria workers at Facebook struggle to make ends meet

#400

Post by tpallarino »

Dude2018 wrote: post #220
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe we live in a meritocracy? EDIT: I guess this is a bad question since it's really a matter of degrees. Perhaps a better question is: How meritocratic do you feel that our society is?

Meritocratic enough for unequal income between skilled and unskilled labour?

The funniest part of this is that Facebook provides almost no value to society, while the food service workers do.
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