Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods' • Hacker News Board

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#61

Post by jcgrillo » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 2:25 PM UTC

bananapub wrote: post #58

jcgrillo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not they intended to send a message, if I work at the facebook the blaring loud message I just received is "do not under any circumstances try to expense anything, ever."

> the blaring loud message I just received is "do not under any circumstances try to expense anything, ever." did you not read the article? the message was, quite reasonably, "don't take the fucking piss, if we give you food vouchers to buy your dinner, then use it for buying yourself dinner".

> did you not read the article?

That's obviously not a serious question, so it doesn't deserve a response.

> if we give you food vouchers to buy your dinner, then use it for buying yourself dinner

I don't know whether there even is a "message", but if I worked for a company that just fired a bunch of people for discrepancies in really minor expense reports I would simply avoid submitting an expense report for something like a meal ever again. They're clearly looking for an excuse to fire people, and it's better to not make oneself a target.

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#62

Post by lopkeny12ko » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 2:25 PM UTC

Joker_vD wrote: post #26

jayantbhawal wrote: post #2

Description: Facebook and Instagram owner reportedly dismisses about 24 workers for abusing $25 meal credit system

Is it really an abuse? Oh no, he used meal credits to buy toothpaste and tea instead of food, so... what? It really irks me that this level of pettiness comes from the corporation that itself uses every single tax "optimization" scheme on earth (and also probably invented a couple). Apparently, quod licet Metae non licet famulo. This really is just a small monetary enhancement to one's wage, not a "we ration out your…

Why does it matter? He violated company policy, which has consequences, regardless of how minor of an infraction you might personally feel it is.

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#63

Post by lopkeny12ko » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 2:29 PM UTC

There is quite a lot of missing context in this story.

Meta provides a $25 meal delivery credit for employees in offices that do not serve catered dinner. It is valid only within a specific time window on weekdays, and meals can only be delivered to the office.

The offense here is that employees were ordering items other than food, or not actually working at the time of delivery. Like they would order food to the office, go in to grab it, and then leave.

Meta's behavior seems quite justified here.

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#64

Post by FirmwareBurner » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 2:41 PM UTC

throwaway19972 wrote: post #29

jvanderbot wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are people getting weird things like corporate food stamps when they are being paid 400,000 anyway?

Who cares? Have you seen the profit margins at these stingy-ass companies?

>Who cares? Have you seen the profit margins at these stingy-ass companies?

Should stealing be excused just because you're doing it to some wealthy entity?

The problem with the "it's OK to steal from them because they're in a position of privilege and I'm not" justification logic, is that then the poor/homeless guy around the block should also be ok to rob you or break into your car because "who cares, have you seen the fat wages those techies are raking in?"

Have Meta done a lot of nasty stuff that they should be punished for? Definitely. But that's another topic they need to be held accountable for by the law, and should never be a justification to green light stealing since two wrongs don't make a right and you don't want to live in a society where stealing is normalized as long as you think you're doing it to someone more priviledged than you.

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#65

Post by laborcontract » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 2:44 PM UTC

throwaway19972 wrote: post #29

jvanderbot wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are people getting weird things like corporate food stamps when they are being paid 400,000 anyway?

Who cares? Have you seen the profit margins at these stingy-ass companies?

Are we sure the people with $400k salaries abusing a company food voucher program to buy toothpaste aren’t the stingy ones?

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#66

Post by tivert » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 2:45 PM UTC

jffry wrote: post #9

jvanderbot wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are people getting weird things like corporate food stamps when they are being paid 400,000 anyway?

> Meta [...] usually feeds staff for free from canteens at its larger offices, including its sprawling Silicon Valley headquarters. But those at smaller sites are given daily credits to order food through delivery services such as UberEats and Grubhub. Daily allowances include $20 for breakfast, $25 for lunch and $25 for dinner. So probably a perk they decided was worth it or necessary for morale at some point

> So probably a perk they decided was worth it or necessary for morale at some point

I always thought that stuff (along with the snacks) was a ploy to keep employees working longer hours. Needing to get food/coffee/whatever is a transition that can allow people to decide to disengage from work. A strategically placed coffee station can prevent a longer trip to the cafeteria or a coffee shop, and free food in the cafeteria can prevent a trip offsite to a restaurant or the worker's home for a meal. Plus it can seem like a plus to the employee, because people often pay a lot more attention to money than time.

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#67

Post by HDThoreaun » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 2:58 PM UTC

xnickb wrote: post #25

Etheryte wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you not fire someone who is stealing from the company? Not seeing the logic here.

> stealing from the company Do you imply the person didn't eat that day or what? The company compensates employees food expenses. The employee's partner made the food and thus the food can't be expended, so they bought something else at the equivalent price to compensate for what would otherwise be covered by the company. I can't find a logic by which this is "stealing". Please clarify.

Meta gave a voucher for lunch. If you don’t buy lunch you don’t get to use the voucher for whatever else you want, that is theft.

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#68

Post by JohnFen » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 3:41 PM UTC

beepbooptheory wrote: post #49

SkyPuncher wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, for one know, some people like this. They grew up in struggling families where food and resources were scarce at times. My impression is that's created a deeply rooted sense of need. That sense of need stays, even when you clearly have great salaries.

I have only worked at pretty bad startups I guess, but for me I could get paid well but if there is some strong sense of job insecurity (as there always seems to be in this world), I will never leave a certain level of survival/hoarding mode. I have savings and everything but to this day I will still only buy a car I can potentially live out of. Every day I am ready to go back to the kitchen, but until then every mor…

This is (depending on how extreme you are, I suppose) wise. Once you're making more than a subsistence income, one of the keys to long-term financial stability and security is to live well below your means[1].

Doing that also gives you freedom in the sense that you are no longer "trapped" in whatever job you have, because you can develop a long enough runway that you can leave a job before you've found a replacement.

[1] In my youth, I dated the daughter of one of the richest people in my city. I asked him what the key to getting rich is, and his response was "spend less than you earn". At the time, I thought it was a way to to avoid answering my question, but in the decades since I've realized that was actually the correct answer and everything else is just expanding on that.

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#69

Post by salawat » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 3:45 PM UTC

laborcontract wrote: post #65

throwaway19972 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares? Have you seen the profit margins at these stingy-ass companies?

Are we sure the people with $400k salaries abusing a company food voucher program to buy toothpaste aren’t the stingy ones?

Are you asking the right question when instead of just being paid the employer is engaging in the sordid practice of "company scrip" with more layers?

Employers should not be exercising control over how compensation is used. Period.

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#70

Post by jerlam » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 3:45 PM UTC

jffry wrote: post #9

jvanderbot wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are people getting weird things like corporate food stamps when they are being paid 400,000 anyway?

> Meta [...] usually feeds staff for free from canteens at its larger offices, including its sprawling Silicon Valley headquarters. But those at smaller sites are given daily credits to order food through delivery services such as UberEats and Grubhub. Daily allowances include $20 for breakfast, $25 for lunch and $25 for dinner. So probably a perk they decided was worth it or necessary for morale at some point

Now we know who's paying all those food delivery companies $20 to deliver them a single coffee.