A majority of our technical team (around ⅔) are remote, so the HQ in NYC is not the center of gravity that one might assume. Also the NYC office has chefs, so. ;)
Do you explain the dollar value of the food prepared by the chefs to new hires, and offer to make up their compensation by that dollar value if the chef services are ever terminated in the future?
I've worked at and interviewed with companies that had fringe benefits like this before and always found it off-putting. I'm a grown human mammal -- getting food for myself is my job, not your job as my employer. If you want to be nice enough to do that because you think it makes me happy, or it is kind, or it boosts productivity, or it subtly manipulates me into staying at the office later or something, that's all fine -- but then it should have no bearing on what compensation I'm paid, and should not function as either an incentive nor a disincentive to work for you.
But it tends to always be presented like this. It's asymmetric. The employee is asked to essentially forsake income they would have otherwise gotten for a short-term benefit that has no guarantee of continuing in the future nor converting into cash if it's discontinued. It just strikes me as paternalistic (good ol' papa company is taking care of you, heh heh heh) and a little inconsiderate -- masked with some veneer that actually it's supposed to be considerate.
Totally as an aside to my points above, as a vegan whose primary hobby is cooking, I never much enjoy chef-prepared company food anyway, even when vegan options are available. I strongly prefer to cook everything I eat for myself, and so I would simply be paid less than other employees who are paid their salary and are paid via the food benefit that does work with their dietary choices.
Of course, because of the low-status nature of being vegan and the one-sidedness of job interviews (e.g. you can't raise an ethical question like this with HR thinking uh oh this guy's some kind of ethical hard ass who won't be pliable, abort, abort), I unfortunately have to stay quiet about my true feelings about this kind of thing, even though it matters to me a lot.
Tangentially: Google also hasn't upped their compensation to compensate for the quality and variety of their meals and snacks going off a cliff over the last few years. Their vegan options in particular have become abysmal. They pressure employees to work on the periphery of Mountain View where there are no other options within a reasonable distance, so if you're vegan you really need to prepare your own food at this point. The value of this benefit is approaching zero.
>I unfortunately have to stay quiet about my true feelings about this kind of thing, even though it matters to me a lot.
"That's not a perk that I value because I prefer to make my own food."
You don't have to go into detail, explain that you think it's an ethical problem, tell them you are a vegan, or anything else. Just tell them you don't value it and won't use it.
Even just what you suggest is going to raise a red flag for anyone in HR, without a doubt. A "team player" would eat the company-provided food (... or would just shut up about it ... <-- this really is how HR and managers tend to think).
They might be fine if you merely said you'll probably bring your own food due to a special diet. But any inkling that you don't personally love the fact that they provide food means you're not on board with their culture.
And, if you go any further at all and suggest that maybe they should not factor in the monetary value of the food benefit when they consider your base salary offer or something, they will have a huge problem with it.
This is sadly not hyperbole, although I'm sure it's not this bad at every company. But I can say from firsthand experience of being treated quite poorly for being a vegan (and having to sit through many lunch meetings at which I was told there would be a vegan option and then there wasn't, stomach gurgling ten PowerPoint slides in), that you can never tell, and a non-trivial number of companies will simply not like you if you ever express a preference.
I think you're assuming far too much. No one cares if you don't want to eat company-provided food. Not HR, not managers. On the off chance that you're interviewing somewhere that actually thinks poorly of you for not wanting the company food, you're probably better off not working for such a terribly dysfunctional place.
But really, I think you're far too concerned about what other people think of your eating habits. Pretty much no one cares what you (or anyone else) eats. They might find your food choices weird. Depending on your relationship, they might even tease you about it occasionally. But by and large people really do not care about other peoples' food choices.
This hasn't been my experience, but I also don't think you're seeing everything I'm trying to say.
For example, how should you handle it if the company tells you there will be vegan options at a lunch meeting and then there aren't any? You plan your lunch around that happening and it doesn't happen.
The first four or five times it happened, I was very congenial, just told one of the assistants what had happened, and suggested some menu items from the common lunch catering place that would work for me. Still nothing. One time after that they even ordered pizza for lunch ... what's a vegan to do?
Finally in my year-end review I brought it up as a really small, totally quick and "no big deal" aside that I'd really appreciate it if they ensured there were vegan choices at any company meal events, like lunches or gatherings.
My boss literally rolled his eyes at me and let out a big sigh and started writing it down on his evaluation form, like it was some big to-do that I wouldn't drop it. And after that they basically started only having low-quality salad options for vegans.
A few months later when there was a company gathering with light dinner and snack items, I actually brought my own food and when I went over to get some of the alcohol that was available and sat down with some people and started opening up the food I brought from home, they started making fun of me over it. One or two comments and I was like, OK, whatever, and shrugged it off, but they kept going and it was really upsetting. But after the big eye roll ordeal at my performance review, I didn't feel comfortable telling anyone that it upset me.
That company was a great company. Good pay, lots of vacation, good tech stack. I left there after a few years thinking I'd made a good switch and then in the first week at my new job the director of marketing wanted to take me out to a pulled pork restaurant for lunch. Here we go again. I explained that I was vegan and he seemed personally offended. Basically he decided, in front of me, that no places he would ever consider eating at would ever serve vegan choices, because vegan choices, to him, were inherently low-quality. Literally, having-meat-in-it was a mark of quality for him. So then he had to figure out where I could eat (this was a city I'd never been to before) and he drove me there to get something, then drove 20 minutes back the other way to go to the pulled pork place he wanted to go to. It was beyond insane. By the time we sat down to eat, we had very little time, and my food had gotten cold. Of course I said nothing but constant thank-yous and apologies for being such an inconvenient vegan.
I think if you're not vegan (or have some similar dietary choice that's difficult to satisfy and rarely shown respect by peers) it's just very hard to relate to how problematic this is, and how often you are put in a situation in which you're made to feel bad about it. It's not the worst kind of discrimination or anything, but it really does make you feel bad and feel like the workplace is hostile and inconsiderate towards you.
On top of all of this, the overall topic I was mentioning earlier was basically something that happens in salary negotiations and you do have to bring it up. If a company tells you to consider the financial value of their catered meal benefits, well, you've got to tell them that that doesn't work for you and give them specifics about why the catered meal service doesn't function as a benefit for you.
Since they have usually already planned how to pitch a salary offer, how to tie in the value of their fringe benefits, etc., they usually are not happy to be met with what they see as a contrarian and annoying difference. They don't want to raise someone's salary just because that person chooses not to eat the company provided food -- but I don't want to work for, say $5000 less per year than what I ought to be paid if I happen to be unable to benefit from the food offering.
There's no way around that discussion. The HR and manager types absolutely do form opinions about you when you bring this up. It absolutely does get talked about. It's not that they are personally so interested in someone's food choice. I'm sure they find the entire topic of food choices thoroughly boring. It's about the way they perceive any kind of non-conformity as a red flag that you won't sublimate away your personal needs to make their lives easier ... that you might actually require them to provide accommodations for your needs, which is a red flag to them.
> For example, how should you handle it if the company tells you there will be vegan options at a lunch meeting and then there aren't any? You plan your lunch around that happening and it doesn't happen.
Bring your own lunch. Also this whole thing is irrelevant to the original topic of how to tell a recruiter that their free lunches are not relevant to how you perceive their compensation. If telling HR that you don't want their free meals gets your offer dropped, then good, now you know you don't want to work there.
> My boss literally rolled his eyes at me and let out a big sigh and started writing it down on his evaluation form, like it was some big to-do that I wouldn't drop it. And after that they basically started only having low-quality salad options for vegans.
So your boss sucks I guess. Look for a new job. It sounds like you work in a shitty place.
> they started making fun of me over it. One or two comments and I was like, OK, whatever, and shrugged it off, but they kept going and it was really upsetting. But after the big eye roll ordeal at my performance review, I didn't feel comfortable telling anyone that it upset me.
I don't know if you're over-sensitive or if you work with assholes. I've teased co-workers about their eating habits before. Always mildly and always in jest. I've been teased about stuff as well. e.g. A loud floral shirt I wear sometimes. I fully expect to be teased later today because I dumped coffee in my lap this morning and don't have a change of clothes here. I don't consider this kind of teasing to be inappropriate or mean-spirited, but certainly teasing could become inappropriate or be mean-spirited.
> I explained that I was vegan and he seemed personally offended.
Where do you live that adult human beings care so much about your eating habits?
> Basically he decided, in front of me, that no places he would ever consider eating at would ever serve vegan choices, because vegan choices, to him, were inherently low-quality.
Eh, I am generally dismissive of vegan restaurants because my experiences with vegan foods has mostly been negative. I have no problem eating somewhere that has vegan options, though, because why would I?
> I think if you're not vegan (or have some similar dietary choice that's difficult to satisfy and rarely shown respect by peers) it's just very hard to relate to how problematic this is, and how often you are put in a situation in which you're made to feel bad about it. It's not the worst kind of discrimination or anything, but it really does make you feel bad and feel like the workplace is hostile and inconsiderate towards you.
Realistically, the workplace is probably inconsiderate toward you, because in general most people don't care about others' eating habits so they neglect to think about your special food needs. If you had Celiac disease and legitimately needed to be gluten free, the same thing would probably happen. People would forget to order gluten-free pizza or whatever. That's not hostile though, just inconsiderate and forgetful. Now, if the boss is rolling his eyes at you, that's perhaps hostile.
The best fix for you is probably to work somewhere that has more vegans. I work with a decent number of people who are vegan or vegetarian (largely for religious reasons), so managers generally think about their needs because it's not just one person.
> On top of all of this, the overall topic I was mentioning earlier was basically something that happens in salary negotiations and you do have to bring it up. If a company tells you to consider the financial value of their catered meal benefits, well, you've got to tell them that that doesn't work for you and give them specifics about why the catered meal service doesn't function as a benefit for you.
Again, no you don't have to tell them any of this. Tell them that you make your own food. If they ask why, you could go into great detail about your vegan dietary needs, or you could just tell them it's what you prefer to do and leave it at that. You are not obligated to go into any detail and if they ask again, you can say the same thing again. They'll catch on rapidly that you aren't interested in discussing it.
> They don't want to raise someone's salary just because that person chooses not to eat the company provided food -- but I don't want to work for, say $5000 less per year than what I ought to be paid if I happen to be unable to benefit from the food offering.
Well, they aren't obligated to raise your pay, either. You can tell them that you don't care about that perk and that it is not a factor for you. That doesn't mean they have any obligation to make a higher offer. Your choice to not eat the food probably doesn't save them much if anything measurable. If you want $5k more, ask for it. And sure, tell them you don't care about the lunch, because it may help frame your total comp lower in their minds, but declining the free lunches, or declining to use a paid gym membership, or whatever else, does not obligate them to raise the offer.
Also, I cannot imagine that anyone would consider free lunch to be worth $5k/year. That's $14.50/day. Catered/cafeteria food absolutely does not cost that much per person.
> There's no way around that discussion.
Yes there is. Just don't talk to them about it. Tell them you don't care about free lunch. Or don't tell them about your thoughts on free lunch. Either way, don't get into some weird conversation about your personal eating choices. You don't have to do that.
> The HR and manager types
Whenever I see someone say something like this it makes me want to be dismissive of everything else they say. "Management and HR types" are just people. They don't have some dehumanizing agenda.
> It's about the way they perceive any kind of non-conformity as a red flag that you won't sublimate away your personal needs to make their lives easier ... that you might actually require them to provide accommodations for your needs, which is a red flag to them.
Then you are apparently interviewing exclusively at terrible places. Are you a software engineer? If so you can and should look elsewhere.
You should probably add that the company cannot let you opt-out of getting free food in exchange for more salary. Free food, in order for it to be tax exempt as a fringe benefit, must be offered to all employees. I agree, I'd rather be paid more money. All these goodies serve to make comparisons between employers more difficult.
I've worked at and interviewed with companies that had fringe benefits like this before and always found it off-putting. I'm a grown human mammal -- getting food for myself is my job, not your job as my employer. If you want to be nice enough to do that because you think it makes me happy, or it is kind, or it boosts productivity, or it subtly manipulates me into staying at the office later or something, that's all fine -- but then it should have no bearing on what compensation I'm paid, and should not function as either an incentive nor a disincentive to work for you.
But it tends to always be presented like this. It's asymmetric. The employee is asked to essentially forsake income they would have otherwise gotten for a short-term benefit that has no guarantee of continuing in the future nor converting into cash if it's discontinued. It just strikes me as paternalistic (good ol' papa company is taking care of you, heh heh heh) and a little inconsiderate -- masked with some veneer that actually it's supposed to be considerate.
Totally as an aside to my points above, as a vegan whose primary hobby is cooking, I never much enjoy chef-prepared company food anyway, even when vegan options are available. I strongly prefer to cook everything I eat for myself, and so I would simply be paid less than other employees who are paid their salary and are paid via the food benefit that does work with their dietary choices.
Of course, because of the low-status nature of being vegan and the one-sidedness of job interviews (e.g. you can't raise an ethical question like this with HR thinking uh oh this guy's some kind of ethical hard ass who won't be pliable, abort, abort), I unfortunately have to stay quiet about my true feelings about this kind of thing, even though it matters to me a lot.