People are totally irrational about free soda/snacks. If you gave them a $50/month raise (to cover the cost of soda and snacks), they'd be offended. If you put out soda and snacks, well you're just the most awesome employer ever!
-I don't have to deal with a vending machine that will fail to give me what I want 2% of the time.
-If something that I want is not there, I can ask the boss to get it next time rather than hoping for a machine to be restocked (probably by a vendor that may or may not carry what I want).
-The price of soda/snacks never changes.
-If I ask my neighbor to grab a soda for me, there's no need for her or me to keep a mental account of gifts.
exactly. It's all about producing a frictionless environment for your workers so they can actually be massively productive. Especially when a machine break down, takes your dollar, and makes you go to your car to look for some change. Then when you get back with quarters instead of bills, and the machine STILL doesn't work, that is just more friction and a waste of your brain thinking about these issues. At home, you have to remind yourself to bring a drink in case the machine isn't working, and bring enough change to get as many drinks as you need.
The best coders, in my experience, are very sensitive. They understand what great quality is. One little thing is off, and it will bug them. That's what makes them great.
I've never worked somewhere with "free non-lunchtime calories" (i.e. not tea and coffee). Wouldn't this encourage unhealthy consumption?
Rather like the "fixed monthly cost eat as much as you want 24/7" cafeterias in many US universities. I know, it's your own responsibility etc etc, but surely an abundance of free stuff will encourage over-consumption. Especially if you factor the psychological "if I don't eat it I'm getting stiffed" factor.
"'We warn Nooglers, which are new employees, that they should expect to gain weight during their first six months,' Welle said today during the inaugural Wired.com Health Conference here."
Since starting at Google I've managed to lose a good amount of weight due to increased availability of healthy(ish) snacks (free bananas and mandarins in the MK!) and the buffet style lunches.
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How do the buffet style lunches help? Glad you asked.
When I have a plate of food in front of me, I eat everything that's on the plate. I may set out to do otherwise, and I'll even manage to avoid it in my first pass, but in the ensuing conversation over lunch I'll gradually nibble at the remains until everything is gone. However, if I simply take less food, there's nothing to nibble.
Now, I was also making an active effort to lose weight before this, and it requires a conscious choice to eat the healthier options made available to us (as there are plenty of unhealthy options). Compared to my previous gig, though, I've found it much easier to make good choices, diet wise, at Google.
Probably, or at least it is an enabler of unhealthy consumption. But I think that's also somewhat beside the point, which is that free stuff has a positive psychological effect even on those who aren't making use of it.
People are totally irrational about sex and love, too, but you can still screw up royally and hurt relations that way. Rationality don't enter into it.
Really, I think part of the affront here is that the absence of such a minor thing--perhaps especially because it's so cheap--is a really bad sign about how much the company values its people.
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An anecdote:
About the best thing that my previous employer did was offer free coffee, if you could be bothered to make a pot from the existing supplies.
So, a coworker and I took to taking coffee breaks to buy some from a local coffee shop. Usually done after lunch, but still, it got us out of the office for maybe a half-hour or so. We really enjoyed this, because it gave us a chance to talk about other things and get some fresh air.
Said coworker also took to making runs to a convenience store to buy sodas--offering, of course, to do the same for other folks.
All told, these little expeditions probably amounted to a few hours every week in not-working time. Had the business been particularly ruthless, they would've noted that perhaps $10-12 every week in drinks could have kept some of their $50K/yr engineers from being useless for a few hours in search of nourishment. I'm not claiming that this was right, and we're more experienced now, but the fact remains.
A similar story was us getting kicked out of a conference room during a major refactor--we needed to pair program and use a lot of whiteboard space, and after a day or two (this was a really, really hairy unfucking of some core code that had no test suite), and got thrown out mid-project.
That code and project went down in true viking fashion a week or two later, and I left shortly thereafter.
>All told, these little expeditions probably amounted to a few hours every week in not-working time. Had the business been particularly ruthless, they would've noted that perhaps $10-12 every week in drinks could have kept some of their $50K/yr engineers from being useless for a few hours in search of nourishment. I'm not claiming that this was right, and we're more experienced now, but the fact remains.
Are you sure you were less productive overall? When I'm stuck on a tricky problem getting out of the office can do wonders.
It has a lot more to do with how you are treated. I don't drink soda, so free soda does nothing for me. But the fact that company I work for has those things and asks the employees what they want in the fridge is a very different experience than at a company without that concern. It starts with the snacks, but it goes all the way up to sitting down and asking what I actually want to get out of the job.
It's the difference between a company acting like you should feel lucky to have a job there, and a company acting like they are trying to keep you in your job there.
Is your goal wealth maximization? If so, you might understand that you're now getting an extra $50/mo for food purposes, but now you feel like you should hold it and not spend it.
Is your goal to suck down some minor pleasure to keep your brain mollified as you ponder some unsolved task? Well maybe the distraction posed by thinking of soda; thinking of buying a soda; thinking of buying a soda and wondering if you have the right change for it; thinking of buying a soda and wondering if you should really save that money to spend on a larger purchase later; etc... Anyway, maybe that distraction is greater than the distraction posed by grabbing a free soda.
People's different reaction to free vs non-free things, especially in the context of engineering work, does not strike me as irrational in general—only if you think that people maximize for present dollars does it seem particularly irrational.
So why not give them soda and snacks? It's cheap and easy retention, if that's what they want. The author is right, getting rid of $10k in expenses isn't worth it if it costs your the core of your team.
There's more going on though. If soda/snacks are free (and always in stock), there is less mental effort involved for the employees. They feel reassured that the snacks are always there when they want them. They don't have to make decisions about whether or not to buy them... actually this is a whole 'nother discussion about micro-transactions, which haven't worked well for the Web.
If you give your employees a raise, that disappears into the general fund, and is no longer a separate benefit.
You're forgetting about transaction costs. The transaction cost of spending money (and therefore time) to buy a can of soda is much more than cost of that can.
Theres often a time at 6:15 - 6:30pm where if I can have a light snack I return to my desk to work peacefully in a half empty office. In the absence of any options to satiate my hunger I just leave for home. Wonder if there are more people out there who do something similar.
I'm the same. Hunger is often my limiting factor. I'll be in the middle of working on something in the late afternoon or early evening and want to finish it, but I get too hungry. Then I have to leave the office and decide where to get food. By the time I'm done I'm not focused on the problem anymore. I do keep my own food at the office, but it's hard to always be properly stocked (I eat a lot).
edit: soda wouldn't do anything for me, though. Substantial snacks or "real" food would be much better.
Yup. Me too. I recently changed jobs from one that didn't even provide tea and coffee, to one which provides meals all day, soda, snacks etc.
I find that I am far more inclined to actually stay a little later and get stuff done when I'm not ridiculously hungry. Additionally, I can stay later after dinner and still have the same amount of free time when I get back home, which is nice for me, and for the company.
Because it's an indication of intent, a change in the winds.
It's feels like your employer saying 'numbers are now more important than getting things done'. It's basically signalling the beginning of bureaucracy.
And that's exactly what happened in Derek's example. So they were not irrational at all, it's a very powerful social cue that the company didn't even know it was giving.
It's a little more nuanced - things like this change the focus of the relationship from a 'we're in this together' approach to a more transactional one.
It isn't really about the snacks as such. We don't have free snacks here but we never ave so I don't care but I can see why such a change is very noticeable.
If the company used to given free snack but is now so short on cash that they can't, then perhaps people's positions aren't as safe as they thought they were previously. Whether or not there is a real problem, that is likely to be the perception.
Also we have an informal arrangement here: if I'm working late and get hungry I'll have food delivered and expense it. If I couldn't do that I'd have to go home instead, so if people are using the free snacks to stave off hunger at busy times this could be a detriment to the company.
Yes they are, but that works in your favor as an employer or boss. A box of leftover marketing swag goes a long way when you're not allowed to offer raises or bonuses. When we briefly stopped free sodas in our office, I said I'd just pay for them myself our of my own pocket but my boss reamed me out. That's the same boss that invited our whole department and more out to lunch then asked for 20 separate checks. I still kick myself for not just picking up everyone's check that day, but I think she would have fired me on the spot. She was gone within a year.
I agree that there's a lot of irrationality about it. You point out an example of that.
However, you're talking about going from no free snacks to free snacks. The other direction--free snacks to non-free snacks--is a bizarre change that sends a negative message to employees. In fact, as you say, it's equivalent to a small loss in pay, as now you have to cover those snacks yourself. Not a big deal... but why is the company effectively docking the pay of every employee?
At work, I think decision overload is a factor. It's not irrationality; they don't want more stuff to think about, especially because food is a break. People like free food because it doesn't require thinking. You just walk over and get a soda and chips. You don't think about it. You don't have to make another damn decision (even though, with 200+ empty calories on the line, one probably should) in your workday.
Of course, then they gain 20 pounds over 3 years and resent their employers (and commutes) for all those extra hours and such... or, if the employer switches over to healthy food, they get angry about the paternalistic aspect... this is hard one to win.
