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Comment by ulf | Hacker News Reader

Some day people will look back and pinpoint that the day the free snacks were taken away was the day that Google started to be just like every other company...

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This will bite them in the ass.

Wages are rarely a source of satisfaction in a job. Employees consider them simply the fair exchange for their time.

The perks on the job and the company culture count for much more. I suspect that is everyone was given a 5% paycut, but the perks kept, they would be happier than they are now.

(I refer in general to all employees - not just the engineers)

Agree. "Just be happy that you're getting paid" is not an acceptable culture - petty things like snacks and freebies count.

As long as the perks are done well :)

eg "Wear a Hawaiian shirt to work day" != perk

I don't know if you were making a direct reference to Salesforce.com's "Employees have fun in the office, participating in foundation/volunteer activities with their peers and wearing Hawaiian shirts on Aloha Fridays." (http://www.salesforce.com/company/careers/culture/)

I consider the whole Hawaiian shirt thing to be a "gateway" perk. If the company promotes wearing fun attire, then you can be sure to expect other more exciting perks. I don't know of any Silicon Valley software companies that advertise Hawaiian shirts as their one and only perk...

I also think Salesforce.com's volunteering perk is very enjoyable and worthwhile. You essentially get paid to do a workday of community service each month. Didn't sound very exciting or interesting at first, but it turned out to be extremely rewarding. I'd love to see more software companies adopting similar programs and following suit.

I think it was an Office Space reference.

It was. I didn't know anywhere actually did it :/

Wear a different shirt day doesn't cost anything and isn't a perk in the sense we are discussing here. It's a conscious attempt at influencing company culture. Nothing wrong with it (unless its a Hawaiian shirt) but it isn't a perk.

Can't find the link. But I'm pretty sure I saw a survey somewhere that showed the opposite finding: people prefer a pay raise to perks.

I imagine people might say they prefer salary over the equivalent in perks, but that doesn't mean they actually do.

Getting paid 50% of market rate, but your boss flies the whole company to Europe for a week? Awesome company!<sarcasm/>

Subtle. People choose higher pay, but are happier with jobs that have more perks.

Many of them are not even costly to implement since they cost mostly time and result in higher productivity. Eg RDOs.

Great coworkers are the ultimate perk. Really, that should be the primary factor in choosing a job.

It is not often a primary factor largely because it is hard to know in advance. Also because of the above. Given a choice between salary and other things, people choose salary.

However, the "choice" is made in other ways. People stay in or leave jobs or even industries for non salary factors. Perks, culture, coworkers, pressure, interest in work etc.

While it may be hard to find cases that people choose a job because of good co workers, it's probably easy to find cases where people leave for the reverse reason.

If you can arrange to know it in advance, these are the times when your chance for a really good job are the best!

your boss flies the whole company to Europe for a week? Awesome company!

Until you return and don't have rent money:)

your boss flies the whole company to Europe for a week?

I actually worked for a company that chartered the Concord for its 25th anniversary. That happened before I worked there. A decade or so after that, we all find out how unsafe that actually was!

What, voted down!? This actually happened, you fool!

http://imgur.com/RqyXB

The problem with perks is that not everyone wants the same thing. I worked for Google, and while the annual ski trip was an amazing perk, I never really enjoyed it. I just don't like group travel very much. I'd probably feel the same way about a Europe trip.

I also found that the longer I worked there, the less the food perks mattered. Right out of college they were unbelievable, but after a few years I wanted to go home and eat dinner with my friends, without feeling like I was wasting the perk benefit.

I knew a company like that - terrible pay, but amazing perks. They really did do stuff like fly the entire company somewhere for a film premiere. Ultimately it's about control. The aim is to make employees utterly dependent on the company in a very basic, primal way, almost literally to the extent of "we clothe, feed and house you" - like a cult. I will always take salary given the choice, it's an honest trade, my time for their money.

My employer doesn't provide many Google-style perks (we get free coffee and other drinks, quarterly lunches, and snacks, sometimes), but they do offer a very flexible working schedule. They could take away the coffee and the snacks, and I wouldn't mind one bit, but the flex time and the facilities for working remotely? I'd seriously consider a change of scenery.

In the end, it was inevitable. It was part of my reason to turn down their full-time offer and accept another company's. Last summer when I was an intern at Google, free cookies at 3pm were discontinued. By the time I got back in June 2009, we didn't even have a Tech Stop in my building anymore. No dance party, etc. Still, to me at least, this is not yet the time when Google became just another company. The stuff you learn there, the technology at your fingertips, and the capable co-workers are still amazing.

But it's headed that way. In the next 5-10 years, I predict the following will happen to Google. Most of it is quite obvious: a. a major PR disaster, such as significant cloud data loss, or poor availability numbers for a day or week, something like that b. stock will not have the same phenomenal growth c. loss of search market share (of which a big deal will be made, but really, soon it will have nowhere to go, but down)

For me the deciding factors in choosing another offer were: a. bigger company size => little chance to "change the world" like Eric Schmidt still likes to say b. much better stock packages from my other options (Facebook's was essentially 4 times Google's at the latest valuation, and I do understand that's because of the higher risk, but for a college grad, that should be a no-brainer). c. bonus perk I believe Google never had: 21 business days of vacation.

(Excuse me as I enjoy my free Google snack and munch in confusion)

Extreme Programming advocates readily available snacks in the workspace as an effective productivity and morale boost!

Belly boost too.

Readily available snacks make people obese.

Depends on the snacks.

Depends on the people.

Depends on how often they eat it.

Just use this 1 weird old tip.

More like the day that Google admits defeat and begins preparing for its own death. Not that I expect that day to come anytime soon.

Alternatively, it'll be the day all Googlers depart their biological bodies once and for all and live as pure thought.

I don't know which is more likely.

I would like to think that the people who really made Google into the company it is now aren't really in need of free snacks.

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