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The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free (2009)

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Re: The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free (2009)

#61

Post by everyone »

aoeuasdf1 wrote: post #56
Fnoord wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. TANSTAAFL, and I guess it is the old left (as in everyone equal) vs right (free choice) debate. We get free bread for lunch. Cool, but I don't wanna eat bread. Coffee is free. Cool, but it is bad quality, my el cheapo espresso machine at home is even better. Plus I'll experience a massive down in the evening. Oh hey, not the employer's problem. I've never seen free soda anywhere, but the thing is: it is just…

I agree with you - but there are two advantages to giving perks like food: No transaction costs. Not just the actual monetary cost of the transaction, but no need to employ people to man registers, no need to wait in line to pay. And more subtly, no need to argue with yourself about whether it's worth it to buy the item you are consuming. Secondly, these perks are bought in bulk and provided without having to pay inc…

An additional point as to why I dont like this.. I'm busting my ass in the code mines making this amazing software thats making us all money. Then 'management' waste it on frivolities, like free junk food, booze, time wasting exercises, stuff that they like. It also means they may be unthinkingly following the silicon valley style 'startup' stereotype, which is actually almost depressingly ironic. Anyway, its not a big deal, but that stuff is a warning sign for me.

Re: The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free (2009)

#62

Post by robterrell »

imagist wrote: post #10
mcguire wrote: post #8

" It never ceases to amaze me how many startups make the mistake of killing off the free drinks. " (One of the comments on the page.) But wait a minute. Killing off the free drinks is just the signpost. The change is primarily in the size and the culture of the company itself. Charging for sodas might be the first, but it isn't the biggest change that the company is going to, and going to have to, make as it grows. D…

Incidentally, the office of IBM I worked at a decade ago had free sodas.

Yeah, Google didn't invent free soda. We had free soda at the startup I founded in 1994. I interviewed at Davinci Email in 1991 & they had free soda and a fridge stocked with free food.

Re: The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free (2009)

#63

Post by anthony-james »

grogenaut wrote: post #55
anthony-james wrote: post #19

As an accountant, I feel like employees are severely underpaid in highly-skilled markets (like tech, not accounting), and I think that companies don't actually capture the true cost of a single full time employee. Most see a salary, benefits, fringe costs (like hiring HR and finance teams), lunches, etc. Some of the better firms add in the cost of hiring employees with intangibles, like communication, poise, and prof…

Great offenses in football stop the other team from scoring all the time by monopolizing the football for 80% of the game. It's not just direct actions that are important it's indirect.

Precisely my point - by monopolizing 80% of the employee market, a company can prevent the competition from scoring :)

Re: The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free (2009)

#64

Post by jawnv6 »

pascalxus wrote: post #18

What? They quit the company because they no longer got free sodas? I'd rather have an extra 300$ of salary per year, than free cans of Sugar all year. And, if the best developers have so much bargaining power as to leave, just because of sodas, why aren't they leaving toxic work places like Amazon in droves? Other places are cutting cost in far more profound ways: laptops and computer equipment, etc.

Giving you an extra $300/year was never on the table and it's kinda ridiculous you'd call them equivalent.

They're spending $20 a week at wholesale to give 80 engineers ~2 cans a day. Your share would be $12.50/year.

Re: The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free (2009)

#65

Post by saghm »

zhemao wrote: post #35
dpandey wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it was 10K per employee (that'd be a ridiculous amount of soda). It was 10K total.

I thought it would be fun to do the math on this one. A 12-pack of coca cola cans is $5.00 USD. So 10K would buy 24K cans of coca cola. If that was their yearly soda budget, it would be 66 cans per day. So yeah, obviously an absurd amount for a single person to be consuming.

Not to mention that in buying the soda in bulk, they'd almost definitely get a better price per can than a single six-pack

Re: The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free (2009)

#66

Post by pascalxus »

garysieling wrote: post #59
pascalxus wrote: post #18

What? They quit the company because they no longer got free sodas? I'd rather have an extra 300$ of salary per year, than free cans of Sugar all year. And, if the best developers have so much bargaining power as to leave, just because of sodas, why aren't they leaving toxic work places like Amazon in droves? Other places are cutting cost in far more profound ways: laptops and computer equipment, etc.

I think that's probably over-estimating the case value by a fair amount, because the company should be buying in bulk. They also would take the expense off their taxes, whereas if you buy soda, both of you pay taxes.

This is a good point. But, there's also some inefficiencies that creep in because like a centrally planned ecomonomy, the company can not adequately predict the demand for each free snack, food and drink, leading to excess waste (at least for perishable items).

personally, I would rather have teas and vitamin waters, rather than cans of sugar.

Re: The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free (2009)

#67

Post by peterwwillis »

Scuds wrote: post #45
peterwwillis wrote: post #6

I still don't understand why companies would willingly serve free drinks (and snacks) that they know will only deteriorate the health of their employees. Free drinks, sure, but 290-calorie cans of sugar, and bags of fat? Say what you will about adults having free will to make bad choices, but your company doesn't give away free cigarettes.

You're missing the point; soda is a creature comfort. If an employer can cut soda, they can cut coffee, and coffee brewing equipment. They can cut refrigerators, microwaves, and dishwashers. Break rooms can be closed and replaced with cubicle space. Washrooms can be cleaned every other day. And on and on and on.

In your argument, cutting any creature comfort is a slippery slope that leads not only to removal of all creature comforts, but also the removal of rest areas and communal food and drink preparation areas, and even unsanitary facilities. (This sounds like a joke...)

First, almost all corporations in America have break rooms and do not usually give away anything except possibly tea and coffee. Removing the free tea and coffee does not remove the break room. Break rooms have multiple uses.

Second, there are some laws and some basic industry standard practices that apply to the sanitary conditions of washrooms. Removal of creature comforts or breakrooms do not change them.

Third, Cigarettes are also a creature comfort. Why not give away cigarettes? Because they're bad for you, and expensive. Sodas are also bad for you, and expensive. And might I add, neither are necessary for you to do your job. Removing them would not have an effect on removing the break room or equipment, the sanitary conditions of washrooms, or anything else, because quite frankly they are not only unnecessary but they are (over time) harmful to the employee's health and contribute to diseases that will only prevent the employee from doing their job and increasing medical coverage costs.

So I doubt companies give away free soda and chips to prevent the slippery slope of unsanitary bathrooms.

Re: The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free (2009)

#68

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

dsr_ wrote: post #13
peterwwillis wrote: post #6

I still don't understand why companies would willingly serve free drinks (and snacks) that they know will only deteriorate the health of their employees. Free drinks, sure, but 290-calorie cans of sugar, and bags of fat? Say what you will about adults having free will to make bad choices, but your company doesn't give away free cigarettes.

Right next to those are generally the free diet sodas, the free seltzers, and the free teas and juices. Next to the chips and candy are the protein bars, trail mix, nuts, and fresh fruit. Over in the cafeteria, next to the free pizza is the free salad bar. With any luck you've got a range of employees. Some are concerned about their weight; some are concerned about getting enough vitamins; some really really want a b…

Some really need a cigarette. Would you provide cigarettes in vending machinea?

Re: The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free (2009)

#69

Post by dpandey »

davidw wrote: post #54
dpandey wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that when you've worked at a company > 6 months, you know if your manager cares about you. You know if the management cares about you. Doesn't take much to figure that out. I think there are 1-1 and public ways of showing care. When an employee has a performance issue and is going through something rough, you have a private conversation, nobody else needs to know (unless they're impacted/frustrated and you le…

Thinking out loud: maybe "giving without expecting anything in return" ? Perks and compensation are things you mostly expect to get something back from. Something genuinely nice/caring at the place I work now was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving where they just told everyone to go home after lunch and enjoy the long weekend.

That's a great example.

Re: The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free (2009)

#70

Post by mcguire »

imagist wrote: post #10
mcguire wrote: post #8

" It never ceases to amaze me how many startups make the mistake of killing off the free drinks. " (One of the comments on the page.) But wait a minute. Killing off the free drinks is just the signpost. The change is primarily in the size and the culture of the company itself. Charging for sodas might be the first, but it isn't the biggest change that the company is going to, and going to have to, make as it grows. D…

Incidentally, the office of IBM I worked at a decade ago had free sodas.

So did mine. And at one point, ice cream in the fridge.

Of course, it was what became the "Solutions Experience Lab", so we had a smart kitchen set up with RFID readers for medicine bottles, and an oven that would keep things cold and remote operation capabilities. And the fridge was wired up to report electricity usage: when they first installed it, they found wildly varying swings in temperature and power use. Turns out, you need to put something in it as thermal mass. Sodas are good, but ice cream doesn't work because people eat it too fast. That got replaced with plain ice.

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