> The point was that this engineer took the removal of any perk as a sign to leave, and soda/snacks was a huge one.
True.
In the Yahoo! Burbank office, we originally had a candy bowl in front office. Simple things, like Jolly Ranchers & pieces of gum, that employees would occasionally grab on the way in or out.
After a time, it disappeared.
I happened to be walking down the flight of stairs with a VP one evening and we passed where the bowl so used it be. It jogged my memory, so I asked what happened? I'd heard it cost $50k/year, facilities didn't want to pay for it, and each executive with a cost center refused. I don't remember his exact words -- it was something that changed the subject but saying it was "complicated" and gave the distinct impression it was true.
I remember thinking "Who really cares about the candy, but if our executives can't figure out something so trivial, what the fuck is going on?"
This was around 2007 and I left a short bit later. It's historical revisionism to say that was the reason I left, as I had gotten a great offer elsewhere. But it still stuck with me as a sign of executive disfunction & an increasing sense that the rank & file weren't really appreciated by senior leadership.
A thousand dollars per week for candy? Thats 200 dollars per day. Assuming it costs 10 dollars per kg, thats 20 kg per day. You must have had quite a lot of traffic at the bowl. If everybody took 40 grams, thats 500 people per day.
Or then your financial people are using wrong candy suppliers or, worse, dodgy math...
True.
In the Yahoo! Burbank office, we originally had a candy bowl in front office. Simple things, like Jolly Ranchers & pieces of gum, that employees would occasionally grab on the way in or out.
After a time, it disappeared.
I happened to be walking down the flight of stairs with a VP one evening and we passed where the bowl so used it be. It jogged my memory, so I asked what happened? I'd heard it cost $50k/year, facilities didn't want to pay for it, and each executive with a cost center refused. I don't remember his exact words -- it was something that changed the subject but saying it was "complicated" and gave the distinct impression it was true.
I remember thinking "Who really cares about the candy, but if our executives can't figure out something so trivial, what the fuck is going on?"
This was around 2007 and I left a short bit later. It's historical revisionism to say that was the reason I left, as I had gotten a great offer elsewhere. But it still stuck with me as a sign of executive disfunction & an increasing sense that the rank & file weren't really appreciated by senior leadership.