The Power of a Free Popsicle (2018)
gsb.stanford.edu
gsb.stanford.edu
Then the morale events started becoming less frequent. The beer went from local to Bud and Bud Light. Then according to my wife, it went from Bud to Kirkland (the brand you find at Costco). Morale budget went from $WHATEVER to $40/head/year. Even the employee stock purchase plan discount went from 15% to 10%. You can look up the famous "shrimp and weenies" memo at Microsoft. I was on board with that, we didn't need shrimp. But now they don't even get the weenies.
And now Meta is recording your every keystroke and mouse movement, and I'm sure if they even get beer, it's no better than Microsoft has. Employees seem to be viewed as a liability now, or at best, code-producing cows to be milked out there in the open office feed lot. I don't care how much it pays these days, I've tasted how it could be, and no amount of money would get me back. All because companies can't spend an extra $100-$200 on their >$200K employees.
So, back to local breweries? /s
I worked at a publicly traded company worth tens of billions of dollars where I had to escalate to the VP level to get reimbursed when I paid for our team to send flowers to one of our team members after his mother was murdered. Expensing books, courses, or equipment is essentially out of the question and getting approval for team events requires a business related reason and are regularly denied.
I worked at a 50 person company where on my first day I arrived and there was a company logo'd Patagonia jacket on my desk and a small bottle of Veuve Clicquot. I worked at a different just allocated every team $100 per person every 6 months and said, "Do something with it. The only rules are you can't just pocket it and it has to be spent as a team."
The large company paid me triple what those other companies did, which is why I stayed for nearly 8 years, but in my head they're the cheap bastards who didn't care about their employees. I have such better memories of the companies who paid me far, far less, but set aside a few hundred bucks a year to do something special. I understand the big tech company mindset of, "If we're paying you half a million dollars a year you should be able to buy your own damn beer", but I think they forget that their employees are human and often it really is the thought that counts.
If you want actual improved working conditions, there is only one path that has proven to work and it involves organizing with other workers while resisting your bosses through whatever means you feel comfortable with.
The US has one of the most violent labor histories on the planet for a reason. The elites in this country absolutely do not like relinquishing control to an accountable public. There is a reason why the constitution was written as a document to benefit a minority of slavers, just like there is a reason why you don't get time-and-a-half when you're on-call as a tech worker; a group of undemocratic individuals want to hold dominion over your life while shaking you down for everything you're worth.
Clearly that isn't true. I've worked at plenty of companies that treated me very well that didn't require organized resistance to get. I was literally talking about two of them in the comment you're responding to. You mention "there is a reason why you don't get time-and-a-half when you're on-call as a tech worker", but I've worked at companies who did that. Shit, Google does that. Your claim that "the only way" forward is for workers or organize and resist is undermined a bit by the fact that one of the largest tech companies on earth already does the thing that you're claiming can only be achieved by organized resistance.
If you like the idea of unionization that's great. I'm not particularly against it for other people, but it's not a magic wand. I spent a chunk of my life working as a checker at a unionized grocery store and I've never felt more like just a piece of meat than at that job and that feeling came from both the way my employer treated me AND the way the union treated me.
Like I hinted at before, I don't really want to join a union. I'm not going to stand in other people's way if that's what they want, but it wasn't for me. My experience was that it was kind of just trading one master for another. I just want to spend $250 on lunch for my team for Bob's birthday and I don't think a union is going to help with that.
I have the opposite experience and mindset. Companies I worked for would cheap out on salaries, but would buy random knick knacks, jackets, food and drinks for the workers, making the young naive version of me thinking that the company values us even though we were all working below market wages, while the CEO had a massive house and a supercar. Turns out that pizza, coke and a softshell jacket every year is much much cheaper than a yearly wage increase.
Now, I worked for a company who last year cut all the parties, food, drinks, team events, 3 year HW refresh cycle, even the color printers, to ensure we'll still get to keep above average salaries through the tremulous times our industry is going through. Absolute respect. I'd rather have more money to pay the ever increasing bills, than pizzas and a 50 Euro softshell jacket.
>I understand the big tech company mindset of, "If we're paying you half a million dollars a year you should be able to buy your own damn beer", but I think they forget that their employees are human and often it really is the thought that counts.
I wonder if it's possible to tell this story on how dehumanizing it felt to not get free beer with a half million dollar salary, to an average laborer, with a straight face, and expecting any reciprocating "working class" empathy.
When they took away our daily free biscuits and hazelnut wafers from the break room, I was happy since it meant less sugar and carbs in my diet. My waistline was thankful. I'd rather they cut the junk food than stuff like salaries.
I really don't value small freebies anymore, in fact now it's a red flag to me. A small startup I recently interviewed at proudly showed off the free sweets, drinks fridge and pool table in the break room, but wanted to pay me 50k Euros/year for a senior product owner. They can shove those perks up their bum with that salary.
I’m sure some companies do cynically provide perks to try to buy or dazzle people, but I don’t think that that’s the only reason that anyone does it.
And when you cut other things, the savings add up since such cuts never come alone.
Spending tends to go uncontrolled when the company is in the green, and then multiple cuts come all at once when the company is in the red.
By my former place when sales crashed, they removed the color printers throughout the company(amongst many other things) and only kept the B/W ones and I thought that was stupid until they said it saved 22K/quarter which seemed insanely wasteful. So you see, it's never just 25$/year when the cuts come, it's always a lot more.
With that out of the way, I think you misinterpreted my comment a bit. I wasn't saying that want a nice jacket and a small bottle of Veuve over a decent salary. I was saying that the fact that they took time to do something a little bit special and unique created a positive memory.
I think if I give slightly contrasting stories it'll illustrate my point. At the company I talked about that gave me the Veuve bottle on the first day, the Patagonia jacket that I got was the same one the CEO had and regularly wore. I also learned later when I found a box of small Veuve bottles in a storage closet that the CEO chose that brand because he personally liked Veuve for special occasions. Whether intended or not, I remember feeling valued because it didn't feel like these were cheap knick knacks to keep the workers happy. The fact that he actually liked these things made them feel like a real gift and that was very humanizing.
On the other hand, I was at another company where they gave everyone somewhat cheap jackets for a big event and then the exec team showed up in brand new, matching, leather jackets for the same event. That kind of pissed me off because it basically said, we're too good for the gift we just gave you.
Like I said in the last comment, I don't really care about the things, it's the thought that counts.
So when I talk about the "buy your own damn beer" thing, I'm not saying I want a pizza party instead of a raise. I'm saying that if the company is in financial trouble and we need to cut the perks to make pay, that's fine. If the company telling employees they can't afford a few six packs while reporting record profits and the CEO is buying a new Lambo then that's a totally different story. If a company is penny pinching for no reason and they're fine sending that signal, then it's their prerogative, but given how much companies spend on recruiting talent, I feel like if shelling out an extra $200/yr in a way that feels even a little bit personalized is a no brainer.
Andy Warhol
It's amazing how you can do without the necessities of life, provided you have the little luxuries. Yes, money is always good. But a company that isn't willing to spend a small amount of money on "frivolous" things that have a disproportionate impact on the daily experience of working for them is either an ineffective company, or one that genuinely doesn't value its employees.
> I wonder if it's possible to tell this story on how dehumanizing it felt to not get free beer with a half million dollar salary, to an average laborer, with a straight face, and expecting any reciprocating "working class" empathy.
Oh look, now the mask comes off.
No, I need good shelter and top end medical care, more than I need a pizza party with co-workers after work. I'm not 17 anymore to think unlimited fast food and Mountain Dew is the most amazing thing in life.
> But a company that isn't willing to spend a small amount of money on "frivolous" things
This is ZIRP VC funded bay area tech bro logic, who thinks money is infinite.
The problem with uncontrolled endless "small amounts of frivolous things" is that when you're a large company, it keeps ballooning adding up over time, to eventually enormous costs, adding to the cost of doing business which could just go to employee wages instead or discounts to customers to stay competitive. If your company industry is hit hard now (like mine was), by global events, you gotta cut all that if you want to keep people employed and survive as a company.
>Oh look, now the mask comes off.
What mask. Can you be more vague?
I believe that I was right.
It very much depends on the gift.
I value compensation and comforts as inducements to align my incentives to the needs of the organisation and as enablers, but I would never confuse incentive alignment with some kind of emotional or empathetic bond or contract.
I don’t feel any way about organisations because they don’t feel about me.
But I understand that some people do.
I do feel some way about goals, projects, people, even teams insofar as a group of people closely aligned can have its own emotional character, but at the level of an organisation that has goals that need not be aligned with my well being, I just don’t catch feelings of any kind.
By observation, though, I think many people seek parental, familial, or community surrogate relationships in work culture. It seems to me that with vanishingly rare exceptions this always leads to disappointment or something worse… it seems like wilful ignorance of the incentives at play, or maybe a misunderstanding of genuine social bonds.
People don’t bond because of how wonderful they are, they bond because they seem useful to each other in some way. If your value is as a producer, that’s a very transactional relationship that should not be confused with genuine interdependence of trust.
That said, I have to recognize that this may be partially because of my personality. I don't "do great" at mixers like this. I'd rather go home and be with my family than drink beer—regardless of label—in a corporate setting. People describe me as charismatic and engaging one-on-one, but I'm awkward and unhappy at a big crowd event.
But there are other people whom I think get a lot of value and connections out of them! So it's kinda hard for me to say.
Downgrades in quality, though, stick out like a sore thumb. "I didn't really like going to these things before, but at least they had good beer." It can also be a real "it's the thought that counts" sort of thing. When you show me that you're willing to spend less on me, it sends a signal, sometimes stronger than if you'd never spent anything on me in the first place.
https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...
And Zuck doesn’t care about the stock price from quarter to quarter, except that a low stock price will cause a Dead Sea effect of the best and brightest. That in turn will cause a talent spiral.
So they make symbolic cuts so Wall Street keeps the stock juiced so the RSU incentivized employees stay.
see https://www.geekwire.com/2019/microsoft-says-goodbye-past-de...
for a virtual walkthrough, see https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20250708-00/?p=11...
When I first worked at Google ~20 years ago it was a company that trusted its employees. You needed something it was assumed you knew best and they gave it to you. New machine, 2nd machine, more storage, monitor, cables, whatever.
Over time it all disappeared. First they got rid of the "hardware depots". They were like small computer stores. They merged them with "tech stops" the place where you got tech support. In that change the number of things available went down. Over time they took it down further and further. There are no tech stops now (I think).
They used to have bins of cables and power supplies. If you needed one take it. Instead they built expensive kiosks you have to badge in to get one. I can only guess some ex-employee started the kiosk machine and got a friend still at Google to given them a lucrative contract to build these stupid machines.
Then they removed stuff from the machines. I needed a power supply recently. They don't exist in the machines. I ended up having to go to the nearest store to purchase one so I get could get work done and then fill out a bunch of stuff to expense it. Given what they pay engineers it probably cost them $300-$600 for a $50 part.
I'm not totally blaming the company. Plenty of bad employees abused trust and that always slowly erodes what a company allows/supports.
Touchpoints come in three ways. Delighters as already mentioned, a popsicle delivered to your room, or a chocolate on your pillow. Then there are performance needs. In the case of a hotel this could be the quality of the view, or the case of an employee the basic wage, and then next is the basic needs. Using the hotel example this would be something like the air conditioning.
You complain if it does not work, but nobody writes a review about how perfect the aircon was.
This one is more often called a 'hygiene factor'.
The COO had mandated no more than 30 seconds per customer so that the line kept moving.
When she went undercover, she realized that 30 seconds was barely enough time to ring up the customer, hand them their order and move on to the next customer. Great from an efficiency standpoint but terrible for customer relations as the cashier didn't even have time to say "Thank you for shopping with us!" or "How is your day going?" etc.
It's a good reminder that optimizing too much for one metric (e.g. line speed, short term profits etc) can lead to worse outcomes in the long term. On the flip side, a few extra minutes of time and effort from an employee can turn a "nice stay" into " we are customer FOR LIFE!"
"Everybody likes free. But free can be dangerous, too. Today's show is about what happens when you take something that was free and you give it a price. That is a highly risky move. And the damage can be enormous."
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/08/794592539/episode-386-the-cos...
"If you offer people $5 worth of value and charge them $6, they are going to be mad.
If you offer them $9 worth of value for $9, they are going to think you are amazing."
I remember when my tenth grade English teacher put the fear of God in all of us on the first day of school, then was a totally different, nice, and wonderful person for the rest of the year (apart from an incident with the substitute, a different story for a different comment).
She knew what she was doing!
Whether you do that with a popsicle or with the staff and infrastructure of a $700/night hotel room is kind of a wash.
- Danny Meyer (founder of Shake Shack and Eleven Madison Park) has a wonderful book about customer service [0]
- Derek Sivers CD Baby customer note [1]
- Rory Sutherland talking about San Pellegrino canned soda vs Fanta [2]
I didn’t have the idea formalized, but I intuited the importance of that defining moment.
I’m thrilled to see the idea fleshed out and given a name. This might become my new cornerstone of customer service.
Speaking as someone on a salary. Idk.