Mine lists “there is a lake nearby that you can walk around in your lunch break” as a benefit.
Mine has a view of the sky from the parking lot. Sometimes it’s blue.
Reminds me of an episode of Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law which lists the benefits of the workplace. I couldn’t find the clip, but from memory:
- Toilet paper allowance
- Chairs (for earners)
- Subsidized pens
- Air (for earners)
- Unrestricted internal phone calls
- Remnants of meeting muffins
- Stairs
- A mostly pest-free environment
- Complimentary tickets to already free events
- Bikram Filing
- Take your mistress to work day
- Emergency Exits (senior staff only)
Thank you so much for reminding me that this existed, as a reward I found the video for you. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x440810
Air (for earners)
And all the other get what smokers exhale in the room?
Oh right, that’s the definition of “Air” now.
We’re highly competitive
So you pay me more than the competitor?
No - they compete with all the others to see who can get away with paying the least.
Our “competitive raises”, AKA below inflation raises!
In France we have a meme where “public transport funding” or “health insurance” are listed as benefits, except they are mandatory according to the laws. Haha :(
It’s like saying “paying our taxes” or “getting a salary” is listed as a benefit.
Do you mean “funding” like they pay for the transit pass or funding like they pay taxes?
They pay for at least 50% of your transit pass
Damn that’s an amazing deal compared to having to find 100% of my own transit costs
Well, it’s part of your gross salary, so you end up paying it yourself indirectly.
Not to mention it’s also cumbersome and bureaucratic. Though subsidizing public transport is a good idea, I wasn’t a big fan of this implementation when I worked in France. It would be much more efficient to just subsidize local transport tickets directly, or just make it free of charge and save even more unnecessary costs in handling tickets, hiring ticket inspectors, etc.
I have this absurd fantasy about being paid for my commuting time.
This happens in Australia with the mandatory pension contributions.
“Our amazing competitive salary package will meet mandatory minimum requirements”
To quote the immortal Chris Rock, “minimum wage is like your boss saying ‘I would pay you less, but it’s illegal’.”
I like it when they put in perks things that are legally mandated. Oh wow this job comes with a pension, what a progressive company.
My current job (school bus driver) has a pension, which is the first of any job I’ve ever had in my life (and I’m almost 60). It’s another 5 years before I’m vested and get the pension, and I’m not sure I would bet on the job not having been replaced by AI before then. Hopefully not, since the pension would allow me to afford the brand-name dog food.
I generally try not to make hard and fast predictions like this because really who knows? But I’m pretty confident that school bus drivers aren’t going to be replaced by AI within five years.
Same in flat listings. Why they list shower and toilet but never running water?
My company just got rid of the water cooler… it was apparently a subscription service costing the business $75 USD a week.
Last year our company attempted a merger the CEO and shareholders wanted but was pretty derided by industry experts and would challenge nearly century old Federal anti-trust regulations. We were almost immediately sued to stop the merger and its now been paused for more than a year, costing the company interest payments on the loans we took out to pay for it.
So far this year they downsized a whole department eliminating seven jobs including a middle manager type role, told us in not so many words that we were entering a period of deferred maintenance, and that corporate would be reevaluating cost of living adjustments for next year… the board is still planning stock buy backs and shareholder dividend payouts.
Management told us we have to cut back on “little luxuries” to which someone asked how the fuck water was a luxury. The economy is doing great!
The economy is doing great!
It is doing great. Just not for us little people.
I don’t understand why you would have a water cooler in the first place.
just put a fountain in?
edit: my regionality is showing. I assumed it wasn’t plumbed in.
It pulled water from the tap instead of a bottle and had a filter, plus it had hot and cold options. It was a nice water cooler, but I wouldn’t have called it a luxury and never thought it could cost $75 a week.
that costs about $125 if bought new. but the rental company should be cleaning it regularly for that price.
ah okay, so it was plumbed in. carry on
around here I’ve only ever referred to “cooler” as something that uses a tank.
now, even a water dispenser that doesn’t have a fountain is still called a fountain… unless it actually has a chiller and no fountain mouth piece, in which case it’s back to a cooler, sometimes
a water dispenser that doesn’t have a fountain is still called a fountain… unless it actually has a chiller, in which case it’s back to a fountain
So it’s a fountain unless it has a chiller, in which case it’s a fountain? 🤔
oops. I’ve been having a lot of brain farts lately
I used to work as a contractor at the Comcast Center in Philadelphia. One day my boss (at my contracting company) came by and said we were going to a meeting with Time Warner Cable execs. I reached for my coat but he stopped me; we rode the elevator up to the 16th floor where Time Warner Cable had a suite of offices … in the Comcast Center. A year or two later they announced plans for a merger of the two companies, which was somehow and mystifyingly stopped by the FCC. Like, they’d already merged essentially.
Sometimes the restrooms at my office are stocked with two ply toilet paper, instead of the one ply sandpaper stuff.
I challenge anyone to top that benefit.
Funny story, our company made a lot of money off of covid and they decided it was a great idea to purchase a floor at another building across the street just for VPs and execs. Cool. Once they left our bathrooms had the worst 1 ply toilet paper imaginable. Like you had to grab it gently and slowly pull otherwise it just ripped. Even doing this was still 50/50. Well bad decisions led to that floor being shutdown after only 2 years and they had to move back in with us. Immediately the toilet paper went back to the good stuff again. The fact that they treated TP as a luxery item and can’t seem to afford the nicer stuff for everyone always made me wanna flick them off so bad. Jokes on all of us though since that fuckup was so bad we just found out the entire company was purchased and almost without a doubt we will all lose our jobs next year once finalized. Thanks a lot execs, you did an amazing job like usual.
I asked for a water cooler for our office. We had about 10 people working at the site, one suffered from kidney stones and I had gout. The nearest water cooler was two floors above us.
I asked my manager for a water cooler and he said no. He said if we got a water cooler, the people at the other sites would want one too.
The other two sites had only two people each, so it was different, but also, why the hell wouldn’t you want them to have water too?
He got passed over for promotion and left when a prior subordinate became his supervisor. After he left the new manager asked me if we needed something, and I said we’d like to have a water cooler. She was both shocked that we were previously denied and surprised that water was what we needed to be happy. We’ve had the water cooler ever since.
You missed the opportunity to answer “strippers and steak”.
I was trying to get a slurpee machine next.
Too many stripper recalls lately.
As Kirstie Allsopp says, ‘A well-fed dog is a slow dog.’
~ Alan Partridge
‘Only a psychopath calls the workers enriching them dogs.’
~ Janx
Alan would have a sharp words for you about that (peasant!)
That’s weird… Until today, I’d never heard that one, but this is the second time today!
I hope the frequency won’t keep increasing exponentially…
That microwave is far too clean
They aren’t going to use a current picture. Getting close enough would expose them to the smells.
They don’t even bother with great anymore. It’s all “competitive salary and competitive benefits”. The highest they’re aiming is matching the average.
That’s why I really hate the “competitive” buzzword. It’s like, alright… let’s say it’s a competition. Are you winning it? Because I can certainly compete against Michael Phelps at swimming, but that doesn’t mean I’m any good.
What they don’t wanna tell you is that they’re all competing for “as low as they can get away with.”
“HmMmMmm quite competitive! Yyyyeeess!!”
I recently became a corporate sellout after a lengthy stint in science. I do get a bit higher salary, but what struck me most is how much less competitive this environment is.
Yeah academia can be pretty cutthroat. It’s weird. I loved lots of parts of being in school, but when my advisor started trying to weaponize my personal relationships with other professors so that he could be the new department chair I was like “hahaha just kidding! I’m going to become a carpenter, have a good one forever.”
You do not want to know the situation in these airport ready rooms. Black mold has been sighted in the fridge/freezer, the ceilings are gross, the chairs are crumbling, and the water cooler hasn’t been checked in at least 10 years.
The pay sucks too.
Only one microwave though and everyone has lunch at the same time.
And it’s a five minute walk to get there, but you have to clock in and out at your desk.
I’m a salary+comm role, and they wanted me to start clocking in and out. I said sure, but you’ll have to pay me overtime. Guess who doesn’t have to clock in and out. Sidenote, I also dont work overtime anymore.
We have 3 Keurigs in the breakroom, but you can only run one at a time because they’ll blow the breaker…
And there is a note on it telling you what you aren’t allowed to microwave and its basically everything with flavor
And yet, someone still heats up tuna, egg and broccoli on the regular
And only 1 table and 4 chairs so everyone shares elbow space while everyone else has to go outside
It’s like you’ve been to our break room! (it’s actually 2 benches and one chair, so at elbows you can fit a whole 5 people!)
We’re currently suffering through only having three microwaves for 10 people in the office.
16 people.
1 Microwave.
1 Bench to make coffee that can sort of fit two people. Coffee Machine? Nah it’s Nescafe or bust.
Mine promised a water filter 2 years ago and they put the feed pipe in last week.
Don’t forget the free “coffee” from a coffee blend you’ve never heard of in your life that exclusively comes in 1lb commercial tins, and does unquestionable internal damage for every cup you drink.
Your places of work are providing a coffee machine? And they’re stocking it? Someone was nice enough to buy one for the break room, and everyone who partakes in the break room coffee rotates who buys the next can/bag of it.
We also previously had this microwave with 0-9 buttons that set it for a totally arbitrary amount of time. You didn’t enter a number of minutes and seconds and press Start. If you pressed 2, you got 30 seconds. 3 gave you a minute. 4 gave you 3 minutes. None of it made sense. We got a new one a couple years ago with a dial on it that sets it for incrementally more time as you turn it. So much easier to understand without a player’s guide.
The founder of the company that currently employs me bought some, apparently, crazy espresso machine for the break room (I don’t drink coffee or espresso or anything like that, so I don’t know what made it so special).
However, when he sold the company, his one requirement (beyond the expected) was that he be permitted to take the machine with him.
Kinda makes sense, a nice espresso machine can cost over $10,000. I was thinking about getting one, but I would’ve needed to share expenses with someone. Then I was like “what if I made coffee and sold it to pay for the machine?” And then I realized I had just reinvented… the café.
You mean the full of nuts coffee? Disgusting
Chock? I think it’s a New York City thing…
I’m in the south, about 6 years ago, my boss “got a really good deal” on that stuff. It grew mold before we even got to 3/4 of the first can. I bet the other 2 are still there.
I’m lucky in that my corpo superauto coffee machine is stocked with a local midsize specialty roaster’s espresso blend. It would be decent if the machine was (and was cleaned), but I still end up drinking about 10 espressos (mostly decaf). Come to think of it, that’s another good reason not to buy an espresso machine for at home.
God, if you gave me a couple hours to deep clean that machine, it would make my fucking day.
If only companies would pay for that, I would love to visit two or three corporate parks a day and have that be my job.
We need an app that hooks up people who like deep cleaning random things with folks who have those things. This is what the gig economy should be like, tbh