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)."
Every job is different. Every career is different. Things ebb and flow. For a long time, IT workers were spoiled primadonna. Now they're just another cost center. Guess what, the economy is jacked up. Budget cuts have to happen. IT is a necessity, but so is efficiency, cost control, etc. Welcome to the real world you big f'ing crybabies.
The more you screw your employees, the more they will find ways to screw you. Turn off Gmail and Slashdot? Fine, I'll take a once-an-hour smoke break. Hack my 401k? I'll sit and stare at the ceiling. Bust by balls about travel costs? See if I don't have a "family thing" next time and can't go. People will take what they feel (rightly or wrongly) is their due, whether you give it to them or not.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Anywhere that would cut out coffee from the budget is quite frankly insane. It's a minuscule expense compared to the HR budget and improves productivity dramatically when people would otherwise be flagging (early mornings for night owls, afternoons for early birds).
The ability to provide free, legal performance enhancing drugs is one of the few negligible-cost productivity boost techniques available. You'd have to be both petty and highly incompetent as a manager to do away with it.
Yeah, we've gotta be more concerned about feeding that CEO machine...
Wait: we don't get pensions anymore. 401k contributions ARE our retirement plans. Cutting 401k is the same as saying "we care about you SO little, that we hope you die hungry and cold in your old age."
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Some company perks that I just don't want and will never use:
- I don't want a company celphone. I have my own phone, I don't want to have to keep track of business and private calls, I don't want my boss to get a list of all the calls I make in a month, and I don't want to have to carry around two phones. The company phone is lying in the closet, unused, the subscription fee is being paid for nothing.
- I don't want a company laptop. I don't need one for my work (customers *naturally* never allow machines on their network that they didn't provide themselves). For private use, it's useless. It does not have the specs I would have chosen for my own laptop, and I'm not free to modify it or change the software on it. It's been lying in the closet, unused. It's worse than useless, as I can't justify buying one for myself as long as I "have a perfectly ok laptop gathering dust in the closet".
- Company presentations preceeded by Paintball or Casino: please keep it serious and treat me like an adult. I don't come to the office to play games with colleagues, just give the presentation.
- Free coffee: I don't care. It's nice if it's there, but it's such a minor issue that if they want to save the shockingly huge amount of money that goes into rent and support of these machines, by all means do so, I'm not going to work less hard if I have to buy my own drinks.
Twenty years ago, companies jumped-up IT guys and made them "Web Masters" -- coders, server maintainers, content creators and (in their own minds) designers -- giving them six figure salaries. Every company, no matter how small, felt it needed to have a "server room" and maintain their e-mail service locally. The Marketing secretary always needed help figuring out how to print her boss's agenda out of Lotus Organizer.
Times changed.
Now, companies buy website templates for sixty bucks non-exclusive (three grand exclusive) and they're sitting in a server room at a place called Dreamhost or Hostgator. The content is maintained via a CMS run by the Marketing secretary. Employers and employees are using Gmail and other cloud-based e-mail systems because the lines between personal and work IT space have become so blurred. Nobody needs help printing anymore, because an entire generation has been raised on the Internet and personal computer systems.
People will take what they feel (rightly or wrongly) is their due, whether you give it to them or not.
And employers will replace them with 20-something go-getters with better attitudes and more up-to-date skills, and at half the salary.
IMHO, getting rid of free coffee is a huge mistake. In the scheme of things it's a tiny expense and you're going to lose far more in terms of people bickering about the coffee fund, people running out "on break" to buy coffee, and the basic office environment.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Back in the olden days of Computers...like 10 years ago...I was one of the many who was against unionization of IT workers. Now, having been badly treated by both small companies, and one of the largest single-digit level manufacturers of computers, I see that I was wrong. Today's 'sweatshops' are in computer assembly factories, and in call centers. They both use Skinner like systems with seemingly random rewards and punishments to keep people in line.
These days, digging ditches is a more profitable and satisfying job...fully unionized, with guaranteed vacation and benefits, and a grievance system that actually works!
ttyl ...note, I don't dig ditches.
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
My guess though is that if you're spending $80k per year on coffee, then it's for a hell of a lot of people, and that $80k expense (and a single job) IS tiny on that scale. If an $80k expenditure costs a job but improves morale of a few thousand employees enough to make up for it in productivity gains, then it's the right thing to do.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
A cow is a machine that converts grass to milk.
A programmer is a machine that converts coffee to code.
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I found a quick quote that claimed "the general rule of thumb for office coffee service pricing is $60 to $120 per employee per year." So he's talking about a business with at least 667 employees and probably close to 1000.
So, if the average employee is 0.1% more productive with free coffee getting rid of the free coffee was a bad business decision and the Cxx (COO, CFO, whatever) who made that decision should be beaten to death with his own intestines or fired.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
... is a mixture of pure unsupported assertations, and anecdotes pretending to be data. Any evidence to show that "strikes hurt employees more through lost wages than they gain in negotiations"? In fact, there's a lot of history that shows that unions did, in fact, make lives better for not only their own workers, but for everyone - and not only in the form of wages, but also in things like medical benefits and safe working conditions. For example: the five day work week - brought to you by the AFL-CIO.
Enough with the union bashing, already. Read a little history of the labor movement, and then see what you think.
Wow, what timing. This morning when our company announced that it was canceling the coffee service to save money, I immediately asked what that savings would be. $200 a month was the answer, for our location which employs roughly 130 people. I was floored. If our financial situation is that serious, maybe I need to start looking for another job?
- Long time lurker, first time commenter.