My company signed up for a $1000/year subscription-based water cooler • Hacker News Board

Re: My company signed up for a $1000/year subscription-based water cooler

#31

Post by freddie_mercury » Sun, May 13, 2018, 5:44 AM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #14

steviecleveland wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you should invent some performance metric profitability and growth

That's not something that is measurable for office managers. I don't think office managers need metrics - just a suggestion box. Most thinks are really obvious, especially if you let people tell you about them. I guarantee if the had a suggestion box nobody would suggest an IoT water cooler.

I disagree. Have you ever done this? I've been on the other side of it. (I own my own company.) Get suggestions from staff & follow through. In the real world staff have lots of wants, nice ideas, and "wouldn't it be good if" suggestions. They have very little concept if other people are interested in their idea, if people would actually continue to use the idea once the novelty wears off, and so on.

In my office here's a list of "staff ideas" and how they turned out:

- "Let's have standing desks!" After the first six months, not a single person in the office has changed the height of their desk in over a year.

- "Let's get a microwave, so people will start bringing their lunch from home." The microwave gets used once a week (by the person who requested) and now it is one more thing that needs to be cleaned weekly.

- "Let's have couches, so people can work from places other than their desk!" The person who requested this used the couch every day. After he left the company, no one else has ever used it.

- "Let's buy more whiteboards and put them up in various places so it is easy to have discussions anywhere!" Of the 6 whiteboards, 5 of them have had the same writing on them for over six months. One whiteboard has had the same project diagram for over a year. The ink is so set I couldn't even erase it last time I tried. Only one whiteboard ever gets used -- the one we had before the suggestion.

- "Let's get croissants/yogurt/fresh fruit/whatever". In 90% of cases, the person who requested it is the only person who ever eats it. After a few months I have to discontinue ordering it because we are throwing away 90% of it.

Re: My company signed up for a $1000/year subscription-based water cooler

#32

Post by [deleted] » Sun, May 13, 2018, 5:45 AM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #14

steviecleveland wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you should invent some performance metric profitability and growth

That's not something that is measurable for office managers. I don't think office managers need metrics - just a suggestion box. Most thinks are really obvious, especially if you let people tell you about them. I guarantee if the had a suggestion box nobody would suggest an IoT water cooler.

[deleted]

Re: My company signed up for a $1000/year subscription-based water cooler

#33

Post by hellofunk » Sun, May 13, 2018, 5:50 AM UTC

philliphaydon wrote: post #26

hellofunk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read about apples exported from China, covered in a toxic paint so they look red and beautiful, even though it is harmful, all to make a buck. I just wonder why humans have not evolved to, at a minimum, actually show some caring attitude toward others of their same species. I think we're all doomed.

Red apples usually are coated in ground up beetle to give the bright redness colour. It’s considered non toxic. Donno if that’s the same as what you’re referring to. I think it’s called Shellac.

I’m talking about a scandal from a couple years ago where apples were submerged in buckets of toxic paint to get a red color.

Re: My company signed up for a $1000/year subscription-based water cooler

#34

Post by owlsaway » Sun, May 13, 2018, 6:19 AM UTC

freddie_mercury wrote: post #31

IshKebab wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not something that is measurable for office managers. I don't think office managers need metrics - just a suggestion box. Most thinks are really obvious, especially if you let people tell you about them. I guarantee if the had a suggestion box nobody would suggest an IoT water cooler.

I disagree. Have you ever done this? I've been on the other side of it. (I own my own company.) Get suggestions from staff & follow through. In the real world staff have lots of wants, nice ideas, and "wouldn't it be good if" suggestions. They have very little concept if other people are interested in their idea, if people would actually continue to use the idea once the novelty wears off, and so on. In my office her…

Is there a way to have an anonymous voting system? I mean, not all suggestions by individuals have to be immediately implemented, do they? If no one else feels as enthusiastic on microwaves or couches or what have you, then wouldn't voting avoid the problems you describe?

Re: My company signed up for a $1000/year subscription-based water cooler

#35

Post by microcolonel » Sun, May 13, 2018, 6:19 AM UTC

tschwimmer wrote: post #10

Everyone likes to blame loose VC money for silly stuff like this, but I have a slightly more nuanced theory about ridiculous office perks: Office managers/office teams have very few concrete metrics. Beyond a binary "is the office functional" (e.g. are there enough desks, does the electricity work) there is pretty much no way to measure job performance. That's not to say their work doesn't have any impact. Anyone who…

I don't think you necessarily even need to measure job performance, just ask some people what they think actually distracts or disturbs them, read some studies, try something, and see if it at least seems like it has some impact. Almost anything is better than buying and installing random leisure and refreshment equipment hoping for an effect you can't name or describe.

Re: My company signed up for a $1000/year subscription-based water cooler

#36

Post by ahmedfromtunis » Sun, May 13, 2018, 6:22 AM UTC

freddie_mercury wrote: post #31

IshKebab wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not something that is measurable for office managers. I don't think office managers need metrics - just a suggestion box. Most thinks are really obvious, especially if you let people tell you about them. I guarantee if the had a suggestion box nobody would suggest an IoT water cooler.

I disagree. Have you ever done this? I've been on the other side of it. (I own my own company.) Get suggestions from staff & follow through. In the real world staff have lots of wants, nice ideas, and "wouldn't it be good if" suggestions. They have very little concept if other people are interested in their idea, if people would actually continue to use the idea once the novelty wears off, and so on. In my office her…

A voting system (maybe on a Trello board, or something similar) may help gauge the requester-user problem.

Re: My company signed up for a $1000/year subscription-based water cooler

#37

Post by aaron695 » Sun, May 13, 2018, 6:23 AM UTC

hellofunk wrote: post #15

dokem wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like evolution. Why does some weird, seemingly useless creature exist? Because it fills some crack in the ecological economy. Someone was willing to buy this piece of shit and that is explanation enough for its existence.

I read about apples exported from China, covered in a toxic paint so they look red and beautiful, even though it is harmful, all to make a buck. I just wonder why humans have not evolved to, at a minimum, actually show some caring attitude toward others of their same species. I think we're all doomed.

Sounds like the normal racist urban legends coming out about China.

Link? I can't find anything credible, or even a report?

Painting a apple and no one see's or cares in the whole supply chain?

I think we are doomed for reasons other than what you think.

Re: My company signed up for a $1000/year subscription-based water cooler

#38

Post by burfog » Sun, May 13, 2018, 6:39 AM UTC

freddie_mercury wrote: post #31

IshKebab wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not something that is measurable for office managers. I don't think office managers need metrics - just a suggestion box. Most thinks are really obvious, especially if you let people tell you about them. I guarantee if the had a suggestion box nobody would suggest an IoT water cooler.

I disagree. Have you ever done this? I've been on the other side of it. (I own my own company.) Get suggestions from staff & follow through. In the real world staff have lots of wants, nice ideas, and "wouldn't it be good if" suggestions. They have very little concept if other people are interested in their idea, if people would actually continue to use the idea once the novelty wears off, and so on. In my office her…

I've seen lots of those work, more or less...

standing desks: People who want to stand will normally put 8 concrete blocks under their desk, then get a tall chair for when they don't wish to stand. This is cheap and effective.

microwave: Heh, we wore out many, and then got 4 restaurant-grade ones. We also have a couple toaster ovens. This is for a couple hundred people. For special occasions we also have a griddle, several 1-coil burners, and a propane grill.

couches: They get some use, mainly during meetings and when people play video games. Some people sometimes sleep in them.

whiteboards: The ones in weird places get used for polls, contests, etc.

croissants/yogurt/fresh fruit/whatever: This gets eaten. Bananas seem to get ripe late on Friday though, which doesn't end well, but at least they are cheap.

Re: My company signed up for a $1000/year subscription-based water cooler

#39

Post by taneq » Sun, May 13, 2018, 6:42 AM UTC

philliphaydon wrote: post #25

I remember reading the book, the inmates are running the asylum. Where it talks about how Engineers take things like the alarm clock which just works but we make it over complicated.

Nobody forces you to buy the overcomplicated clock.

Re: My company signed up for a $1000/year subscription-based water cooler

#40

Post by rtpg » Sun, May 13, 2018, 6:43 AM UTC

freddie_mercury wrote: post #31

IshKebab wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not something that is measurable for office managers. I don't think office managers need metrics - just a suggestion box. Most thinks are really obvious, especially if you let people tell you about them. I guarantee if the had a suggestion box nobody would suggest an IoT water cooler.

I disagree. Have you ever done this? I've been on the other side of it. (I own my own company.) Get suggestions from staff & follow through. In the real world staff have lots of wants, nice ideas, and "wouldn't it be good if" suggestions. They have very little concept if other people are interested in their idea, if people would actually continue to use the idea once the novelty wears off, and so on. In my office her…

I know a lot of people who say this as a sort of implied "maybe not do any of this", but the alternative solution is "do all of this"

There are obviously sometimes conflicting requests, but imagine if you had staff whose main job was making sure employees enjoy their working environment and you just shifted stuff in and out of the office as requests changed. Almost every employee would have their pet want fulfilled and you could be experimenting with new stuff every day.

Sounds really expensive, but imagine what something like that might to do turnover if done well

EDIT: it sounds like you did try a lot of stuff, didn't mean to imply you didn't. I just wonder what the logical endpoint of this idea is and whether it is workable