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

#501

Post by Johnny555 » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 4:26 PM UTC

TomMarius wrote: post #442

Johnny555 wrote: post #251

If cities want employees to patronize local businesses, they they should start providing enough housing so employees can live near work. Stop forcing employees to live 30 miles away by restricting housing and then complain "But why won't they shop here!?"

No, they should stop getting in the way of housing. Definitely not provide it, that's just calling for a catastrophe as we can see from policies like this one.

I didn't mean "provide" as in the city building housing themselves, but meant "provide" as in to make planning decisions that allow developers to build higher density housing, especially near existing transit.

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

#502

Post by neilparikh » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 4:39 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #341

jessaustin wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If zoning weren't legal, lots of things would change. Mostly for the better, but perhaps not entirely. There would be a lot more pedestrians and cyclists, and a lot fewer automobiles, in most urban areas. On the other hand you might live closer to a tavern. I lived in Denver for a few years; it's not so bad to live close to taverns.

There's actually a real example of this, and it basically shows the opposite of your point. The city of Houston has no zoning laws - you are free to build wherever, whatever, occupied by whomever, subject only to market forces and contracts. The result has been a sprawling, car-driven metropolis where to get anywhere, you need at least a 20-minute drive in a car. My sister lives in a development of over 10,000 people…

Houston actually does have zoning laws, but they're called something different: parking minimums [0]. While there might not be any restrictions on what you can build, the fact that you need a certain amount of parking will naturally lead to certain types of housing being built.

[0]: https://empowertexans.com/around-texas/the-burden-of-parking...

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

#503

Post by eanzenberg » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 4:46 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #415

closeparen wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I was a BART commuter, I walked a gauntlet of slumped-over hard drug users, sprawled-out homeless people, human urine, and feces every day. Fortunately, I've only seen people drop their pants and take a shit on the sidewalk in front of me twice. Missed a random stabbing on the stairwell into my station by about 5 minutes. This is Civic Center Station, which serves Twitter, Uber, and Square. No amount of tech wo…

That's not an inherent problem of public transit. It's just a symptom of failing to take care of poor people in your society. Try taking public transit in a civilized country like Germany or Japan.

No, it's a symptom of lax policing and lax justice system.

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

#504

Post by djohnston » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 4:51 PM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #171

commandlinefan wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, really. Big tech companies, come down here to Texas. With your well-above-market-average salaries and free food.

And regressive state politics and terrible culture and weather. Tech companies hiring in Texas is a negative signal.

Austin is a tech hub. We shouldn't paint the state in a single brush, and to say "terrible culture" is regressive and ignorant.

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

#505

Post by egman_ekki » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 5:00 PM 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…

Going out for lunch with colleagues is quite common in some countries, e.g. Czech republic. You split into groups of five to ten people and go with the group that decided to go to the place where you like the food for the day... Usually there are several groups at different times, at 11, 12, etc.

It worked fine most of the time and you don't eat with the same ppl every day, so you get to know colleagues from neighboring teams as well...

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

#506

Post by pas » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 5:14 PM UTC

afarrell wrote: post #472

pas wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just skip eating for those hours? Digestion disturbs brain activity anyway.

Because it is hard to be effective at work when you are hungry

Eat a lot before? 5 hours seems like very doable without hunger.

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

#507

Post by closeparen » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 5:14 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #415

closeparen wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I was a BART commuter, I walked a gauntlet of slumped-over hard drug users, sprawled-out homeless people, human urine, and feces every day. Fortunately, I've only seen people drop their pants and take a shit on the sidewalk in front of me twice. Missed a random stabbing on the stairwell into my station by about 5 minutes. This is Civic Center Station, which serves Twitter, Uber, and Square. No amount of tech wo…

That's not an inherent problem of public transit. It's just a symptom of failing to take care of poor people in your society. Try taking public transit in a civilized country like Germany or Japan.

I didn’t say it was an inherent problem of public transit. But it is an inherent problem of compelling people to share space in San Francisco. The library, for example, is a similar story.

The array of policy, economics, and values that make Germany and Japan work so well are not going to magically appear in an American city just because you try to cargo-cult some of their second-order effects. Public space in those countries is genuinely good; you don’t have to ban alternatives to get people to use it.

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

#508

Post by closeparen » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

jartelt wrote: post #357

jackconnor wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel what you're saying, and that definitely is something that happens. Especially for people who move for the job, it's very easy to keep oneself separate from the community. But making it illegal to feed your employees is a very stupid, very authoritarian way of dealing with it that feels like a terrible idea. I don't want to be told where to shop, ever, for any reason, and I dislike that these local governments…

If you build an office in the middle of a city, sometimes you need to be part of the city... The employees can always bring a lunch to work if they don't want to spend money going out to restaurants. Yes, it would suck if you expected free food and got stuck at this FB office. But, it would also suck if Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale became full of offices and private cafeterias and lost all essence of a "do…

Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale residents start frothing at the mouth when development threatens to make any part of their city look like a downtown. They are deeply committed to preventing any hint of such a thing. At most, they want a 1950s small-town Main St.

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

#509

Post by TomMarius » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 5:57 PM UTC

Johnny555 wrote: post #501

TomMarius wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they should stop getting in the way of housing. Definitely not provide it, that's just calling for a catastrophe as we can see from policies like this one.

I didn't mean "provide" as in the city building housing themselves, but meant "provide" as in to make planning decisions that allow developers to build higher density housing, especially near existing transit.

Oh, okay. Many people actually think the government should be the organization that builds and then provides housing. :-/

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

#510

Post by sAbakumoff » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 6:28 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #496

sAbakumoff wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is to make employees have lunch in the office without letting them leave.

None of these tech companies make anyone eat the lunch and they certainly let employees leave. Do some research before posting.

Indeed they don't lock employees inside the building. Indeed it's far from slavery. It's wrong word. Rather it's exploiting of employees by using cheap tricks.