[hobbitstan]

Conveniently dropped the ‘free’ I see. Whenever I interviewed with companies and they mentioned free meals or fridges full of sodas as a perk, that was a red flag. Companies like IBM and Microsoft had on-site cafeterias and coffee shops usually with subsidized pricing and it never came up in in interviews.

[skyyler]

Free lunches are childish to you?

Paying for food as a captive audience is very mature? I guess I'm glad to be childish :)

[crazygringo]

Well you could actually very much look at it as childish.

The "free" food is obviously paid for by the company with money that could otherwise go to salaries.

If everyone got higher salaries and food was charged for, then you could make choices about spending money in the cafeteria or saving money bringing food from home. Adults make choices.

By making the decision for you that you'll take the lower salary but get unlimited food, the choice is being made for you, much like a parent decides for a child.

So yes, there's a very strong argument to be made that "free" lunch takes away adult autonomy and is indeed "childish".

[skyyler]

Why are we assuming it would go to salaries? Do budget surpluses normally result in bonuses for rank-and-file employees?

Aren't you still capable of eating something that isn't free?

This line of reasoning makes any workplace perk into an act of infantilisation:

401(k) matching? You mean you let them remove that much agency from your investment planning?

Healthcare? I would prefer to be a big girl and buy my healthcare plan on the open market.

Free parking? I'll decide for myself where to park since I'm an adult.

Nice toilet paper in the bathroom? Do you think I can't provide toiletries for myself? That money could have been salaries.

[crazygringo]

> Why are we assuming it would go to salaries?

Because companies generally budget for total compensation and then divide between salary and perks, and because employees generally compare offers using total compensation rather than just salary.

> This line of reasoning makes any workplace perk into an act of infantilisation

Of course it can, but it exists on a spectrum. Things like 401(k) matching and healthcare and toilet paper aren't infantilizing because they're cheaper or have tax benefits when provided through the company, and most people use them. So they're simply a win-win. On the other hand, if a company provides a lower salary but free housing, that can be extremely infantilizing since a big part of adult autonomy is balancing a lot of factors in choosing where to live.

Things like free meals, rec rooms, laundry, and haircuts are generally more on the infantilizing side of things, since a lot of employees would just prefer cash instead. Lunches provided at-cost can make a lot of sense though when restaurants are far away though -- it's not infantilizing because you still pay for lunch, but it's win-win because the company isn't making a profit off of you like restaurants do.

[skyyler]

>it's not infantilizing because you still pay for lunch

I don't buy it, they've still made the decision of where you're getting your food for you. The only way to escape infantilisation is to never be an employee. Why would you let mommy and daddy tell you what projects you're allowed to work on?

[crazygringo]

No they haven't, because you have the choice to save money and bring lunch from home. That's the whole point.

And no, there's nothing inherently infantile about being employed, because you're freely entering into a work contract. But what is adult and mature is exchanging your professional work for money. What isn't adult and mature is your company starting to provide things that aren't related to work or the workplace at all.

[hakfoo]

The firm I work for did catered lunches daily before Covid, and seems to be rebooting the process as people returned to office. (I'm remote, so I only experienced it during occasional returns to the mothership)

I suspect part of the percieved value is that by making lunch a communal event, rather than everyone grabbing 30 minutes sometime between 10:45 and 14:30, means it's also a time for face time outside of group lines. If you need to talk to someone on another team, you usually have a chance to make contact at lunch.

[jfim]

It's a way to avoid taxes. The company writes it off as a business expense, while it is considered a qualified fringe benefit (non taxable) for the employee.

Furthermore, many of the tech campuses in the south bay don't have enough restaurants nearby to support all of their employees going out to eat lunch.

There's also something to be said for just grabbing lunch at the cafeteria with your colleagues as opposed to figuring out where to go eat, driving there, waiting for the order, eating, then driving back.

[unity1001]

> The "free" food is obviously paid for by the company with money that could otherwise go to salaries.

If that food money is transferred to salaries, the 'free market' will do everything in its power to suck all of that money by giving the minimum in return in order to maximize profit. Because that's what it does. It will cost both the organization and the employees more.

[buildsjets]

TANSTAAFL. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. It’s been in the hacker jargon file since the ‘70s, maaaaan.

[DimitriPetrova]

Probably because the food isn't good and they're paying for it?

[genmud]

Having worked at a place with subsidized cafeteria onsite, oh boy was the food shitty. The old school businesses I worked at had this really strange view of cafeterias, like they expected their employees to hear the whistle blow and everyone take their tin lunchbox to the lunch room.

[elzbardico]

I have heartburn and can feel the smell of stale cooking oil in the friers from the cafeteria in an IBM campus I worked ages ago just by thinking about it. Jesus Christ, the food was so awful i used to call it Websphere.