Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google's new culture: Perks are out. Being grateful you have a job is in

mediamemo.allthingsd.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 96 posts

Re: Google's new culture: Perks are out. Being grateful you have a job is in

#31

Post by plinkplonk »

blinks wrote: post #8
plinkplonk wrote: post #5

"we decided to, for example, we significantly cut down all the snacks that had been available. [laughter]" Sounds more like a joke to me. Are google perks like the gourmet food really being cut? (I heard about the child care changes. It sounded like a reasonable change to me but not being a Googler I wouldn't know and the details are hazy). The head line seems sensationalistic and gives the impression that the folks…

Well, I'm still getting free food up here in Google Kirkland, and it's great. The article seemed pretty odd to me, too.

Yes so what perks are being cut exactly? The article is vague about that.

Re: Google's new culture: Perks are out. Being grateful you have a job is in

#32

Post by zaidf »

steve19 wrote: post #22
ulf wrote: post #4

Some day people will look back and pinpoint that the day the free snacks were taken away was the day that Google started to be just like every other company...

This will bite them in the ass. Wages are rarely a source of satisfaction in a job. Employees consider them simply the fair exchange for their time. The perks on the job and the company culture count for much more. I suspect that is everyone was given a 5% paycut, but the perks kept, they would be happier than they are now. (I refer in general to all employees - not just the engineers)

Can't find the link. But I'm pretty sure I saw a survey somewhere that showed the opposite finding: people prefer a pay raise to perks.

Re: Google's new culture: Perks are out. Being grateful you have a job is in

#33

Post by mvgoogler »

brown9-2 wrote: post #14

The worker bees must be thrilled to hear this The tightening that [CFO] Patrick [Pichette] in particular did, who I think is the current Google hero

The free snacks, drinks, food are most definitely NOT gone. Have there been some cut-backs? Sure. So now the perks are merely incredible instead of ridiculous-verging-on-embarassingly-good.

So yeah, the micro-kitchens now have ~75 types of snacks instead of 100+ and we are now limited to 40-ish types of free drinks in the cooler instead of twice that. And now we drink filtered water instead of Smart-Water. Life is hard ;-)

Also there are still fresh-made sandwiches, sushi and salads delivered to the kitchen every day and I can still walk to one of the dozen-plus cafes and get three hot meals, prepared fresh each day by talented chefs.

Oh - the article neglected to mention the fact that Patrick's cost-cutting measured resulted in the annual bonus being paid out at over 100% this year, instead of the much lower amount that we were on target for before he showed up. So yeah - I would say a lot of people would consider Patrick to be a bit of a hero.

Re: Google's new culture: Perks are out. Being grateful you have a job is in

#35

Post by zaphar »

blinks wrote: post #8
plinkplonk wrote: post #5

"we decided to, for example, we significantly cut down all the snacks that had been available. [laughter]" Sounds more like a joke to me. Are google perks like the gourmet food really being cut? (I heard about the child care changes. It sounded like a reasonable change to me but not being a Googler I wouldn't know and the details are hazy). The head line seems sensationalistic and gives the impression that the folks…

Well, I'm still getting free food up here in Google Kirkland, and it's great. The article seemed pretty odd to me, too.

Still getting free good in Google Chicago as well.

Re: Google's new culture: Perks are out. Being grateful you have a job is in

#36

Post by bdotdub »

steve19 wrote: post #22
ulf wrote: post #4

Some day people will look back and pinpoint that the day the free snacks were taken away was the day that Google started to be just like every other company...

This will bite them in the ass. Wages are rarely a source of satisfaction in a job. Employees consider them simply the fair exchange for their time. The perks on the job and the company culture count for much more. I suspect that is everyone was given a 5% paycut, but the perks kept, they would be happier than they are now. (I refer in general to all employees - not just the engineers)

Related article: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=867803

Re: Google's new culture: Perks are out. Being grateful you have a job is in

#37

Post by staunch »

zaidf wrote: post #32
steve19 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will bite them in the ass. Wages are rarely a source of satisfaction in a job. Employees consider them simply the fair exchange for their time. The perks on the job and the company culture count for much more. I suspect that is everyone was given a 5% paycut, but the perks kept, they would be happier than they are now. (I refer in general to all employees - not just the engineers)

Can't find the link. But I'm pretty sure I saw a survey somewhere that showed the opposite finding: people prefer a pay raise to perks.

I imagine people might say they prefer salary over the equivalent in perks, but that doesn't mean they actually do.

Getting paid 50% of market rate, but your boss flies the whole company to Europe for a week? Awesome company!

Re: Google's new culture: Perks are out. Being grateful you have a job is in

#38

Post by _fool »

interestingly, google's offered pay rates for system administrators when they've tried to recruit me have been industry standard--for Austin, TX. but the jobs were in silicon valley. maybe other roles have higher pay scales, but i turned them down because i didn't think they were paying well, and i am only used to salaries from state jobs, which have tended to be very nearly median for the industry.

last time they tried to recruit me was 3-4 years ago. perhaps they've changed. but it held true for at least 4 years before that as well.

Re: Google's new culture: Perks are out. Being grateful you have a job is in

#40

Post by netsp »

staunch wrote: post #37
zaidf wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't find the link. But I'm pretty sure I saw a survey somewhere that showed the opposite finding: people prefer a pay raise to perks.

I imagine people might say they prefer salary over the equivalent in perks, but that doesn't mean they actually do. Getting paid 50% of market rate, but your boss flies the whole company to Europe for a week? Awesome company!

Subtle. People choose higher pay, but are happier with jobs that have more perks.

Many of them are not even costly to implement since they cost mostly time and result in higher productivity. Eg RDOs.

Post reply on HN