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by dullcrisp 33 days ago
The point is it’s not about the monetary value of the perks but about the attitude. If you used to get donuts in the break room on Fridays or get a card on your birthday or whatever, and then management decided you don’t need donuts you’d feel about the same way.
2 comments
joe_mamba 33 days ago
>If you used to get donuts in the break room on Fridays and then management decided you don’t need donuts you’d feel about the same way.

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.

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dullcrisp 33 days ago
Okay pretend I said baby carrots if you prefer.

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.

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jakeydus 33 days ago
Let’s say a tin of the queen’s biscuits and hazelnut treacle candies and turkish delight and jupiter jumpers runs 10 quid/day. 250 workdays a year means that one perk cost $2500. I guarantee it had an outsized impact on morale. Company of 100 employees means that cutting that perk earned everyone an extra $25/year. Yay!
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joe_mamba 32 days ago
> Company of 100 employees means that cutting that perk earned everyone an extra $25/year.

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.

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CalRobert 33 days ago
Honestly as a compulsive eater I hate free food, especially junk food. Similarly I imagine free beer is tough for alcoholics.
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