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Comment by romanoderoma | Hacker News Reader

I'm on the opposite side on this

I don't need snacks and drinks at work, just water and the occasional coffe, which I get at the bar anyway so I can have a little walk and clear up my mind

Workplaces that looks like a teenage dream party give me the chill

When I need to relax I stop working entirely and go out

I consider more money or more free time (or both) an incentive

I appreciate solid forniture, a comfortable seat, big windows with natural light, a nice neighborhood (last work I accepted was because they had an office in Duomo in Milan, the one I have now has an office 5 minutes away from the Colosseum in Rome), I don't care much about "free stuff"

Paying for my drinks or snacks it's not what will bankrupt me

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Snacks and other tchotchkes have become de rigueur in SV: I haven't had to buy my own lunch or snack for 8+ years now.

With the pandemic in force and the prospect of going into an office itself coming into question, companies will have to stop relying on the (lazy but admittedly effective) lure of free snacks and lunch. Good times.

On the whole, I agree with you: when I see people crumpled up in bean bags and picking at salad on picnic tables in companies' 'Come work with us' webpages, I get the chills. How very juvenile! But we all know that the industry feeds on a steady influx of juveniles and there's a new batch every summer!

To be fair with my employers, they usually paid for my lunches or had a cafeteria, usually not free, but very affordable.

It's good to have the option, it's not what drives my decisions.

I have no problem with people that see it as a bonus, to each his own, it simply doesn't matter much to me.

But maybe SV corporate culture has gone a little bit too far on it.

A lot of the old-school employers run subsidised cafeterias. Cisco used to, back in the day. Pretty decent choices and reasonable pricing, until they started whittling down options making the cafes pretty unattractive compared to surrounding eateries in Milpitas (this was during the '09 recession). I know that Apple still runs them but they are of course notoriously thrifty (I'm pretty sure they don't subsidise as heavily as others). Same with Yahoo. Not sure if we had to pay, but it was pretty reasonable. Soon after that first recession, I started seeing a trend of catered food at smaller places, and completely in-house operations at the larger places. That trend has kept up until the pandemic struck.

I mean, sure, paying for your drinks or snacks won't bankrupt you -- but it's not gonna bankrupt the company, either, and in today's tech job market a row of vending machines outside the company cafeteria can feel a little nickel-and-dime.

Vending machines have been ubiquitous since my first tech job in the 90s.

I am from Italy so they even looked a big novelty back then.

I'm not blaming people who appreciate it, I consider my job my professional endeavour and as I pretend the best from myself, I pretend it from my employer.

Which means that they have to provide me the tools and the means to do it at my best.

I used to be a smoker, I wouldn't have considered it a bonus if my employer paid for my cigarettes.

My salary has to be good enough to pay for that.

100% agreed

companies throwing away chocolates and parties are wasting resources that could go to salaries, re-investment or profit

having said that a company as large as Intel and with such a dominant position for many years has a lot of margin to waste money and make mistakes, which is why they often become complacent

It won't bankrupt you, but it's the company making a statement on how much they value their engineers. And it may provide motivation to put in extra effort.

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