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Comment by dsbleia | Hacker News Reader

I think this actually made Zuck's leadership look solid. Of course it's a little naive to say "we aren't political", but he's probably just doing that because it's the calculated thing to say. Almost every other company says things like that, except for a few ideological ones in Silicon Valley.

I don't know how anyone takes these employees at FB seriously. They are complaining about the lack of free snacks? Anyone complaining about a 'lack of free snacks' is someone you should certainly ignore.

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Free snacks, and their quality, is a complex signal. They're some of the first things to go as cash tightens up, and they're a decent rubric as to how much leadership actively gives a fuck about employees. Or they're a garnish on a pile of shit.

It does definitely depend on the goals regarding company/employee relations: is this a job for which I'm paid money, or is it supposed to be more than that? If the former, how're the salaries - actually? If the latter, are they actually putting in effort to deserve it?

Like proper code indentation. Yeah, you can just fix it yourself pretty easily, but it signals things.

If you read the article, they're complaining about the lack of free snacks because they're WORKING FROM HOME. To be honest, I suspect it's a joke question.

Ehh. I could see it either way. "I joke but also I'm serious".

Food is my second biggest expense (after ofc rent) - decent lunch is $15-$20 (more with delivery) in my area. For the summer I worked in MV, it was that for a mediocre lunch (nothing good nearby).

15 * 5 * 52 = $3,900. If the company covers it, it's pre-tax to me; if I cover it that's more like $7k out of my salary.

(Plus the time to wrangle colleagues and figure out where, transit time, etc)

Having food supplied? Actually of pretty substantial value, even if it's not on the level of, say, American health insurance.

(Plus, you know, I can buy a house if I don't spend $5 on coffee everyday!)

If leadership actively cares about employees maybe they should eliminate free snacks altogether. Obesity kills about 300K Americans every year. The last thing that highly-paid tech workers with sedentary jobs need is more food.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/192032

Facebook (at HQ and some if not all satellite offices) provide multiple meals per day. When evaluating offers, I've priced similar perks at equivalent to an additional ~$10k of pre-tax income.

If I had priced a $10k perk into my salary and no longer got it, I'd be disappointed in Zuckerberg's dismissiveness here.

If you were still making an easy six figures during a global pandemic and the only cut was (temporarily) 10k in perks, complaining would not be the right move.

It's an unacknowledged cut. If your employer suddenly reduced your paycheck by N%, you'd probably want an explanation to go with it, pandemic or not.

To take things one level higher, I wonder why they answered this question at all. Most likely it was done to add some levity to the meeting, but more cynically, I wonder if it was done to point out just how juvenile some of the concerns are.

lol, this reminds me of a meeting the department I was in at the time (tech support) had with the head of operations years ago. When she opened the floor for serious questions/comments, the first thing some jackass brought up was his disappointment in the lack of free tea in the break room. The look on her face was priceless.

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