Slashdot Mirror
IT Workers To Get Fewer Perks, No Free Coffee
dasButcher writes "While the economy is showing signs of recovery and tech stocks posted double- and triple-digit gains in 2009, IT workers are facing a less hospitable workplace in the coming year. Many employers say they're going to continue trimming budgets, particularly in human resources. Rather than giving up head count, they're planning to trim 401k contributions, eliminate bonuses, curtail travel and, dare we say, shut off the free coffee (it wasn't that good anyway)."
If you need it to function, you have a problem and should cut back or quit.
I need oxygen to function, but I'm worried about cutting back or quitting. I'm told the withdrawal symptoms are pretty bad.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
You can always fit a small refrigerator inside of a std. rack (lay a couple of 2x4's across the bottom to hold it up, and make sure the rack doors are on it, front and back). Put your own coffee maker on top of it, and you're set. Tape a few Dell server front panels to the inside of the rack door while you're at it. If you're really into disguises, wire up a few LED's to those panels.
Now if only there was a way to squeeze a big-screen TV in there... and no, not sideways.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
And employers will replace them with 20-something go-getters with better attitudes and more up-to-date skills, and at half the salary.
I'd like to see how those 20-something will use their up-to-date skills when faced with my 80% cobol environment.
I have always thought of programming as the art of converting caffeine into an executable. Coffee is part of the cost of doing business.
You might want to look at the math. If you, as an individual, drank $400 of coffee per year, that would lead to $80,000 of coffee per year covering over 200 employees. Or 100 employees who drink twice as much as you do. Or 50 employees who suffer severe shakes, headaches, and moments of telepathy. Or 25 employees who swim in tanks filled with the spice melange and wrap space-time so heighliner ships can reach their destinations. And that may be money well spent. Or 1 to 5 employees who were selling coffee to the other employees using company funds.
I hear that Chinese HR managers are 20 times cheaper too.
I can only assume, if they were really such awful human beings, that their real motivation was to ensure that none of the provided cutlery was sharp or stiff enough to stab them to death with.