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Comment by tmh79 | Hacker News Reader

8:15

Yep. I asked about work life balance when evaluating offers and my future manager told me "Just look at the delta between when breakfast ends and dinner starts. For us, it's 8 hours. For Uber, it's something like 11."

It might be an inconsequential recommendation. But it is representative of the broader culture.

And yes, it's absurd that silicon valley tech companies feed us three meals a day. That HBO show Silicon Valley is a documentary not a comedy.

wow! It was 6:30 iirc @ Google, which I already thought was just a ploy to keep employees there later. Breakfast ended at I believe 9:30.

I think it's 8:30 to 10 at my office.

Depends on the Google cafe.

A few started dinner at 6:00. I think most started at 6:30 but I wouldn't be surprised if a couple didn't start until as late as 7.

Breakfast ended at 10 but often it didn't actually close until food ran out. I think some had late breakfast going until 11.

Charlie's would close the doors, hard stop, at 10:00. I remember having to be let out by the back route, through the kitchen, a couple times because I was still in line for food when the doors closed.

This was Google NYC btw.

Such a weird recommendation. It's so variable. 8:15 would be perfect for me (2 year old and 2 month old at home). 8:15pm is after bed time. If the dinner started at 5pm, it wouldn't work for some parents, and for others 5pm might be way too early.

You can't please everyone, and sometimes trying to is worse.

8:15 is after my kids go to sleep, too, but I'd rather not commute home to spend time with them, and then commute back to eat dinner.

Would be easy if you live at Nema

Lil bit of an in joke. NEMA is a condo building sandwiched between the Uber and Twitter main offices.

I'm fairly certain that significant portion of their staff does live within a short Uber ride back to the office. Even those with families.

Besides, what are your kids going to eat?

I'm not understanding what you are saying. Are you saying working until after 8:15 is perfect for you so that you'll never see your family? Or that you'll go back to work to eat after your kids go to bed?

Both sound bad

So I guess I understood these dinners wrong. It's not like a social dinner? Or does this mean like company supplied dinner starts at 8:15pm?

I interpreted it as (non mandatory) social dinner's hosted by the company would start at 8:15pm.

I interpreted it as the dinner they provide for people working late.

No, this is a dinner they provide every day for people who are still in the office, presumably because they're working.

Your interpretation is wrong, I've been to Uber's office in SF and its dinners are big trays of catered food brought in late in the evening. They're dumped in the kitchens and employees who are still working can come by to get whatever they want.

Apologies if I'm naïve, but why are people still working so late? Are they working overtime or on call?

So they can get a free dinner? Or maybe they're just happy to work a bit late, avoid peak-hour traffic, and then head home?

I work 6am-10pm one day a week voluntarily, though I work for myself. I avoid traffic, parking is easier, and I get the office to myself without distractions for about 6 hours.

From what I saw it's part of the company culture. Managers were there late so of course their subordinates didn't want to leave and be seen as not working as hard.

Also there's no concept of overtime with salaried fulltime employees. You might work 100 hours in a week and you're still taking home the same paycheck as if you worked 40 hours. That's just the way corporate America works.

They're working late so that they'll still be at the office when the free food comes. That's the point of the late free food.

Isn't it fair to say that it would be easier to have the dinner before people go home from work? Not saying the recommendation is wise entirely, but I'd be shocked if 6:30 didn't work better for the vast majority of parents.

There is no office dinner time that is compatible with employees going home _to have dinner with their families_.

The point of an office dinner is to replace any alternative dinner.

When I worked in SF I was just glad to see my family before my daughter went to bed, let alone having dinner with them.

So is that a good thing? Did it make you a better employee, or increased your efficiency, or gave you room to think so you could make better decisions?

SV is so misguided in equating working hard and being at work, it is crazy. Perhaps just me, but I can get 10-times more done when I know that my daughter is happy (having played together), than when I am stuck working while she is spending time with a nanny instead.

Anyway, to each their own.

No, I don't think that's a good thing at all. Not having dinner with my family was just a foregone conclusion. Even if I show up at 6 AM you're getting dirty looks if you leave at 5, because half of engineering doesn't show up until 10:30.

I'm not saying it's right or good, I'm just saying it's reality.

The implicit pressure is going to be "you have to stay for the team dinner," even if the dinner is "optional." So given that assumption, I would much rather the dinner happen at 6:30 and get home to my family than at 8:30. That way I would at least see my wife before she went to bed (let alone my daughter).

Thanks for the clarification and you're 100% here. I wonder if people realize the kind of environment they are creating using these implicit triggers, or because everyone shows up and seems happy, the issue isn't addressed until it completely blows up, like in Uber's case.

Wouldn't that mean that you wouldn't go home until after your children are in bed?

I was maybe misinterpreting the dinner, but I was thinking go home then come back.

Then why not eat dinner with your family while you're home?

I believe it was interpreted as a non-frequent, social non-mandatory dinner for the company, which is nice to attend so that you stay in touch with the company. And by social dinner I mean a get together event as opposed to just eating food for the sake of quelling hunger.

As a parent (6 year old) I totally see where he's coming from.

Correct.

I'm in a unionized position for a provincial government. Working late is very foreign to me.

In that context, then yeah, I can see that. Given the board, it's usually assumed that people are looking at it from a SV point of view, and so the assumption is that it's the "regular dinner" that gets brought in every night.

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