A few hundred bucks per attending employee for a Christmas party is a lot by most working people's standards... probably like 12x + what their company would spend.
But Yahoo is competing for Silicon Valley software engineers, and perks are very common, so if you don't have free food, free snacks, office parties, events, and other benefits, you'll have to pay your employees a lot more.
Perks are incredibly cheap for the company, because people value them much more than they would the corresponding pay raise.
So if you don't understand this, it looks bad that company "wastes" millions on perks, because you don't see the many more millions it saves on salary.
This is so obviously true that it's a cynicism generator on HN, with people routinely commenting about how Google's free food is a kind of scam. But what's true and what rings true depends on the prevailing narrative, and the prevailing narrative about Mayer and Yahoo is that she's fiddling while Rome burns.
You know what I want as a perk? The company turns off at 5pm. That's it, no more work, go home, no exceptions. Company email shuts down, no access on your smartphone until 9am.
Now that's a perk. I'll buy my own junk food[0], and I'll go to parties with my friends, not my coworkers.
[0] or, well, I won't - another problem with the perks, I want to snack on carrots and skim greek yogurt, not chips, candy, and beer.
That's not in the interest of most companies, so you'll have to start your own if that is what you want.
> I'll go to parties with my friends
The holiday party is completely optional. Most employees didn't go.
> I want to snack on carrots and skim greek yogurt
Our snack fridges are full of that, there's more healthy snacks than unhealthy around.
It's in the interest of companies to have happy employees. Following respectful working hours is one of the ways to do that. Doesn't have to be 9-5, if 10-6, 11-7, etc. is more of your thing.
I don't care about free food, I care about work/life balance. Office parties and free food type perks, which are just intended to keep you at the office longer, worsen my work/life balance.
That's not in the interest of most companies, so you'll have to start your own if that is what you want.
Nor is it in the interest of anyone with delayed sleep phase. Maybe a more universal form of that perk is "the employee turns off when they leave the office, but can choose their own hours".
Yes, I would prefer a $100 bonus. The amount might decrease to the point that it's useless at larger companies due to economies of scale...
If so, the choice is really between "$100 worth" of partying and $65 of after-tax cash.
For that matter, do corporations pay sales tax? If not, it's more like $100 of partying vs $58 of your choice of any consumption.
(Hence why it's not always as simple as "just give me the money".)
I didn't go to the first two and only attended after that to make nice with teh boss.