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Comment by octodog | Hacker News Reader

Who are you to decide if that's worth it or not? Obviously if someone has decided to take that pay cut and switch companies it was worthwhile for them.

You might not care much for those perks yourself but it's self-evident that some people do.

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People are free to make whatever irrational decisions they wish. Again, we're talking anecdotal evidence, but those people don't stay long at those companies.

I certainly won't hold it against an employer if they provide snacks.

It’s not irrational to value things differently. I place a huge premium on having a variety of drinks, snacks, and meals at my workplace. Far, far beyond the mere cost to purchase them. I make plenty of money, why would I add a huge time sink, hassle, and mental overhead for a bit of extra cash that I don’t really need?

Do you know how much of a time sink, hassle, and mental overhead it is to work for $5000 you didn't make because you accepted $500 in snacks instead?

If not, I can point you to a few devs who can tell you from their experiences. ;)

However, this problem isn't solved by unions, it's solved by teaching your dev friends how to negotiate better. If they are on their 3rd job and are still getting under negotiated with snacks then I don't know what to tell you (or them).

I’ve been doing this for a long time, thanks. It’s definitely worth a few thousand dollars per year to me. That’s less than 1% of my income. Just because it’s not worth it for you means little.

> I’ve been doing this for a long time, thanks. It’s definitely worth a few thousand dollars per year to me. That’s less than 1% of my income. Just because it’s not worth it for you means little.

Well, I'll just quote that so you can't change it, and people can decide for themselves whether they think paying thousands of dollars for snacks is a rational decision.

Irrational decisions you've been making for a long time are still irrational decisions. Irrational decisions you make with 1% of your income are still irrational decisions.

If you're saying that leaving behind massive amounts of money in exchange for cheap snacks is something you just inherently like, I guess that's not irrational, but that's a pretty unusual thing to like. But follow your heart!

It's kind of nice to know that you can walk 5 meters from your desk to get food, however it doesn't take long to realise that you'd rather 10 min to the nearest place and eat there instead. It gives you a bit of time outside the office,you move more and ultimately make your own decision on what you eat instead it being done by your lovely Big Corp.

Judging by the throngs of people filling office cafeterias, this is not a universal truth. Making my point again.

People rarely do what's more benefitial to them.The best example is when a heavily overweight person with developing heart conditions is prescribed medication left and right instead of being told( and helped with) to better manage diet and levels of physical activities.

So in response to my point that people may value things differently than how someone rando on the Internet thinks they should, your response is that they clearly just don’t know what’s good for them :)

Of course people value different things- that's normal.I remember I worked for a company,where most of my team had this bad habbit of having lunch at their desk. Constantly skipping 1 hour lunch they were entitled to. Our manager used to go crazy about it and eventually had to ban it all together. Interestingly enough, while it was a busy place,there was no need not to take lunch. I always took full lunch break and enjoyed walks alongside Thames,while some others had to seek medical help because of overwork.

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