I'm writing a post on salary negotiation today, so I zeroed in on two supporting details here that you should remember for later: when pressed on price, savvy negotiators said:
1) Give us some time to think about it.
2) We are going to re-focus the discussion on a different compensation lever where we can present something you're already going to get as if it were a new incentive justifying your concession on a lever you're currently interested in.
You can do both of these as a job seeker.
(For example, if you have extra-curricular interests like many desirable tech employees do, the extra-curricular interests can be used to justify an increase in your compensation vis-a-vis a hypothetical employee who punches out of the Internet at 5 pm. It doesn't particularly matter that you're going to continue blogging and OSS regardless of the outcome of this negotiation, you just frame the discussion such that that becomes newly discovered value which gives the other party something to hang their hat on for getting you that last $10,000.)
Yeah, I did both of those in my salary negotiations with Google. They talked me down from my starting salary, but they also increased my stock options & GSUs.
The other important point is - you are the only one who says "Yes" when asked "Is this acceptable to you?" If the free food is not worth $15-20K (which actually seems ridiculous - I've heard numbers for both what average employees value it at and what it actually costs Google, and they're nowhere close to that), then say "I'm sorry, I don't value my food that highly. I'll take the cash or go elsewhere." This, of course, requires that you have somewhere else to go. But remember that Google wants highly-qualified employees just as much as highly-qualified employees want to work at Google.
Looking forward to it, as I just received an offer that was largely based on my github profile. Hiring manager told me they've never interviewed someone with one. So I suppose I can turn that around and say I deserve more than the typical offer.
Maybe Im just a calculating, cold, emotionless engineer but when it comes to pay packages Ive stopped caring about the fancy 'perks'. I only try to gauge how much Ill get paid, how much Ill enjoy the work and learn, and how many hours Ill be putting in.
Ive seen perks too many times used against employees. (The following rant is nothing towards Google - never worked there.)
- Free food and onsite amenities usually is a sign that they want you there for extra long hours and that you'll probably need to use that stuff.
- Unrestricted vacation days can mean you don't really get any vacation because its always crunch time.
- Fancy employee outings are not so thrilling to me - I like my coworkers but I already spend the majority of my waking hours with them.
I'm not trying to completely debase the value of these things - I'm just saying that in terms of negotiating salary I weight these types of perks at 0 or negative dollars.
The most bitter pill from my previous job was hearing "we don't track vacation" right up until the day I noticed my pay was low from the last pay period and when I asked why, the answer was "you took too much vacation".
Same here - perks are stuff I expect to come on top of the salary I ask for. If they try to make the perks an excuse to offer me less, I'll turn around and ask them to rather drop the perks and pay me more, or I'll go somewhere else.
It actually turns me off a company if they offer unusually large perks, as they do need to claw the money back somewhere, and usually it will be salaries, and the reason companies use perks is because employees on average tends to be really bad at judging their actual monetary value.
This is somewhat of a tangent, but free lunch is a very important perk for me (note: I don't work at Google). For $15 a day, I could order in food every day and effectively have free lunch, wherever I worked. But I also wouldn't - in the back of my mind, I'd know that the $90 could be used to go and see the opera or a Broadway show, so I'd cook, or go and eat at Subway or whatever. So I'm not sure what I value that perk at, but I think just not having to even think about the lunch part of my day is important. I would weigh this as a positive, say a $5000 benefit.
The company that I work at has "no vacation policy". Honestly, that makes me the most hesitant, and to be honest, I don't really like that policy. However, senior management has been very good in two regards: they take vacations, and they encourage people to take vacations. So it does seem to work out. We're small right now, so it works, but I could see it being very easy to get wrong.
On the first one, Google seems at least a little less blatant about it; there are tech companies that offer free dinner, but only starting at a relatively late hour, like 7pm, which is pretty clearly a perk for people who stay late. Although someone I know works at a place with a policy like that, and just works his 8-hour day 10am-7pm (with an hour break for lunch), stopping by for dinner on the way out, so it works for some sleep schedules without actually putting in overtime.
Health insurance is where I care about the fancy perks. If I'm reliant on my company for health insurance, it had better be good health insurance or I'm looking elsewhere.
Maybe I'm just a calculating, cold, emotionless engineer but when it comes to pay packages I've stopped caring about the fancy 'perks'. I only try to gauge how much I'll get paid, how much I'll enjoy the work and learn, and how many hours I'll be putting in.
Well, that's normal and smart. You go to work for the work, not the diversions. I don't think I've ever played an XBox during working hours; if there's any possibility that I'll be more interested in XBox than in doing my job at 11:30 am, there are bigger issues, either with me or with the job.
What happens as you get older is that you learn to see through the bullshit. Things that matter: career development, interesting work, co-workers you'll learn from, fairness, recognition, company vision, and a functioning management environment. Things that don't: perks you can buy on the market for a couple hundred bucks.
Free food and onsite amenities usually is a sign that they want you there for extra long hours and that you'll probably need to use that stuff.
I can look at this one both ways. If the company will do my laundry for me, it saves me 30 minutes a week. I'll gladly spend an additional 30 minutes on work (which I generally enjoy) in exchange for not having to do 30 minutes of chores. That said, even better would be to have the perk in extra cash so I can buy my own housework services (which two adults with demanding careers will have to do anyway).
Unrestricted vacation days can mean you don't really get any vacation because its always crunch time.
There's a non-evil incentive for companies to switch to untracked vacation. It saves them money on vacation cash-in, and it also removes the economic incentive for employees not to take any vacation. A $100,000-per-year job with two weeks of paid vacation is actually equivalent to a $104,000 job without paid vacation and with penalties for taking more than 10 days off. The "two weeks' paid vacation" is actually a Hawaiian Shirt Day, a negative space establishing that "career" people won't take more time off than that (since unpaid leave is frowned upon).
Truly untracked vacation (meaning that if you take 6 weeks' worth of vacation but do 15% better work in the other 46, you're in good standing) is worth a 5-10% pay cut for me.
The best way to learn the value of money (immense when you don't have enough, but very low once you have enough of it) is to work on Wall Street for a few years and learn first-hand that millionaires (and "millionaire" means $1m/year, not $1m net worth) aren't any happier than the rest of us. I actually think it can be invaluable for some people to work in the vicinity of seriously rich people just to learn that lesson.
Fancy employee outings are not so thrilling to me - I like my coworkers but I already spend the majority of my waking hours with them.
I'm with you. I'm 28, married, and will probably be having kids in 4-6 years. Office Christmas parties don't appeal to me. I'd rather spend the time with my friends or family.
It's great to hang out with your co-workers after work. I've learned an incredible amount from after-work drinks and (now that I can't tolerate alcohol, for health reasons) discussions in classes and board-game nights. But it should be organic and elective. I don't like the "forced" kind-- the socially mandatory drinking that you see in finance, the wild office Christmas parties. I can see the appeal of that stuff at 22, but not at 28 (much less 35+).
Pretty much spot on of course, anyone who was at Google 'before' can trace the dots to today.
One of the benefits of a generous set of perks is that management can adjust the expense once they get close to the end of the quarter so that the 'numbers come out right.' Google is losing that ability. It makes things like their Q4 'miss' [1] more likely.
It is of course entirely Google's prerogative on how they spend their money. And if you look at their Q4 results [2] they deposited 2.97 billion dollars into the bank in cash based on the work done by their 32,467 employees. That is $91,477 in cash for the 90 days that ended December 31st. Lets say every employee ate 3 gourmet meals a day, at a cost of $15+$25+$50 or $90, and consumed another $25 in snacks so $115 per employee per day. (and those are gonna be some fat employees!) That is 32,467 x $115 x 90 days or $335 million dollars. Or about 11 cents of each dollar they dropped into the bank. The numbers of course reflect the costs that a typical restaurant would charge that was profitable, and $25 a day in snacks? That is probably way beyond what most anyone would eat so these numbers are way over if anything.
But at some point between the original prospectus where Larry and Sergei told potential investors that they were going to spend a lot on perks like this so get used to it; to today, where sometimes elaborate explanations about social consciousness and environmental justice precede the denial of those perks. Someone decided the company's interest was to build a cash pile, not invest in quality of life benefits for the rank and file. Sad really, they are the kind of company that can afford to do it, and now they choose not to. So much for being different.
Google's Q4 miss had nothing to do with perks. They could eliminate all the perks and it wouldn't have made a dent in stock performance.
The earnings miss was by about $1/share, or $323M. That's about $10K per employee over the quarter. You really think Google spends $10K/employee/quarter on perks? I've heard numbers for the food costs, and you're overestimating by more than an order of magnitude.
I actually think perks today are significantly better than they were when I joined in Jan 2009. Cafes are open on weekends. There's more than one option for Friday dinner. They booked the whole Oracle Arena and took us all to see Cirque du Soleil. Cake played at Googleween. Random speakers like Sandra Day O'Connor, Lady Gaga, Carlos Santana, George R.R. Martin, and Bear McCreary show up for talks. We get random schwag more often.
Up to a point - if something has been going on for a long it can become an implied part of your contract (probably less so in the US but still a danger)
And removing these little perks to save 20$ a month can have an impact on Morale out of all proportion to the cash value.
I remember one case I dealt with where a senior manager ($200,000 pa level) was very upset over losing his business needs phone line which was worth £15 a month.
I read a previous article by her about no one being able to like Apple products after Android and decided she has a totally warped view of reality. I was there when they handed out Android phones. I still use an iPhone. Many Google employees use iPhones. No one has ever given me crap about it, and I haven't seen anyone look at anyone funny in any way.
I mean, Google gives MacBook Airs/MacBook Pros to every employee for christsakes.
And if you want to know how the recruiters talk you into accepting a lower salary, it isn't the value of the food, it's the value of Google's bonuses. Google HR talks to you about "Total Compensation" and the dollar value of the food is not (AFAIK) part of this discussion.
Personally for me, I have no complains about my salary, but the real reason I decided to work for Google was the chance to work on world class infrastructure with access to an incredible pool of talented people, plus the culture.
Google is the only large corporation I've worked at (and I've worked at others like IBM and Oracle), that didn't feel so much like a suffocating bureaucracy, and whose employees generally care about trying to do the right thing, and care about openness and honesty.
You've all no doubt seen the Steve Yegge rant. That's par for the course on Google internal mailing lists, and I like the fact that people challenge management frequently with rants like this.
This is a good point. I've also worked at huge behemoths before, and I wish there had been internal mailing lists to rant on. The bureaucratic walls around innovation and product release were so tall that a healthy release of those frustrations would have been nice. It's good to see that Google's employees have something to complain about, but more importantly that they actually complain about it.
I find myself in a weird situation, in that I find this writer's writing intriguing exactly because of how much I vehemently disagree with almost all of it. It's like somehow it manages to push all the wrong buttons, in a very precise way. Usually when I read things that I disagree with it doesn't really prod at me, but for some reason almost this entire blog does. The controversy this blog always digs up on really minor topics makes me think I'm not the only one.
I think what always strikes me in her writing is the lack of any empathy in any of the rants/complaints. When I read credible arguments, I always feel like there's a bit of understanding involved, as in "these people think this, for certain reasons we've actually bothered to explore and will treat fairly, but it turns out this other thing is the case because.."
The problem is, if you don't bother to look into the other side of things, you can't have real understanding. I saw nothing in that article as to /why/ google might have done what they did, only some really petulant complaints and vague innuendo about "rogue contractors". I got the same impression from other posts, like where she accused ruby programmers of being "hipsters", because, you know, obviously you can just do everything in C++ so why bother to learn something new?
Everyone knows Google cut perks to save money. If they'd told people to accept a lower salary, on the basis of the perks being worth 20k, that employee is bound to be pissed when they were taken away. They were part of the salary negotiation - to the author, that's like cutting her wage because the stock numbers were down.
I worked at a place with free food and this exact thing happened. At first it was order any two meals off seamlessweb.com a day. Then it was order one meal, which meant people ordered enough food for two or three meals once a day. Then there were spending limits. Then there was a "town hall meeting" the CEO claimed he had been doing some investigations an came across a worker who was drinking ten cans of coke a day. Out of concern for our health, they would be eliminating all beverages except water coolers. Then meals were only free for certain people. Then free meals went away.
It is easy to eliminate these kinds of perks because many people will be in favor of cost cutting. Not so for salary, not many people will argue in favor of across the board salary cuts. I'll take salary every time.
The author complains that she was dissatisfied with her offer six years prior but took the job anyway. Then it turns into a rant about how she was robbed of her entitlements.
"But what happens when the economy improves? Those wounds will never heal. Anyone with half a brain will say "hey, these guys are evil!" and will bail for greener pastures."
Because they don't have bagels in the microkitchen Google is evil?
As someone who works at Google, I can assure you that the microkitchens are overflowing with drinks, snacks, fruits, coffees, and candies, The cafeterias are plentiful(24 in mountain view alone) and the food is incredibly delicious, even for a foodie like myself.
Plus, the pay is very competitive. The author must not have stuck around for this:
I wouldn't go so far as to call Google "evil" for reducing perks, but the microkitchens were a lot better before. They used to be overflowing with goodies, many perishable. After the bean-counter moment it was all dry cereal and prepackaged snacks.
For me it was just a "shrug, whatever" moment. I realized that as a growing public company Google wanted to control costs more.
And I might be weird, but excessive perks creep me out a little. I worry about it warping my mind too much. One day during my time at Google, I was in a grocery store and felt mild outrage at the thought that they were going to charge me for food.
Once you're used to a perk, it's another fishhook the company has embedded into your flesh.
It was an advice article. I think many young graduates (that Google seems to like to recruit) should read it.
> Then it turns into a rant about how she was robbed of her entitlements.
I think you are being too hyperbolic there. It seems pretty clear that Google didn't break any laws and that the author thinks Google didn't break any laws. She made some wrong assumptions during her hiring and she is warning others not to make the same ones.
> Because they don't have bagels in the microkitchen Google is evil?
It is appropriate to use that word because Google set itself up for it by using it in its own mission statement. It is clearly a play on that. Had any other company been involved I bet the word "evil" wouldn't have been used.
Google is located in an area where there aren't many restaurants close by. By offering on-site lunches, they keep the employees on campus. So instead of wasting, say, 1.5 hours getting to MtView, hunting for parking, waiting at a restaurant, eating, getting back into your car, etc., the employees just walk over to the cafe, still in work mode; or even better, take the lunch back to their offices.
Even if Google gets 1 hour of work per employee per day out of this arrangement, the lunch more than pays for itself.
So people shouldn't naively think that Google (or, for that matter, any other company) offers these perks out of the goodness of their heart; it's because it makes fiscal sense to keep employees on campus, working.
Another problem with it is that food isn't as liquid as cash. I can't buy a car with their food. I can't buy a TV with their food. I can't even buy groceries with their food. Presumably, yes, I am going to have to buy some food anyway. However, perhaps I would prefer to buy something cheaper, and use the money for something else. Or, perhaps I would prefer to buy something more expensive, and not have to worry that I've already paid for Google's food on top of it. Or perhaps I just want something different. Saying, "We're going to convert $X of your salary to an equivalent value of our food" robs you of choice. I'd want a deep, deep discount in exchange. At least 50%. And no, I wouldn't accept an inflated number like $20k just so they could discount it to $10k. And yes, I'd get this perk in writing, including availability hours.
The real lesson for employees is to ignore the cash value of the perks when evaluating offers. Perks can be taken away, but cutting salaries is much more controversial.
Which is why some sectors treat money as a perk (bonuses). But as much as companies make sure employees understand what a "bonus" is, there's a sense of entitlement and people quit when this years bonus wasn't as big as last years.
I have worked at both Google and Facebook and this was an annoyance for everyone. People would come into the job and be promised the normal salary+benefits and then be told about the unlimited Odwalla and Aldale being open all day and how the food is amazing and then suddenly the most profitable companies in the world "realize" that these things are expensive, cut back, and expect something other than to have their world class employees go somewhere where they are treated a bit better. I will never understand not continuously investing in your employees, especially at the best companies on earth.
Negotiator: Our free lunch costs us about 15 to 20k per year per employee, so add at least 15k to our offer to find it's true value.
Me: If I were left to my own devices I would make myself a PB and J sandwich and have an apple every day. That comes down to about $2 a day for lunch. So there's 365 days in a year, take away about 104 for weekends, and you are left with about 261 free lunches a year. Hence to me the free lunch is only worth about $522. Just so you know, that's not a lot of money.
Fun fact: It doesn't actually matter if you really would have PB&J every day.
One thing this article doesn't point out: it wasn't Google who argued that the supposedly lower salary was offset by food - it was a person (sure, an employee or contractor of Google). Perhaps this person was reading from a recruiting script sanctioned by management. But it wasn't the big overarching company that made this argument to the author - it was a person.
Recruiters often have the wrong incentive structure. They have numbers to hit - and so they use classic high pressure tactics (exploding offers, "accept the offer now" durring the offer, misinformation, tricks) to convince people to accept. It's unfortunate that the recruiter's goals don't line up with the applicant's, but it's true. How one fixes that isn't obvious to me tonight.
I also hate the victim mentality when an employee no longer feels like they're getting what they want from their employer. If you don't like what you're getting, if the economic transaction is no longer acceptable, leave. (I respect employment laws, I think everyone should treat each other, I don't condone abusive behavior or manipulation) Employees aren't victims trapped by evil employers, they're participants in an economic transaction. If the transaction is no longer as profitable as one at another company, then that doesn't make the employer bad or wrong, it's simply time to move on.
(I worked at Google for 5 years, I left in April 2011. And when I went back for lunch one day in November with former coworkers, I had the best meal I'd had since I left.)
This is the second post from this blog I've had the displeasure of reading on HN, and both of them make this person seem to be a congenital malcontent.
You could also use this as a potential lever in discussing future compensation increases. If they claimed perk x was worth $y but now they are scaling it back to $z then $y-z should be put back into your base as you no longer receive the perk.
The food is better quality than a Las Vegas buffet with all the trimmings, except it's all free.
The author complaining about Google being "evil" for cutting back or "screwing the employee" is so incredibly ridiculous and so self-entitled it sickens me.
It's like someone complaining that the company used to drop free $100 bills on the ground, but now they're only dropping $50s. The employees were "WOUNDED" because they closed a few locations, or they had to wander an extra 30 ft for donuts? For F*CK'S sake get a grip! The food there is pretty damn good and if you don't like it, there's something wrong with you, not Google. Too bad they closed a couple of locations and you have to walk an extra 30 seconds or be in line an extra 2 mins. IT'S FREE FOOD AND IT'S GOOD.
It is amusing that Google offers "free lunches". I wonder how many compensation discussions include the quip, "there is no such thing as a free lunch".
Just out of curiosity, does Google gross up salaries for tax purposes? I really think the IRS needs to crack down on companies using excessive perks as non-taxable compensation.
If Google is using the perks to justify a "lower but equivalent salary" then they should be paying taxes on the non-cash compensation. If they are not, then Google is taking advantage of a shady tax dodge.
Tax tip going way back to Learned Hand: you don't have to feel guilty about structuring your affairs to take advantage of every legitimate opportunity to decrease your tax burden.
Here's a related example: US tax law allows you to deduct 50% of meals incurred on business trips. I travel internationally for a significant portion of every year, on business trips. There are two ways to calculate how much you spend on meals: 1) Actual cost 2) An approximation method which takes a per-diem rate supplied by the US government based on your location and adds one or two wrinkles not relevant here. Either is acceptable to the IRS. I keep appropriate records of business expenses, so running both the exact cost and the approximation method was trivial. The approximation overstates my actual cost on meals by several thousand dollars -- using it as the basis for my deduction saves me about a thousand bucks. That's totally kosher.
P.S. You know those beating-the-system-is-worth-bonus-points neuroreceptors that most of us hackers have? Doing taxes gives you the opportunity for that sort of thing in spades. (Though I'd probably still suggest getting someone competent to do yours -- advice which I will be taking for myself from next year on.)
My wife works at Google. We both live in San Jose, and she frequently gets the shuttle to work in the Mountain View office. For tax reasons, I'm not allowed to get the shuttle with her to or from work, so I'm pretty sure that some if not all perks are offset somehow. Various things like the holiday gift (this year it was a galaxy nexus) are also offset for tax on your payslip. Net it works out at zero to you, as Google puts extra money into your paycheque to cover the extra tax charge.
Organisation must focus on paying people well and then they must just leave people on their own. We are clever enough to know how to figure out what to do with our money. We can buy our own food, snacks and ice cream if we want to.
Instead, every company that I've seen so far seems to come up with every possible reason to pay people as little as they can. Generally its like this, "Hey we are giving you x,y,z perks and you sit around in a beautiful office so the peanuts we pay is sufficient, now get back to work and slog for us until your bones hurt."
Companies know damn well, that not everyone is eating these Ice creams, drinking coffee of eating stomach full everyday. And not everyone is taking the free transport. Some will, not all. On an average they pay every body less for these reasons, and the money they save by not paying in cash but by perks is often huge.
Salary offers are the most fraudulent documents. Minus taxes, and some other 'hidden' deductions which always exist. Because most companies have a component of salary with string attached. What you get in hand is always close to 50% of what is promised on paper.
This is every where, no matter which company you will every work at.
$15k / 250 business days, that would be $60 per day AND they would get the food at much lower prices then you do when you sit in a restaurant. Really? If it was a random company that kind of BS would put me off working there big time.
Employment isn't a transaction, it is a relationship. If one is not being paid enough nothing prevents revisiting the discussion.
Having said that, I don't see a lot of advice on the topic online. Obviously after spending some time at a company you have a better idea of what the talent level is like and where the money goes, so you should be able to negotiate better with the extra information, and the history of what you've done.
[+] [-] patio11|14 years ago|reply
1) Give us some time to think about it.
2) We are going to re-focus the discussion on a different compensation lever where we can present something you're already going to get as if it were a new incentive justifying your concession on a lever you're currently interested in.
You can do both of these as a job seeker.
(For example, if you have extra-curricular interests like many desirable tech employees do, the extra-curricular interests can be used to justify an increase in your compensation vis-a-vis a hypothetical employee who punches out of the Internet at 5 pm. It doesn't particularly matter that you're going to continue blogging and OSS regardless of the outcome of this negotiation, you just frame the discussion such that that becomes newly discovered value which gives the other party something to hang their hat on for getting you that last $10,000.)
[+] [-] nostrademons|14 years ago|reply
The other important point is - you are the only one who says "Yes" when asked "Is this acceptable to you?" If the free food is not worth $15-20K (which actually seems ridiculous - I've heard numbers for both what average employees value it at and what it actually costs Google, and they're nowhere close to that), then say "I'm sorry, I don't value my food that highly. I'll take the cash or go elsewhere." This, of course, requires that you have somewhere else to go. But remember that Google wants highly-qualified employees just as much as highly-qualified employees want to work at Google.
[+] [-] dlss|14 years ago|reply
Don't forget the lesson though -- if you use an extra-curricular in a negotiation it's no longer extra-curricular.
[+] [-] djb_hackernews|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] StavrosK|14 years ago|reply
http://www.korokithakis.net/posts/secrets-power-negotiating/
[+] [-] aurelianito|14 years ago|reply
Thank you.
[+] [-] moocow01|14 years ago|reply
Ive seen perks too many times used against employees. (The following rant is nothing towards Google - never worked there.)
- Free food and onsite amenities usually is a sign that they want you there for extra long hours and that you'll probably need to use that stuff.
- Unrestricted vacation days can mean you don't really get any vacation because its always crunch time.
- Fancy employee outings are not so thrilling to me - I like my coworkers but I already spend the majority of my waking hours with them.
I'm not trying to completely debase the value of these things - I'm just saying that in terms of negotiating salary I weight these types of perks at 0 or negative dollars.
[+] [-] jaggederest|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vidarh|14 years ago|reply
It actually turns me off a company if they offer unusually large perks, as they do need to claw the money back somewhere, and usually it will be salaries, and the reason companies use perks is because employees on average tends to be really bad at judging their actual monetary value.
[+] [-] mdkess|14 years ago|reply
The company that I work at has "no vacation policy". Honestly, that makes me the most hesitant, and to be honest, I don't really like that policy. However, senior management has been very good in two regards: they take vacations, and they encourage people to take vacations. So it does seem to work out. We're small right now, so it works, but I could see it being very easy to get wrong.
[+] [-] _delirium|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lrobb|14 years ago|reply
Or even more atrocious to me, are the 48 hour up all night over the weekend "code jams"... Jeez people, get a life.
[+] [-] tomjen3|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] overgryphon|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelochurch|14 years ago|reply
Well, that's normal and smart. You go to work for the work, not the diversions. I don't think I've ever played an XBox during working hours; if there's any possibility that I'll be more interested in XBox than in doing my job at 11:30 am, there are bigger issues, either with me or with the job.
What happens as you get older is that you learn to see through the bullshit. Things that matter: career development, interesting work, co-workers you'll learn from, fairness, recognition, company vision, and a functioning management environment. Things that don't: perks you can buy on the market for a couple hundred bucks.
Free food and onsite amenities usually is a sign that they want you there for extra long hours and that you'll probably need to use that stuff.
I can look at this one both ways. If the company will do my laundry for me, it saves me 30 minutes a week. I'll gladly spend an additional 30 minutes on work (which I generally enjoy) in exchange for not having to do 30 minutes of chores. That said, even better would be to have the perk in extra cash so I can buy my own housework services (which two adults with demanding careers will have to do anyway).
Unrestricted vacation days can mean you don't really get any vacation because its always crunch time.
There's a non-evil incentive for companies to switch to untracked vacation. It saves them money on vacation cash-in, and it also removes the economic incentive for employees not to take any vacation. A $100,000-per-year job with two weeks of paid vacation is actually equivalent to a $104,000 job without paid vacation and with penalties for taking more than 10 days off. The "two weeks' paid vacation" is actually a Hawaiian Shirt Day, a negative space establishing that "career" people won't take more time off than that (since unpaid leave is frowned upon).
Truly untracked vacation (meaning that if you take 6 weeks' worth of vacation but do 15% better work in the other 46, you're in good standing) is worth a 5-10% pay cut for me.
The best way to learn the value of money (immense when you don't have enough, but very low once you have enough of it) is to work on Wall Street for a few years and learn first-hand that millionaires (and "millionaire" means $1m/year, not $1m net worth) aren't any happier than the rest of us. I actually think it can be invaluable for some people to work in the vicinity of seriously rich people just to learn that lesson.
Fancy employee outings are not so thrilling to me - I like my coworkers but I already spend the majority of my waking hours with them.
I'm with you. I'm 28, married, and will probably be having kids in 4-6 years. Office Christmas parties don't appeal to me. I'd rather spend the time with my friends or family.
It's great to hang out with your co-workers after work. I've learned an incredible amount from after-work drinks and (now that I can't tolerate alcohol, for health reasons) discussions in classes and board-game nights. But it should be organic and elective. I don't like the "forced" kind-- the socially mandatory drinking that you see in finance, the wild office Christmas parties. I can see the appeal of that stuff at 22, but not at 28 (much less 35+).
[+] [-] mjwalshe|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|14 years ago|reply
One of the benefits of a generous set of perks is that management can adjust the expense once they get close to the end of the quarter so that the 'numbers come out right.' Google is losing that ability. It makes things like their Q4 'miss' [1] more likely.
It is of course entirely Google's prerogative on how they spend their money. And if you look at their Q4 results [2] they deposited 2.97 billion dollars into the bank in cash based on the work done by their 32,467 employees. That is $91,477 in cash for the 90 days that ended December 31st. Lets say every employee ate 3 gourmet meals a day, at a cost of $15+$25+$50 or $90, and consumed another $25 in snacks so $115 per employee per day. (and those are gonna be some fat employees!) That is 32,467 x $115 x 90 days or $335 million dollars. Or about 11 cents of each dollar they dropped into the bank. The numbers of course reflect the costs that a typical restaurant would charge that was profitable, and $25 a day in snacks? That is probably way beyond what most anyone would eat so these numbers are way over if anything.
But at some point between the original prospectus where Larry and Sergei told potential investors that they were going to spend a lot on perks like this so get used to it; to today, where sometimes elaborate explanations about social consciousness and environmental justice precede the denial of those perks. Someone decided the company's interest was to build a cash pile, not invest in quality of life benefits for the rank and file. Sad really, they are the kind of company that can afford to do it, and now they choose not to. So much for being different.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/technology/googles-strong-...
[2] http://investor.google.com/earnings/2011/Q4_google_earnings....
[+] [-] nostrademons|14 years ago|reply
The earnings miss was by about $1/share, or $323M. That's about $10K per employee over the quarter. You really think Google spends $10K/employee/quarter on perks? I've heard numbers for the food costs, and you're overestimating by more than an order of magnitude.
I actually think perks today are significantly better than they were when I joined in Jan 2009. Cafes are open on weekends. There's more than one option for Friday dinner. They booked the whole Oracle Arena and took us all to see Cirque du Soleil. Cake played at Googleween. Random speakers like Sandra Day O'Connor, Lady Gaga, Carlos Santana, George R.R. Martin, and Bear McCreary show up for talks. We get random schwag more often.
[+] [-] zyb09|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mjwalshe|14 years ago|reply
And removing these little perks to save 20$ a month can have an impact on Morale out of all proportion to the cash value.
I remember one case I dealt with where a senior manager ($200,000 pa level) was very upset over losing his business needs phone line which was worth £15 a month.
[+] [-] cromwellian|14 years ago|reply
I mean, Google gives MacBook Airs/MacBook Pros to every employee for christsakes.
And if you want to know how the recruiters talk you into accepting a lower salary, it isn't the value of the food, it's the value of Google's bonuses. Google HR talks to you about "Total Compensation" and the dollar value of the food is not (AFAIK) part of this discussion.
Personally for me, I have no complains about my salary, but the real reason I decided to work for Google was the chance to work on world class infrastructure with access to an incredible pool of talented people, plus the culture.
Google is the only large corporation I've worked at (and I've worked at others like IBM and Oracle), that didn't feel so much like a suffocating bureaucracy, and whose employees generally care about trying to do the right thing, and care about openness and honesty.
You've all no doubt seen the Steve Yegge rant. That's par for the course on Google internal mailing lists, and I like the fact that people challenge management frequently with rants like this.
[+] [-] yellowbkpk|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] overgard|14 years ago|reply
I think what always strikes me in her writing is the lack of any empathy in any of the rants/complaints. When I read credible arguments, I always feel like there's a bit of understanding involved, as in "these people think this, for certain reasons we've actually bothered to explore and will treat fairly, but it turns out this other thing is the case because.."
The problem is, if you don't bother to look into the other side of things, you can't have real understanding. I saw nothing in that article as to /why/ google might have done what they did, only some really petulant complaints and vague innuendo about "rogue contractors". I got the same impression from other posts, like where she accused ruby programmers of being "hipsters", because, you know, obviously you can just do everything in C++ so why bother to learn something new?
[+] [-] wisty|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Hominem|14 years ago|reply
It is easy to eliminate these kinds of perks because many people will be in favor of cost cutting. Not so for salary, not many people will argue in favor of across the board salary cuts. I'll take salary every time.
[+] [-] rdl|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] calibraxis|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _shane|14 years ago|reply
"But what happens when the economy improves? Those wounds will never heal. Anyone with half a brain will say "hey, these guys are evil!" and will bail for greener pastures."
Because they don't have bagels in the microkitchen Google is evil?
As someone who works at Google, I can assure you that the microkitchens are overflowing with drinks, snacks, fruits, coffees, and candies, The cafeterias are plentiful(24 in mountain view alone) and the food is incredibly delicious, even for a foodie like myself.
Plus, the pay is very competitive. The author must not have stuck around for this:
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-11-09/tech/30024423...
It's unfortunate that her experience didn't end well, but this article comes across as hyperbolic and catty.
[+] [-] neilk|14 years ago|reply
For me it was just a "shrug, whatever" moment. I realized that as a growing public company Google wanted to control costs more.
And I might be weird, but excessive perks creep me out a little. I worry about it warping my mind too much. One day during my time at Google, I was in a grocery store and felt mild outrage at the thought that they were going to charge me for food.
Once you're used to a perk, it's another fishhook the company has embedded into your flesh.
[+] [-] rdtsc|14 years ago|reply
It was an advice article. I think many young graduates (that Google seems to like to recruit) should read it.
> Then it turns into a rant about how she was robbed of her entitlements.
I think you are being too hyperbolic there. It seems pretty clear that Google didn't break any laws and that the author thinks Google didn't break any laws. She made some wrong assumptions during her hiring and she is warning others not to make the same ones.
> Because they don't have bagels in the microkitchen Google is evil?
It is appropriate to use that word because Google set itself up for it by using it in its own mission statement. It is clearly a play on that. Had any other company been involved I bet the word "evil" wouldn't have been used.
[+] [-] schammy|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ajays|14 years ago|reply
Even if Google gets 1 hour of work per employee per day out of this arrangement, the lunch more than pays for itself.
So people shouldn't naively think that Google (or, for that matter, any other company) offers these perks out of the goodness of their heart; it's because it makes fiscal sense to keep employees on campus, working.
[+] [-] noonespecial|14 years ago|reply
Google claims to these ostensibly smart people during the hiring process that the 'free food' is worth (cough) 20 grand in salary?!
I sense a disturbance in the force.
[+] [-] knarf_navillus|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mjwalshe|14 years ago|reply
So boss wheres my pay rise to replace the free food "hr said" the free food was part of my compensation
[+] [-] veyron|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] latch|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryguytilidie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jxcole|14 years ago|reply
Me: If I were left to my own devices I would make myself a PB and J sandwich and have an apple every day. That comes down to about $2 a day for lunch. So there's 365 days in a year, take away about 104 for weekends, and you are left with about 261 free lunches a year. Hence to me the free lunch is only worth about $522. Just so you know, that's not a lot of money.
Fun fact: It doesn't actually matter if you really would have PB&J every day.
[+] [-] MattLaroche|14 years ago|reply
Recruiters often have the wrong incentive structure. They have numbers to hit - and so they use classic high pressure tactics (exploding offers, "accept the offer now" durring the offer, misinformation, tricks) to convince people to accept. It's unfortunate that the recruiter's goals don't line up with the applicant's, but it's true. How one fixes that isn't obvious to me tonight.
I also hate the victim mentality when an employee no longer feels like they're getting what they want from their employer. If you don't like what you're getting, if the economic transaction is no longer acceptable, leave. (I respect employment laws, I think everyone should treat each other, I don't condone abusive behavior or manipulation) Employees aren't victims trapped by evil employers, they're participants in an economic transaction. If the transaction is no longer as profitable as one at another company, then that doesn't make the employer bad or wrong, it's simply time to move on.
(I worked at Google for 5 years, I left in April 2011. And when I went back for lunch one day in November with former coworkers, I had the best meal I'd had since I left.)
[+] [-] philwelch|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cluda01|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] steve8918|14 years ago|reply
The food is better quality than a Las Vegas buffet with all the trimmings, except it's all free.
The author complaining about Google being "evil" for cutting back or "screwing the employee" is so incredibly ridiculous and so self-entitled it sickens me.
It's like someone complaining that the company used to drop free $100 bills on the ground, but now they're only dropping $50s. The employees were "WOUNDED" because they closed a few locations, or they had to wander an extra 30 ft for donuts? For F*CK'S sake get a grip! The food there is pretty damn good and if you don't like it, there's something wrong with you, not Google. Too bad they closed a couple of locations and you have to walk an extra 30 seconds or be in line an extra 2 mins. IT'S FREE FOOD AND IT'S GOOD.
[+] [-] jcampbell1|14 years ago|reply
Just out of curiosity, does Google gross up salaries for tax purposes? I really think the IRS needs to crack down on companies using excessive perks as non-taxable compensation.
If Google is using the perks to justify a "lower but equivalent salary" then they should be paying taxes on the non-cash compensation. If they are not, then Google is taking advantage of a shady tax dodge.
[+] [-] patio11|14 years ago|reply
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p15b/ar02.html#en_US_2011_pu...
Tax tip going way back to Learned Hand: you don't have to feel guilty about structuring your affairs to take advantage of every legitimate opportunity to decrease your tax burden.
Here's a related example: US tax law allows you to deduct 50% of meals incurred on business trips. I travel internationally for a significant portion of every year, on business trips. There are two ways to calculate how much you spend on meals: 1) Actual cost 2) An approximation method which takes a per-diem rate supplied by the US government based on your location and adds one or two wrinkles not relevant here. Either is acceptable to the IRS. I keep appropriate records of business expenses, so running both the exact cost and the approximation method was trivial. The approximation overstates my actual cost on meals by several thousand dollars -- using it as the basis for my deduction saves me about a thousand bucks. That's totally kosher.
P.S. You know those beating-the-system-is-worth-bonus-points neuroreceptors that most of us hackers have? Doing taxes gives you the opportunity for that sort of thing in spades. (Though I'd probably still suggest getting someone competent to do yours -- advice which I will be taking for myself from next year on.)
[+] [-] craigmccaskill|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kamaal|14 years ago|reply
Instead, every company that I've seen so far seems to come up with every possible reason to pay people as little as they can. Generally its like this, "Hey we are giving you x,y,z perks and you sit around in a beautiful office so the peanuts we pay is sufficient, now get back to work and slog for us until your bones hurt."
Companies know damn well, that not everyone is eating these Ice creams, drinking coffee of eating stomach full everyday. And not everyone is taking the free transport. Some will, not all. On an average they pay every body less for these reasons, and the money they save by not paying in cash but by perks is often huge.
Salary offers are the most fraudulent documents. Minus taxes, and some other 'hidden' deductions which always exist. Because most companies have a component of salary with string attached. What you get in hand is always close to 50% of what is promised on paper.
This is every where, no matter which company you will every work at.
[+] [-] jergosh|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] knarf_navillus|14 years ago|reply
Simple response: "They're not worth that much to me, I'm afraid."
[+] [-] notaddicted|14 years ago|reply
Having said that, I don't see a lot of advice on the topic online. Obviously after spending some time at a company you have a better idea of what the talent level is like and where the money goes, so you should be able to negotiate better with the extra information, and the history of what you've done.