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The first time this happened: "The company engages in regular “random acts of kindness”: workers form a noisy conga line and single out one of their colleagues for praise. The praisee then has to wear a silly hat for a week." I would make it very clear it shouldn't happen again. If it did, I'd leave the company.
Also from my parent's perspective, they didn't have much fun at work, they were working long hours and put up with so much because switching job wasn't exactly as easy as today.
Finally, I don't require a rock climbing wall at work, I just want to do good work with good people and I will have fun naturally.
Fake fun: ball pits. Real Fun: smoking and drinking at the office, office romances shading into sexual harassment. Why can't boys be boys?
"While imposing ersatz fun on their employees, companies are battling against the real thing. Many force smokers to huddle outside like furtive criminals. Few allow their employees to drink at lunch time, let alone earlier in the day. A regiment of busybodies—from lawyers to human-resources functionaries—is waging war on office romance, particularly between people of different ranks. Hewlett-Packard, a computer-maker, recently sacked its successful chief executive, Mark Hurd, after a contractor made vague allegations—later quietly settled—of sexual harassment. (Oracle, a rival, quickly snapped up Mr Hurd.)"
This reminds me of a group of roommates I had in college. They played Super Smash Brothers: Melee for the Nintendo Game Cube perpetually. They played the same level--a flat level without platforms or items--over and over again for one reason--to get better. They had little interest in having fun and cared more about being the best. One of our other roommates suggested that they play the game to have fun. They liked t…
I can't speak for everyone, but based on my experience, regularly drinking (even lightly) during the day would be likely to cause significant productivity loss. Duh?
Of course there is a line to walk between a couple of beer and the three martini lunch.
It has always seemed to me that if the work is good then it doesn't need sugar on top. What one wants is hard, interesting problems to solve and great people to work with. Once you have that, work is more fun than "fun". Edit: But I have to say something about that asinine first paragraph. First, judging history by recent television dramas? He's joking, right? Second, the corporate culture of the early 1960s was noto…
As much as the zappos strategy freaks me out it probably works better in he long run than overpaying because the shrewd but overpaid programmer will simply stick it out a few years, amass a bunch of cash, and then bail to go back to school or start a startup or trek across the world or whatever more interesting thing they had plans on doing with he money. The weirdos who really like the nerf ball fights will stick around forever on average wages.
Also with big ecommerce operations there are a huge number of specialized non programming roles like "merch planner: womens' flats" who are stuck working for one of maybe 5 companies in the world so even a corny, but positive culture change is an HR win over a competitor.
shorter Economist: Fake fun: ball pits. Real Fun: smoking and drinking at the office, office romances shading into sexual harassment. Why can't boys be boys? "While imposing ersatz fun on their employees, companies are battling against the real thing. Many force smokers to huddle outside like furtive criminals. Few allow their employees to drink at lunch time, let alone earlier in the day. A regiment of busybodies—fr…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist#Editorial_anonymi...
I'd be curious if there's any direct link/borrowing, or if it's an independent invention.