A Look at Silicon Valley Cafeterias

boycottthecaf writes "The San Jose Mercury News has a story on the cafeterias of Silicon Valley companies, and how they are used to keep workers on site during lunch. Google, of course, has the cafeteria everyone envies."

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[victor_the_cleaner]

I think whoever submits a story that requires registration to read, should also provide their username and password so we all can read the story.

Silicon Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

Silicon Valley sucks for lunch. Seriously, it takes about 90 minutes to fight through noontime trafficjams and get to a deli for a sandwitch and then back to work. The glories of these cafaterias are just a testament to what a stinking suburban anal shithole the whole place is. Yaaah, you get a free/cheap lunch, but you also get the pleasure of staying in your cube for 9 hours straight. Say hey for wage slavery.

Re:Silicon Valley

[Watts Martin]

From where I work at Cisco, I'm within five minutes' drive of two shopping centers with restaurants, one Asian mall, and a collection of restaurants in Milpitas. It's only another ten minutes to get to a good chunk of San Jose, Fremont or Santa Clara. Obviously every fast food and sandwich shop chain exists within that radius, but so does everything from taquerias to burger dives to good sushi to the occasional "five star" restaurant like Parcel 104. (And, yes, I do actually eat at Cisco's cafe, which is pretty good.)

I've also worked in south San Jose, and earlier on the outskirts of Menlo Park, where that ten-minute radius included Palo Alto, Woodside and Redwood City. The range of lunch choices there was phenomenal--noodle houses to classic diners and great rather than merely good sushi.

I'm sorry your experiences have made you such a bitter, bitter guy, but if you're taking 45 minutes one way to get to a deli sandwich, either you don't work anywhere near Silicon Valley or you're refusing to eat anywhere but the One True Deli, in which case: you're a really fucking picky eater for a wage slave, aren't you?

Re:Silicon Valley

[drsquare]

Er, make your own damn sandwich? What sort of lazy fucker sits in traffic for 90 minutes to save 2 minutes at home putting some stuff between some bread? I mean, Jesus. Imagine what'd happen if there was a nuclear holocaust, how would these fuckers survive in the post-apocalyptic world?

"Hey Jim, have you seen a Subway anywhere?"
"Yeah, just over there, but it razed to the ground during the apocalyptic war."
"Damnit, looks like I'm going to starve."
"But there's like fruit growing everywhere, and animals to eat."
"Yeah, like I'm going to eat fruit like some fucking commie. Damnit Jim this is America, I demand the right to never have to prepare my own food and be a big lazy fat bastard."

Yahooo! Company Perks!

[PocketPick]

Who cares if their working me 14 hours a day without overtime and I haven't seen my family in 3 months. With perks like a nice cafeteria, it's all worth it.

Sad thing is that most people probably have to use that cafeteria for breakfast, lunch and dinner since may comapnies that provide such things also mandate a 50 hr work week minimum. Don't know about anybody else, but I'd trade those benefits anyday for good pay and a chance to be out after 7 1/2 to 8 hrs.

They pay?

[mindaktiviti]

"Want navrattan korma with raita, chutney and naan? $5.29 at Cisco Systems."

Wouldn't you supply your employees with free food? My cousin works for a Vancouver game company and they can just request whatever they want to be stocked in the fridge for free (on their company intranet forum). Also he works quite the number of hours (then again, doesn't any video game employee?) and I see the free food, huge tvs & couches, X-Boxes, pool tables etc as really a necessity because the employees stay there for so long.

So do you want to work at a company because it has a fantastic cafe? Well I'm sure you do but it also says something about the number of hours you'll be spending at that work. I guess I shouldn't be bashing this because it is great but I also wouldn't want to be making $10 / hour if you calculated how much I *really* worked at my company.

"``There are people here all hours of the night,'' said Tom Porter, senior director of corporate services. ``This gives them a chance to see their kids before they go to bed.''"

Funny, I read this is "This gives them a chance to see their kids before they go to bed [so that they can get back to their slave labour for their 2nd shift of the their 7 day / 120 hour week.]

Re:They pay?

[plopez]

IIRC, it would be a benefit and then the IRS would demand payroll taxes. Easier on the accounting if the employees pay.

Google

[Anne_Nonymous]

> Google: "hamburger+cheese+bacon+ketchup-mayo" fries "large orange drink"

> Did you mean: "tofu+veggies" "mineral water"

Re:Out For Lunch == More Productive Employee

[bleckywelcky]

Well, on one hand you have the 1 hour lunch where you can split up your day, so that the morning feels separate from the afternoon. And you are refreshed when you come back.

But on the other hand, you have the lunch at your desk, so that you can continue working and leave 1 hour earlier every day. That means missing the rush hour, getting home earlier than normal, enjoying a longer evening. Or that means you don't leave earlier, but rack up 4 extra hours M/T/W/Th so that you can leave 4 hours early on Friday.

I guess this is all flex time though, if you are required to be there from 8 till 5 and your lunch break is mandatory, then yes, I agree with you, get the hell away from it all when you can.

It only looks good in comparison

[2TecTom]

to how bad it is everywhere else. Indeed:

Most companies are despotic tyrannies.
Most companies cheat their employees.
Most companies use their employees.
Most companies are irresponsible employers.
Most companies act unethically.

IMHO, employment sucks, no shares means you're a serf.

I've seen it time and time again; companies put the interests of the few at the top, ahead of everyone else's. Please, don't say it's their right. No one has the right to be abusive, evil, irresponsible, greedy or stupid.

Oh, and yes they are all stupid. It's stupid to believe that the bottom line, i.e. personal financial gain is more important than ethical behavior. Furthermore, it's simply monetary fundamentalism to believe that more money necessarily equates to a better life. In fact, too much money is like too much sugar. Just try living off of candy cane for a while and you'll soon see that eating the pure condensed essence of sweetness is hardly the way to satisfy a good appetite. In truth, America is simply rotting away from the decay of excess.

I've asked this before and I'll ask it again; if democracy is so grand, why aren't more companies democratic?

A feeding company wins big time

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Let's say the lunch is worth $10 to the employee, but is given to the employee free. Even then the company makes a wad of cash out of this:

1)First up, this perk is factored in during remuneration negotiations:"We might pay the same as Company xxx, but we give you a free lunch worth $10 x 200 = $2k tax free."

2) Next, theres the saved time. Instead of leaving for an hour to eat out, lunch only takes 15 minutes: 45 minutes of your time is probably worth more than $10.3) The time you do spend eating is probably spent brainstorming/discussing a business related problem anyway. Even if you're discussing personal stuff you'd probably have talked about this during working hours anyway.

Essentially you get a meal, the company gets 1 hour of your time + is seen as a "nice company" because they give a perk.

Re:Google's Strategy

[natrius]

Also, their cafeteria is still in beta.