From tiny companies of five people, to huge companies of five hundred thousand, I have never worked in an office where you couldn’t get a brew.
But then, I am British. Take the tea away and it’s riots (or at the least some quiet complaining)
Where I work used to have free coffee and tea until a newspaper made a story about how we were lazy and spent all our time drinking coffee and wasting money so my organization fully removed complimentary beverages ever since. The floor warden walks around with a bucket collecting change and donations to get new hand soap in the kitchen. It’s so annoying.
Worked for an American Fortune 100 company that had a community funded coffee station when I started. Got a tiny styrofoam cup of Folgers coffee for $0.25. Eventually they had stations that provided free coffee, but that was years later.
"Some of these include free fruit and beverages, fitness coaches in the gym, a sabbatical after four years with the company, and the grounding of the Intel Air Shuttle that flies between California, Arizona, and Oregon."
I think, if anything, one of those things was main driver of the cost here… You make this fucking list with a straight face? But you go get rid of the tea bags to discipline labor, you fucking cowards.
Have company that completely depends on people using their brains to solve problems.
Give these people free stimulants for years so you can extract extra value out of their brains.
Stop giving them stimulants.
Brain workers are now cranky and stimulant deprived. Surely this will make them more effective…
Give brain workers stimulants again, because fucking obviously.
Fucking real? Every tech job I’ve ever had has had free everything! Everything! Snacks, nuts, power bars, trail mix, yogurts, eggs, cereal, cappuccinos, beer, wine, you name it. Intel thinks they’re going to be competitive with some free coffee and tea, which is free at even the lowest level office jobs? Get real!
Coffee will continue until morale improves.
Employers figured out years ago that caffeine has excellent ROI for productivity. (Amphetamines are probably a close second, but we won’t talk about that right now.)
For Intel to cut basic morale boosters was just pure silliness.
Counterpoint: 100 million for coffee in a year sounds astronomical, even for the 120k employees intel has. Like, what are they paying for, doordash starbucks?
The headline is bullshit. The 100 million is for all food/drink services, not just coffee.
That’s $3.33 per employee per work day, assuming 50 5-day weeks per year. Seems a bit high to me, but not exorbitant. If the figure included things that they’re not reinstating (like free fruit) then that would make sense.
