Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies • Hacker News Board

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#391

Post by watwut » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 6:59 AM UTC

otterpro wrote: post #66

Company-provided lunch provides an opportunity to build relationship among the coworkers. Most people do not says "no" to free lunch, especially if it's good. So, they naturally sit down together to eat. When I worked at a company that offered free lunch, the company used it to help build rapport and camaraderie among the coworkers. It's one time during the day when the entire team can sit down and eat lunch together…

I dont care about this policy one way or the other, but following is not true: "If the team still wants to do lunch together everyday at an outside restaurant, it would not be easy, especially the logistics, which would be a nightmare"

It is not nightmare, it is pretty easy thing to do and friends groups in work do it almost daily without any problem.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#392

Post by catpawsandwich » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 7:08 AM UTC

I'll end this by saying "this is so f*cking stupid."

It is not the problem of the business that decides to plant itself in a location and provide food first off. All the vendors of that location are privy to supply... unless this large corp has signed a contract with a specific vendor.

However, if they did, the individual food vendor would never know because it would be like the corp planned to not make a footprint. So they just provided food. nbd. So they did not hurt the local market and keeping it inward.

So now outside food vendors are irritated because a precaution was put in place to not affect them, but "an unknown - of growing" got too big and now they feel they can't survive next to their neighbor. --Valid point. So how do we as big corps help the neighbor... and this is not just about food.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#393

Post by beerlord » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 7:10 AM UTC

Roritharr wrote: post #80

This is very interesting for me for a very different reason: We're in Germany where this is taxed heavily. If you offer your employees free meals, this becomes part of their taxable income, so you actually have to give them a raise to even this out, and then you have employees that want to opt-out to get the hands on that cash... I always wondered how Google Germany deals with this. There is a minimum below which it…

What stops you from offering a meal for 10c for your staff only? Who determines the monetary value of a meal which would normally be free?

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#394

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 7:10 AM UTC

heurist wrote: post #349

rco8786 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand the obsession with Austin. It’s actually quite a small player in the tech industry.

The best startups and investment out here tend to be second-tier compared to the Bay Area. It's improving but still small and far from SF-level success. That said, second tier is great compared to everywhere outside of the Bay Area and NYC. I'd recommend not moving to Central Texas, by the way. Water availability is going to be a huge issue as the population continues to increase. Cities aren't feeling it yet but the…

The small towns are feeling it because farmers get priority and use deep wells to suck their local aquifer dry, leaving the townies with mud.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#395

Post by ironjunkie » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 7:14 AM UTC

michaelkeenan wrote: post #276

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #98

> The ban wouldn't be retroactive, however, so on-site food at companies like Google and Twitter would still be available Cool, so start-ups lose a potential hiring perk to the incumbents. (Does anyone know the story behind this bill? Which politicians and restaurants supported it? I’d like to avoid the latter going forward.)

It looks like the Golden Gate Restaurant Association endorsed it[0]. I couldn't find a list of which restaurants are members of the GGRA, but the board of directors[1] includes people from the Bluestem Brasserie, San Francisco Soup Company, Ladle and Leaf, Extreme Pizza, Rose's Cafe, Wayfare Tavern, Souvla, Canela, Palm House, The Dorian, and Perry's. [0] https://sf.eater.com/2018/7/25/17614570/san-francisco-corpor..…

Thanks, This is a list of places I will try to actively never go again.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#396

Post by misja111 » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 7:15 AM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #329

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Cool, so start-ups lose a potential hiring perk to the incumbents. They could just do something similar to what colleges do: - increase salaries just a bit - but the increased salary goes to a food card - employees can't easily turn this into cash - you swipe it and "pay" - the company is essentially paying for the employee's food Money changes hands, but no one is at a net loss than what a free food perk would cost…

The benefit of a company cafeteria is mostly that you don't lose half an hour walking to a restaurant, waiting in line, ordering etc. It's not about the money.

You can order by phone or online in advance so you only have to walk to the restaurant to pick up your food. Maybe you don't like the walking, but then think again: it has been shown many times that some physical movement during the working day is beneficial for your productivity and health.

If you really want to avoid leaving the building at all costs, there is also another option: ordering your lunch and let it be delivered.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#397

Post by ironjunkie » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 7:19 AM UTC

shub wrote: post #363

kabdb wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Googlers and Facebookers would burn the city to the ground. At most, they would make a website with a little game featuring an animation of the city burning down, then giggle and and share it with each other, all the while deaf to the irony that, in reality, they already are burning it down; they just can’t see it. The disconcern behind your whining threat exerts, on the broader population, a blunt misery of slow-b…

Spicy. The fundamental problem is that a lot of people have jobs that pay a lot of money, I take it. You seem very upset about this.

There is a disconnect here. When you make 10 times more money at Google than the average American and then start threatening to "Burn google down" if the free lunches go away, it looks like a scene from a different world to a low-skilled worker.

A bit of decency from some of the best paid employees in America would go a long way. This is not what I see in the arrogant, know-it-all attitude of most Googlers though.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#398

Post by afarrell » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 7:21 AM UTC

michaelkeenan wrote: post #276

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #98

> The ban wouldn't be retroactive, however, so on-site food at companies like Google and Twitter would still be available Cool, so start-ups lose a potential hiring perk to the incumbents. (Does anyone know the story behind this bill? Which politicians and restaurants supported it? I’d like to avoid the latter going forward.)

It looks like the Golden Gate Restaurant Association endorsed it[0]. I couldn't find a list of which restaurants are members of the GGRA, but the board of directors[1] includes people from the Bluestem Brasserie, San Francisco Soup Company, Ladle and Leaf, Extreme Pizza, Rose's Cafe, Wayfare Tavern, Souvla, Canela, Palm House, The Dorian, and Perry's. [0] https://sf.eater.com/2018/7/25/17614570/san-francisco-corpor..…

If the goal is to help restaurants, wouldn't a better approach be to build more housing so that:

1) There are more people in the areas with offices who are around to eat dinner. Therefore, restaurants aren't so dependent on the lunch money of office workers.

2) Restaurant workers can get cheaper rent and therefore restaurants can find staff more easily.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#399

Post by contingencies » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 7:25 AM UTC

Total cost to businesses is huge.

Assume you have employees on an average salary of USD$140K (example round figure) doing 7 hours work with 1 hour for lunch.

Ignoring the staggering environmental impact, if you lose an extra 30 minutes (1/14th of the 7 hour work day) because of transport and parking bullshit due to this new rule, then you are effectively losing USD$10K per annum per employee.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#400

Post by catpawsandwich » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 7:34 AM UTC

Everyone knows that while deep in code, running out to get food wastes a shitload of time. 30min travel. 15min to eat(best case if rushing)worse if farther. These Golden Gate Restaurant Association people do not have any observation of that because they do not code on a regurlar basis. Not to mention, the 15 mins lost by distraction. So much wasted time because they can't get their restaurant into a cafeteria. Did they offer to vendor to the cafeteria? How were they doing before the cafeteria showed up. I'm sure they were doing just the same.