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Comment by henrikschroder | Hacker News Reader

Yes, by most people's standards, which is why the piece is working, it creates envy in a lot of people. Same with the "free food" spiel.

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.

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Perks are incredibly cheap for the company, because people value them much more than they would the corresponding pay raise.

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.

Enough with the free snacks and parties.

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.

> You know what I want as a perk? The company turns off at 5pm.

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.

> That's not in the interest of most companies, so you'll have to start your own if that is what you want.

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.

* > You know what I want as a perk? The company turns off at 5pm.*

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".

SV companies serve carrots and yogurt alongside the chips and candy.

I see your point, but to be honest I'd probably pay not to have to attend Christmas parties at many places I've worked at. I suspect I'm not alone in feeling like this. Point being I don't know that this is really much of a perk......

Company Christmas party = another night that I can't spend with my girlfriend, lifting or climbing at the gym, reading, working on open source... and anything else that isn't hanging out with increasingly intoxicated people.

One night a year is onerous? For an event that it seems your coworkers enjoy?

We spent, I'd say, over $1500 for our party at a company of 15.

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...

I think a more interesting question is: Would you rather get $100 or allow the other members of your team to attend a party they'd enjoy?

Hm... is such a party both a) deductible as a corporate expense and b) not treated as employee income?

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".)

Do they force you to go? Every company I've ever worked at had optional parties.

Me to i only worked at one place(subsidiary of Elsevier) that did the mega party thing.

I didn't go to the first two and only attended after that to make nice with teh boss.

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