[shmatt]

This is pretty terrible, if I cared that much about my employers bank account, why don't we do

* WARNING: 26 weeks parental leave will cost us $xxx,xxx

* WARNING: Buying team lunch this week will cost $x,xxx

* WARNING: Offering laid off workers 20 weeks severance will cost $xx,xxx,xxx

* WARNING: Offering your direct reports raises will cost the company money!

And while we're at it. Should we do performance reviews where a team sees how much income they personally generated vs how much the team costs the company? That would be super fun, that will probably stop most people from asking for a raise

Just ask people to limit meetings to the minimum, no need to flash numbers into a guilt trip for a bank account I do not own. If you asked me my employer should give me $100 for lunch every day, 4 day workweeks at 8 hours a day, 52 weeks parental leave, and other costly things I really don't mind them paying for. The cost of a meeting is the last thing I care about

If I see 2 employees talking about yesterdays football game in the kitchenette, should I report them wasting $1,500 of the companies time to HR?

Oh, and finally, im sure these calculations are based on 40 hour work weeks. Is this a good reason for an employee to tell their boss at Shopify they will not be online or answering any slack/email after 5pm every day?

[neom]

Thing is, a lot of staff just don't have a sense of how much things actually cost, this is a pretty easy way to get them in the habit of thinking that way. Doesn't have to be forever, just long enough to change the culture.

As you said "The cost of a meeting is the last thing I care about"

That's a pretty awful attitude to take in a business. I also think it's a pretty privileged position to take. If you NEED your job, and getting a new job would be difficult for you, you sure as heck should care about the financial health and stability of the business. If you don't care about the business you work at, alright, that's on you... never the less many co-workers likely do care about the health of the business.

[shmatt]

Should I ask my boss to shut down the free coffee bar and fire the barista?

This sushi we're having for lunch must also cost a fortune

Jokes aside, this screams of an org that isn't able to judge its employees by what they deliver, so they have to go chase processes

Either Shopify employees are delivering what they're expected to or they're not. It feels like executives aren't able to figure out if they are

[neom]

Well you're certainly asking the wrong guy that, as I think hiring a barista and serving sushi at any business is unnecessarily, but I can be a little ruthless about that stuff. ;)

Anyway, Shopify stock has taken a SHARP hair cut over the past 2/3 years 160 bucks to 60 bucks is no fun. Sounds to me like their signaling to the market they're getting things under control (as basically every public market business is right now).

Their stock popped pretty hard today. If a meeting cost calculator saves me laying people off, bring on the meeting cost calculators!!

[cnity]

Ah, rules for thee but not for me. Does the CEO receive digital warnings every time they extract bonuses from the company account?

[naasking]

You don't have to warn about things that happen rarely, not for things whose costs are already closely tracked. The point of warning about meetings is that they happen too often and go on too long.

[cnity]

My point is on the uncultured lowly employees who don't understand the costs of running a business: indeed, if they only knew who the most expensive employee was (by a long margin).

[neom]

You're sure reading a lot into my comment.

I actually tried to get this implemented at a startup I worked at a long time ago. We were building a new office and I tried to get the cost of meetings in progress implemented on the digital door signs because half the directors and VPs spent all their time in meetings. It got shot down by the COO because I'm sure he would have been embarrassed at the price of our exec groups meetings, but I didn't care.. we spent way to f'ing long in meetings and not enough time building things. Many did, from the kids fresh out of art school to the MBAs running go to market.

As I said, a lot of staff just don't have a sense of how much things actually cost... but I did, I was partly responsible for making sure hundreds and hundreds of people still had a job a year down the line and, myself and the rest of the over paid exec team included.