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Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

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Re: Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

#21
The rationale behind it makes perfect sense. Do you really want to give someone $2-3000 per month or $24-36k a year just to have a box around you? Especially if you don't own much stuff? How much do you actually need besides your computer, phone, clothes and toiletries? Gym for bathroom and free public wifi for internet aside from your phone and you're set.

The rental and housing market is disgusting. I wouldn't consider it except for my wife.

Re: Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

#23

How are these fringe benefits not taxable as pay? Should they be? http://www.irs.gov/publications/p15b/ar02.html#en_US_2014_pu...

By way of context, understand that cases like these are outliers from the perspective of the existing tax laws.

Athletic facilities: Many companies have a locker room, maybe a shower, maybe a treadmill or two. Is the IRS going to force employees to buy a gym membership so they can take a post lunchtime shower prior to a customer meeting?

As for meals/on-premise lodging/etc. Historically (and currently still, modulo Google-type outliers) this sort of thing typically applies to people living on a job site as I did when I was running projects on oil rigs and in shipyards. Plenty of other examples as well. Especially in a remote location, these services can be quite expensive to deliver. It would be pretty unreasonable to make employees declare them as taxable benefits.

Re: Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

#24

In Silicon Valley mythology, sleeping at the office is second only to working out of a garage That's a depressing thought.

Yeah, but not true at all. Sure, there's plenty of garage mythos (though that's decidedly old-school now). But living at your office...? It happens occasionally and it's nuts, but it's not at all part of SV culture. This is first I've heard of Elon/et al doing it.

Re: Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

#25
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read further down, exclusions to fringe benefits include Meals, Lodging on your business premises, Athletic facilities, and other things.

Read even further down: Exempt if furnished for your convenience as a condition of employment . i.e. this seems to imply that optional lodging is taxable.

True (and makes sense) although I doubt a parking space qualifies as a housing benefit.

Re: Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

#27

The rationale behind it makes perfect sense. Do you really want to give someone $2-3000 per month or $24-36k a year just to have a box around you? Especially if you don't own much stuff? How much do you actually need besides your computer, phone, clothes and toiletries? Gym for bathroom and free public wifi for internet aside from your phone and you're set. The rental and housing market is disgusting. I wouldn't cons…

The rationale behind it makes perfect sense. Do you really want to give someone $2-3000 per month or $24-36k a year just to have a box around you?

Really? You honestly can't fathom why some people might desire their own, private space, away from their work environment, where they might, I dunno, live their life outside of their day-to-day drudgery?

I'm not even sure how to react to that. It's such an alien way of thinking, I simply can't relate to it... it's baffling.

I mean, the minute humans formed fixed communities instead of hunting and gathering, we've been driven by the need to build public and private spaces in which to live. Questioning that need is questioning one of the founding tenants of modern human society...

Re: Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

#28

The rationale behind it makes perfect sense. Do you really want to give someone $2-3000 per month or $24-36k a year just to have a box around you? Especially if you don't own much stuff? How much do you actually need besides your computer, phone, clothes and toiletries? Gym for bathroom and free public wifi for internet aside from your phone and you're set. The rental and housing market is disgusting. I wouldn't cons…

Not to judge it, but clearly your lifestyle differs greatly from mine. I value a separate space, privacy, my own books and plants and furniture, a neighborhood that isn't a business district or food court.... and a hundred other things that living full-time at a workplace make impossible.

These two lifestyles are not merely incompatible but imcompossible. What you describe sounds to me like living like a drone - as in, an actual bee.

Re: Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

#29
post #27

The rationale behind it makes perfect sense. Do you really want to give someone $2-3000 per month or $24-36k a year just to have a box around you? Especially if you don't own much stuff? How much do you actually need besides your computer, phone, clothes and toiletries? Gym for bathroom and free public wifi for internet aside from your phone and you're set. The rental and housing market is disgusting. I wouldn't cons…

The rationale behind it makes perfect sense. Do you really want to give someone $2-3000 per month or $24-36k a year just to have a box around you? Really? You honestly can't fathom why some people might desire their own, private space, away from their work environment, where they might, I dunno, live their life outside of their day-to-day drudgery? I'm not even sure how to react to that. It's such an alien way of thi…

Yeah, I'm with you. I have a guitar! I have books! I have a large bed and a variety of clothes. I need some place to store my skis and my running shoes. I enjoy cooking. I don't see myself as materialistic, just as a passionate hobbyist/human.

Re: Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

#30
post #7
post #6

> Discoe points at the screen. “When I read this, I was like, ‘Does he know me?’ There’s only really me who fits this description. I thought someone who works at google should be smart enough to know that these type of personality tests are pretty vague and can be applied to many people?

He was referring to this xkcd - http://m.xkcd.com/977/ . The description, as stated in the article, was “You like Isaac Asimov, XML, and shoes with toes. You think the Segway got a bad rap. You own 3D goggles, which you use to view rotating models of better 3D goggles. You type in Dvorak.” I don't think that could be considered a vague personality test that can be applied to many people.

They all are. That's the whole point of the comic.
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