True story on ESF's bus example - I follow the Google bus to and from work. They pick up at a transit station by my house and have another pickup in the parking lot at my company. I literally follow them along the super-congested* freeway twice a day. I've contemplated slipping the driver a $20.
*This freeway is super-congested in part because a city of 30K people, which profits off the property taxes afforded by being smack-dab in the middle of all this tech $$$, refuses to allow more than one freeway on/off ramp in the 6 miles that run through it.
There are different tiers. Not every company is like this, there's a big difference between the small start-ups and the giants, and at the end of the day not that many people work for the small start-ups in total.
My company is perk-lite. We have a for-real libertarian CEO who prefers the old-fashioned "get your job and then go live your life" style. I freaking love that. I much prefer the days I get to have dinner with my family at 6:15 to the catered junk food at my desk.
I just hired someone; we're not engineers or anything exciting/highly coveted, but for GBCN it would be a higher-than-average salary. During my search, HR culture was a big deal. I needed someone who was eager about the work, not the workplace, because they'd be disappointed if they came for the latter. I guess we're from the Don Draper school of bossery - That's What the Money is For. If you want yoga classes and dry cleaning there are a hundred other companies in the valley. If you want to work and grow and keep meeting new challenges and then go home and have your whole weekend to yourself, this is the place. I've heard Netflix is a similar culture.
All this said, our facilities dept is now like 5 people, plus a team of receptionists, for 300 employees. And they do get ridiculous requests, that people actually get upset about. A couple years ago we had "paper cup gate" because the engineers couldn't be asked to go to the next building when they were out of paper cups. Recently there was a dust-up when some of the accounting staff went to get dinner during quarter-end and were told it was only for the engineers.
That's a lot of rambling w/o a lot of sense, but I want to get back to work because I need my weekend.
I'm busy being outraged on behalf of the guy who didn't get the zip lines.
And I totally agree that nap pods are just so mundane.
I think the worst part is the person who didn't get kombucha. Couldn't the office elf ferment some herself?
But what I'm also thinking is - did anyone else here read a book called "The Circle"? I read it recently for book club and this reminds me of it so much.
True story on ESF's bus example - I follow the Google bus to and from work. They pick up at a transit station by my house and have another pickup in the parking lot at my company. I literally follow them along the super-congested* freeway twice a day. I've contemplated slipping the driver a $20.
*This freeway is super-congested in part because a city of 30K people, which profits off the property taxes afforded by being smack-dab in the middle of all this tech $$$, refuses to allow more than one freeway on/off ramp in the 6 miles that run through it.
d.
This is what makes me wild! I realize I've hijacked the thread, but I know you get me.
It's the screw everyone else, we've got ours mentality that is ruins it for everyone.
Is this what happens when colleges start building lazy rivers and resort-like dorms? So these people who grew up getting trophies just for showing up continue to go to Club Med college and then continue to work at Club Med start-up? The rest of us continue to talk shit about our shitty jobs at Chili's on Friday nights, or curl up in our cars to sleep between jobs, while we have no health insurance, and so on? And then the other 90% of Earth scrounges for grain and clean water. That's what we're doing now?
Is this what happens when colleges start building lazy rivers and resort-like dorms? So these people who grew up getting trophies just for showing up continue to go to Club Med college and then continue to work at Club Med start-up? The rest of us continue to talk shit about our shitty jobs at Chili's on Friday nights, or curl up in our cars to sleep between jobs, while we have no health insurance, and so on? And then the other 90% of Earth scrounges for grain and clean water. That's what we're doing now?