I mean..... You make $400,000 a year. The terms are obviously that there's free food at work, not, the company will buy you groceries / meals at home. How hard is it to only order protein...
I mean..... You make $400,000 a year.
The terms are obviously that there's free food at work, not, the company will buy you groceries / meals at home. How hard is it to only order protein repeatedly at work, eat your own cheap sides, and Tupperware the haul home each day?
These are the kind of rich people I'm used to working with. They make ridiculous amounts of money, but they're cheap as hell, and will argue pricing with you over every nickel. They don't seem to...
These are the kind of rich people I'm used to working with. They make ridiculous amounts of money, but they're cheap as hell, and will argue pricing with you over every nickel.
They don't seem to stop being turds until they're making over a couple million. Then something happens after millions and millions of dollars and they turn into scrooge mcducks again, but that's a longer conversation.
They also tend not to tip delivery drivers, appliance installers, or movers very well. They'll often tip heavily at a restaurant when showing off to those eating with them, but will also leave no...
They also tend not to tip delivery drivers, appliance installers, or movers very well. They'll often tip heavily at a restaurant when showing off to those eating with them, but will also leave no tip (or even skip out on the bill) if alone.
Lol, I got into this with a few friends that work in tech, who bought their homes in the bay area in cash, and have plenty of money. We went on a MTB trip up to Tahoe and stopped at a mom and pop...
Lol, I got into this with a few friends that work in tech, who bought their homes in the bay area in cash, and have plenty of money. We went on a MTB trip up to Tahoe and stopped at a mom and pop grocery store with a legendary food counter inside the small store. We all ordered sandwiches/drinks and I was putting it all on my card and we were going to figure it out after with venmo. When I went to add the tip (20%) my friend stuck his head in and said "Dude, this is self serve. Don't tip them!". Which kicked us into a big argument on how little they make, how small of an impact the tip has on him and how large of an impact it can have for them, and wage inequality. All away from the counter at least, but it was still pretty jarring. He was still bitter about paying tip at the end.
Idk, I still don’t think it makes any sense to tip for things like takeout or self serve, especially if it’s in area like California where there isn’t a separate tipped wage. If that’s being a...
Idk, I still don’t think it makes any sense to tip for things like takeout or self serve, especially if it’s in area like California where there isn’t a separate tipped wage.
If that’s being a miser, most of the world is miserly.
The problem is that it's no longer actually related to "this person did a job for you, possibly well, so you should tip them" but is instead "This person is hellishly underpaid, don't you feel...
The problem is that it's no longer actually related to "this person did a job for you, possibly well, so you should tip them" but is instead "This person is hellishly underpaid, don't you feel guilty enough to tip them because otherwise they might not make rent?"
So no, logically you are not tipping for any sane reason in relation to a service, it's basically just begging with extra steps because the whole system has been fucked up.
People look at me like I'm crazy when I suggest the minimum wage in SF should be $30/hr. I think with that and a ban on meaningless tips they'd be okay.
People look at me like I'm crazy when I suggest the minimum wage in SF should be $30/hr. I think with that and a ban on meaningless tips they'd be okay.
Depends on where and how. I don't think it's really that easy because California is several decades of stupid decisions down the rabbit hole of both trying to be pro worker, but also pro...
Depends on where and how. I don't think it's really that easy because California is several decades of stupid decisions down the rabbit hole of both trying to be pro worker, but also pro corporation/rich home owner. Their entire housing economy is just jacked in an absurd number of ways, and starting at any one point isn't really likely to fix it.
In your example, I honestly feel that if you just put out a $30 minimum wage and jacked up tips, you'd just see even higher rent.
SF is like the 9th circle of hell of NIMBYism. Its kind of amazing how so many factors have all come together in one place to make a uniquely god awful housing market.
SF is like the 9th circle of hell of NIMBYism. Its kind of amazing how so many factors have all come together in one place to make a uniquely god awful housing market.
That doesn't even apply in California, where this hypothetical is set, as there is no separate tipped wage. I don't think merely being a cashier would apply as a tipped position in states that do...
That doesn't even apply in California, where this hypothetical is set, as there is no separate tipped wage. I don't think merely being a cashier would apply as a tipped position in states that do have a separate on either.
Who said they are? I'm literally describing the actual process, not advocating for it. Rather than being a tip for a service provided, it's a moral appeal for a donation. Is your argument that...
Who said they are?
I'm literally describing the actual process, not advocating for it.
Rather than being a tip for a service provided, it's a moral appeal for a donation.
Is your argument that you'll never donate if it doesn't go to everyone who deserves it? Because fine, ok, but I don't really care either way? The whole system is fucked.
Edit- And by your logic, are you saying you should be tipping more? I've handed back of the house workers cash before because I know they get screwed and I know they did the work I was tipping for. Nothing's really stopping you in most cases.
I like the "if you have the means approach". When I was an undergraduate I got a work on a research project abroad. I was a typical broke college kid and at the end of the day when the team would...
I like the "if you have the means approach". When I was an undergraduate I got a work on a research project abroad. I was a typical broke college kid and at the end of the day when the team would go out for beers, one of the professors always comped my beers. He said "One day, you'll be making real money and then you can pass on the free beers to the people working with you". It completely changed my experience on the trip and cost him almost nothing in the grand scheme of things (the total tab for the field season was probably ~$300). I didn't have to pinch my pennies, I didn't have to bow out of participating. When you have almost no money it makes a big difference. I think of tipping the same. I worked a minimum wage job when I was younger and getting a good tip or bonus or whatever could change your day. And I was doing it when rent and COL was still reasonable!
I don't think it makes you a miser not to tip. But I would consider the impact your dollars could have in their pocket rather than yours if you are financially comfortable.
You can apply the same logic to any interaction. If you see someone who looks like they're having a rough time financially on the street, do you hand all of them a $20? If not, why does the act of...
You can apply the same logic to any interaction. If you see someone who looks like they're having a rough time financially on the street, do you hand all of them a $20?
If not, why does the act of processing your money make these people more worthy of your money than the sous-chef who made the food? Or the construction worker who built the restaurant? Do you tip less if the person looks well off and vice versa?
If it's wealth redistribution you're after, tipping for service is probably the worst possible way to do it.
America is one of the few places where tipping is the norm and it's worse off for it.
I personally don’t tip on self serve ever. But I do tip generously elsewhere. Rich Californians need to see tipping for the wealth redistribution that it is. Related: I once ate dinner with some...
I personally don’t tip on self serve ever. But I do tip generously elsewhere. Rich Californians need to see tipping for the wealth redistribution that it is.
Related: I once ate dinner with some rich bay area home owners. I already ate at home before because I was invited last minute. So I got around $20 worth of food. Everyone else spent $60-70. The guy that just bought a $2.2MM home and complained he was poor suggested we all split the bill evenly.
We have no idea how the tipping structure is actually passed to whom and how. Is it pooled? Does the owner skim it? Does back of kitchen staff just get paid less for some reason? Do only people...
We have no idea how the tipping structure is actually passed to whom and how. Is it pooled? Does the owner skim it? Does back of kitchen staff just get paid less for some reason? Do only people who give you food deserve said wealth distribution? It seems like donations would simply be more effective.
Honestly, in places without tipped wage, I think no tip should be the norm. The only justification for a baseline tip is that tipped roles have a lower minimum. But probably not a popular opinion in the states.
In California tips are "sole property of the employee or employees". I wouldn't think owners skim it often, and if they do I doubt they get away with it. The state is very pro worker, at least as...
In California tips are "sole property of the employee or employees". I wouldn't think owners skim it often, and if they do I doubt they get away with it. The state is very pro worker, at least as far as the US goes.
You would be wrong in that assumption from the anecdotal evidence i've seen. Both large corporations and small businesses still do plenty of shady shit with tips in cali.
You would be wrong in that assumption from the anecdotal evidence i've seen. Both large corporations and small businesses still do plenty of shady shit with tips in cali.
And outside of Cali the situation is far more dire. I've seen GMs go 'yoink' out of a shared tip jar like it was their own personal piggybank, not to mention the number of violators that don't...
And outside of Cali the situation is far more dire. I've seen GMs go 'yoink' out of a shared tip jar like it was their own personal piggybank, not to mention the number of violators that don't top-off to minimum wage.
Yikes. While I am a very frugal person, I don't think I have the thick skin to call out a coworker who tips handsomely along with my share. I would silently note it and get my own next time. That...
Yikes. While I am a very frugal person, I don't think I have the thick skin to call out a coworker who tips handsomely along with my share. I would silently note it and get my own next time. That being said I also don't tip self serve and I also hate the entire capitalist society that makes tipping our problem. It's like the idiotic cruise industry tipping scheme but for real life.
A long long time ago I once had a guy in a very nice house write a check for a pizza delivery. He had his young son answer the door, give me the check, and like two nickels and some pennies as a...
A long long time ago I once had a guy in a very nice house write a check for a pizza delivery. He had his young son answer the door, give me the check, and like two nickels and some pennies as a "tip".
Asshole wrote the check for less than the cost of the pizza, and the fucking tip didn't cover the difference, shorting me about 3 cents.
I didn't complain, or mention it to anyone at work.
...But from then on that asshole always got his pizza cold and as late as possible without going over the delivery time limit.
To paraphrase the "Bill Gates" character from a vintage "The Simposon's" episode On a serious note, I wonder if making $400K a year is all that much in Silicon Valley. Maybe at that level being...
To paraphrase the "Bill Gates" character from a vintage "The Simposon's" episode
I didn't get rich by writing checks.
On a serious note, I wonder if making $400K a year is all that much in Silicon Valley. Maybe at that level being cheap still makes a difference.
To be fair, like you, I have also met my share of people (who did not start off poor and struggling ) who make large amounts of money who are cheap to self-sabotaging degree.
$400K is a lot in Silicon Valley. If your spouse is also working you can comfortably buy one of those $1.5MM houses in the suburbs. That makes you rich IMO.
$400K is a lot in Silicon Valley. If your spouse is also working you can comfortably buy one of those $1.5MM houses in the suburbs. That makes you rich IMO.
I didn't realize a house was that "cheap" in the Silicon Valley area. My metropolitan area has old 1920s cracker box bungalows built for federal workers going for ~$1million dollars.
I didn't realize a house was that "cheap" in the Silicon Valley area. My metropolitan area has old 1920s cracker box bungalows built for federal workers going for ~$1million dollars.
The last few years have essentially brought much of the country into the reality Silicon Valley has been in. A friend that moved from Palo Alto to Florida says rents there aren’t much lower now so...
The last few years have essentially brought much of the country into the reality Silicon Valley has been in. A friend that moved from Palo Alto to Florida says rents there aren’t much lower now so he might as well move back.
No kidding, I was reading about the ultra wealthy building mansions atop skyscrapers, but the Bangalore white house skymansion is only valued at $20m. One of those won't even get you half of this...
No kidding, I was reading about the ultra wealthy building mansions atop skyscrapers, but the Bangalore white house skymansion is only valued at $20m. One of those won't even get you half of this Vancouver mansion.
“Silicon Valley” is a pretty spread out area. People think of some kind of techno-urban area, but it’s just suburbs. SF is the densest region in the area and it’s not even in Silicon Valley.
“Silicon Valley” is a pretty spread out area. People think of some kind of techno-urban area, but it’s just suburbs. SF is the densest region in the area and it’s not even in Silicon Valley.
Yeah, it's a bizzare place. A while back I looked up Apple's complex in Cupertino and it's bizzare to me that it's this gigantic circular building surrounded entirely by single family detatched...
Yeah, it's a bizzare place. A while back I looked up Apple's complex in Cupertino and it's bizzare to me that it's this gigantic circular building surrounded entirely by single family detatched houses with fairly big yards.
I always find this definition of rich weird. At the end of the day someone making 400k a year in California isn’t going to own multiple homes, have a yacht, fly first class, or any of those other...
I always find this definition of rich weird. At the end of the day someone making 400k a year in California isn’t going to own multiple homes, have a yacht, fly first class, or any of those other things.
If they’re lucky they can raise kids without going broke.
Cost of living vastly affects wealth, and while 400k in Silicon Valley is still very very nice, it’s really not far from basically living like The Simpsons.
Now granted I get that even being able to afford to have a house and a kid without massive worry is much more rare than it should be, but I feel like expanding rich to “people who can finally afford to live in their work area comfortably” gets weird.
They’re very upper percentiles of income. The middle class is now the rich. What remains of the middle class is in the 90-98th percentile range. In an apocalypse the rich man is the one who can...
They’re very upper percentiles of income. The middle class is now the rich. What remains of the middle class is in the 90-98th percentile range.
In an apocalypse the rich man is the one who can still access penicillin. In Silicon Valley it’s the man who can buy a single family home.
I just can't help that feel this framing winds up causing more harm than good. When someone says "yeah we need to tax the rich more", if this is your framework, you're saying we need to not just...
I just can't help that feel this framing winds up causing more harm than good. When someone says "yeah we need to tax the rich more", if this is your framework, you're saying we need to not just hit the people who own yachts, but also the people who are just finally comfortable in these kinds of cities.
I realize i'm getting into the weeds of this, but it's just a point where I've found the messaging people use to be self defeating because it makes a lot of people who probably have the same goal nervous. Countries have a history of claiming to tax the rich and mostly punching the middle class in the face.
I'm not calling for taxes on these people. We should go top down. I think we'd stop well short of mere bay area home owners before we made some real progress on social good.
I'm not calling for taxes on these people. We should go top down. I think we'd stop well short of mere bay area home owners before we made some real progress on social good.
Right, I don't think you are, but so often the conversation becomes "tax the rich", and then in other conversations it's "well yes they're rich", but there's a WORLD of difference between them and...
Right, I don't think you are, but so often the conversation becomes "tax the rich", and then in other conversations it's "well yes they're rich", but there's a WORLD of difference between them and those at the very top, or even inbetween.
When the government starts saying we'll tax the rich, well that's when low and behold we find loopholes that multimillion dollar lawyers and accountants will manage while small businesses and high paying but straightforward people get nuked with taxes.
Even if they're relatively breakeven after high cost of living, they can always pack it up and move to a different part of America and become wealthy with their savings. Most of the rest of...
Even if they're relatively breakeven after high cost of living, they can always pack it up and move to a different part of America and become wealthy with their savings. Most of the rest of America does not have the same power. I'm not shedding any tears for them nor would I fight efforts to tax them more. Living in the Bay is a choice.
There are many reasons this is just not true. These people exist, sure, but there's plenty of very real scenarios where "just leave" isn't much of an option, and certainly doesn't leave you "rich"...
There are many reasons this is just not true. These people exist, sure, but there's plenty of very real scenarios where "just leave" isn't much of an option, and certainly doesn't leave you "rich" when you move.
Conversations die if we're always considering outlier cases. The average person making $400K in the Bay Area is well off relative to the rest of America. Edit: "more well off enough and in more...
Conversations die if we're always considering outlier cases. The average person making $400K in the Bay Area is well off relative to the rest of America.
Edit: "more well off enough and in more than enough cases that they're way more well off" that I do not agree with the idea of considering their cost of living. Engineers that bought homes there can literally sell their homes in 30 years time and buy a beautiful home in Chicago and have another million left over. My parents could sell their home in Chicago and it would be a down payment in the Bay. That is the disparity.
The average person making $80,000 anywhere is well off relative to the rest of America, full stop. Doesn't mean they're the ones who people should be trying to kick in the teeth, nor that they're...
The average person making $80,000 anywhere is well off relative to the rest of America, full stop. Doesn't mean they're the ones who people should be trying to kick in the teeth, nor that they're the problem, nor are they living comfortably depending on the cost of living of the area they're in.
These aren't outlier cases. Just about everything you've said leads me to believe you know little to nothing about what the job market in the bay area, especially around these salaries, is like, and how very hard it can be to take those skills anywhere else. Further a LARGE % of those jobs come with obscene student debt which is a huge reason why these people are paid so much.
In 15-20 years when their debt it actually paid off yes they'll be sitting pretty, but again this assumption that salary tells the whole story is insane.
I work at a FAANG-like as an SWE. Take your assumptions elsewhere. I know this field intimately and I despise the Bay Area woe-is-me mentality. Should I ask for pity because my monthly income...
Just about everything you've said leads me to believe you know little to nothing about what the job market in the bay area, especially around these salaries, is like, and how very hard it can be to take those skills anywhere else.
I work at a FAANG-like as an SWE. Take your assumptions elsewhere. I know this field intimately and I despise the Bay Area woe-is-me mentality.
Should I ask for pity because my monthly income looks lower when I'm paying off my mortgage and doing a mega backdoor Roth? No, so why should people making 5x the US average household income deserve any pity because they're sticking their money into their mortgage?
EDIT: "intimately" might have been overselling it. I know it as well as anyone who works at FAANG and keeps an occasional eye on levels.fyi or HN or r/cscareerquestions.
$70/day for food on top of a $400,000/year salary is literally unfathomable for me. It sounds make-believe. For some perspective on where I’m coming from: during Teacher Appreciation Week last...
$70/day for food on top of a $400,000/year salary is literally unfathomable for me. It sounds make-believe.
For some perspective on where I’m coming from: during Teacher Appreciation Week last year, our “gifts”were coupons to a site that sells teacher supplies.
We got gifted discounts on the things we need for our jobs that we have to spend our own money on.
The things that we need to do our jobs.
That we have to spend our own money on.
Our “gift” was that we can now get those things slightly cheaper.
For Teacher Appreciation Week.
I’m not trying to make this a “woe is me” thing (I chose this career and knew what I was getting into). But, if you’re someone on this site who gets things like free meals or whatnot from your job, please appreciate those as the genuinely incredible perks that they are. Not everyone is so lucky.
Yeah that's criminal. I know so many teachers who have quit to homeschool their own kid and why not good for them. At some point as a society we have decided not to fund teachers, only school...
Yeah that's criminal. I know so many teachers who have quit to homeschool their own kid and why not good for them. At some point as a society we have decided not to fund teachers, only school district's and administers and business bullcrap and luxury condo builders, and we don't deserve teachers.
Edit: in case it wasn't clear, I am advocating for you to quit and go work in tech. You're a kind, intelligent person and you deserve more financially security than you're currently getting
As another teacher, I've settled on the fact that I would hate working as another cog in the corporate machine. I'd rather feel like I'm bringing a net good to society, my community, and the...
As another teacher, I've settled on the fact that I would hate working as another cog in the corporate machine. I'd rather feel like I'm bringing a net good to society, my community, and the future. I need this for my mental health.
Unfortunately, it's this exact feeling that helps keep teacher wages low.
I whisper that to myself pretty often as I try to choke down some of the bs that comes with the job, but lately I've been fantasizing about making 60k doing the most mundane meaningless shit for...
I whisper that to myself pretty often as I try to choke down some of the bs that comes with the job, but lately I've been fantasizing about making 60k doing the most mundane meaningless shit for some massive company. I work with society and, I dunno, I'm starting to think we're getting what we deserve. A couple of pointless meetings, a bunch of paperwork, maybe a podcast or livestream running for a good chunk of the day, not having to be 'on' all the time. It all sounds like a nice way to ride out what might be the final years of stability and prosperity.
But then as soon as I'm done imagining my exit interview, some little snot-nosed bastard will do something I just taught them or say something incredibly sweet/charming and pull me back in.
I feel like y'all are such amazing people that if you would only take a minimum wage 9-5 packing groceries, you'd be able to do some extremely amazing volunteering for your community in your new...
I feel like y'all are such amazing people that if you would only take a minimum wage 9-5 packing groceries, you'd be able to do some extremely amazing volunteering for your community in your new found spare time and reach so many more young people with your suddenly available petty cash.
Teaching is life sapping and I hate the helpless feeling of seeing our good and our best deal with burn out, depression, stress and poverty. You wouldn't let your best kids go this way.
The way I see it: Education is a fundamentally important function in developing children into good citizens and workers …but outcomes/payoffs aren’t seen for many years. Bad outcomes cost society...
The way I see it:
Education is a fundamentally important function in developing children into good citizens and workers
…but outcomes/payoffs aren’t seen for many years.
Bad outcomes cost society greatly.
It’s really hard to convince taxpayers to invest in a 12+ year payoff.
Police, firefighters, and sanitation workers are well-compensated because if they stop performing their work, the outcomes are immediate: the community would notice no one dealing with murders and robberies and house fires or the trash piling up in streets. Their unions have a lot of leverage over taxpayers.
But if teachers stopped teaching, the results would not be visible for years.
We got a sneak peek of this when COVID prevented teachers from teaching in their full capacity: we now have a generation of students that is significantly impaired in their development. Math and reading literacy took a hit.
I’m willing to bet $1,000 that as the current cohort matriculates, we’re going to see crime rates rise and labor participation rates fall.
A possible solution is to track children throughout their lives. Teachers then some % of students’ earnings when they enter the workforce.
Here in Canada, 71% of firefighters are volunteers. We stopped paying them a while back and we're literally watching this place burn to the ground. Health care workers (not administrators) aren't...
Here in Canada, 71% of firefighters are volunteers. We stopped paying them a while back and we're literally watching this place burn to the ground.
Health care workers (not administrators) aren't paid anything like good either unless they're private sector small practice owners.
Sanitation doesn't pay anything like good either.
The Police are a sort of military, an exception to the dismantling of civic structure, so their pay goes up year by year.
Education'll take a long time to collapse but it's happening. One of the visible sign is the brain drain: into other professions and also right out of the country.
Perhaps it's just Because I work for the state government and it's currently ethics test time but come on. This is why I have co-workers who don't understand why they're getting in trouble when...
Perhaps it's just Because I work for the state government and it's currently ethics test time but come on. This is why I have co-workers who don't understand why they're getting in trouble when they are actively looking for loopholes in policies that are designed to protect their benefits
My guess is that Facebook wanted to fire these people anyway and this was a great reason to dismiss them without paying severance. Basically: don't do things that allow your employer to fire you...
My guess is that Facebook wanted to fire these people anyway and this was a great reason to dismiss them without paying severance.
Basically: don't do things that allow your employer to fire you for free during a restructuring.
I really doubt it. A few dozen people is a grain of sand relative to Meta’s overall employee base. It wouldn’t even be worth the pay for the HR staff to gather evidence and pursue the cases. I...
I really doubt it. A few dozen people is a grain of sand relative to Meta’s overall employee base. It wouldn’t even be worth the pay for the HR staff to gather evidence and pursue the cases.
I think they just don’t want people embezzling money. If nothing else, it’s problematic tax-wise.
The article also states that these employees weren't fired for mis-spending a single $25 credit (which would be wild even in America, the land of at-will employment); rather, they were "deemed to...
The article also states that these employees weren't fired for mis-spending a single $25 credit (which would be wild even in America, the land of at-will employment); rather, they were "deemed to have abused the food credit system over a long period of time", including collaborating to e.g. pool credits. This was almost certainly obviously against policy, and IMO It's likely they'd gotten warnings about it already.
In a sense it's dumb, because it makes no difference to Facebook whether those credits are spent on food or sundries, but I can't blame companies that much for enforcing non-abusive policies. The timing corresponding with a reorg is suspicious, but companies this size both reorganize subunits and fire people absolutely constantly; a priori it's at least as likely to be coincidence as a malicious plot to deprive people of unemployment.
In my experience employers want to get rid of employees for lots of reasons (e.g. they are underperforming) and do their best to do so while limiting their legal liability.
In my experience employers want to get rid of employees for lots of reasons (e.g. they are underperforming) and do their best to do so while limiting their legal liability.
The issue is that it’s simply not worth the effort to concoct some of kind of plot just to not pay them severance you don’t have to pay them in the US anyway. It’s far cheaper to just pay them to...
The issue is that it’s simply not worth the effort to concoct some of kind of plot just to not pay them severance you don’t have to pay them in the US anyway. It’s far cheaper to just pay them to go away.
There is no legal liability to laying people off in the US. Everywhere is at will.
You can just lay then off, but I think the severance is more for hush money. e.g. When you accept severance, you generally accept a non-disparagement agreement and limit/remove your ability to sue...
You can just lay then off, but I think the severance is more for hush money.
e.g. When you accept severance, you generally accept a non-disparagement agreement and limit/remove your ability to sue the company for the layoff/firing. These pr/legal disasters of even 1% of these happen among layoffs is probably worth just CYA with some extra pay.
That 1% is probably a high estimate. but Given the compensation and knowledge of the workers I'm probably not that far off.
Yeah that's possible, but since they're already doing layoffs, I'm less convinced this is the key reason. I've gotten a meal plan benefit at my job before. We could absolutely use all of it, but...
Yeah that's possible, but since they're already doing layoffs, I'm less convinced this is the key reason.
I've gotten a meal plan benefit at my job before. We could absolutely use all of it, but the department paid per meal used. Using my meal plan to buy a take out meal for my friend every day would not have been ok (it wasn't a taxed benefit). I know it's wild for Meta to have ethics policies (/s), but buying toothpaste with your optional, monitored meal benefit is how you lose that benefit for everyone.
Which is some bullshit, and I am glad I am protected from that barring a long absence (though my boss and dept are chill and my partner being in the hospital was not an issue.) But yes, it turns...
Which is some bullshit, and I am glad I am protected from that barring a long absence (though my boss and dept are chill and my partner being in the hospital was not an issue.)
But yes, it turns into overreaching management or loss of the "perks" that try to compensate for the less fun parts of work
…is it? Do people think that Meta offices are the purge or something? Why? There’s a big difference between the nuanced and subjective discussion of their impact on society and “don’t embezzle money”.
I know it's wild for Meta to have ethics policies
…is it? Do people think that Meta offices are the purge or something? Why?
There’s a big difference between the nuanced and subjective discussion of their impact on society and “don’t embezzle money”.
I was being deeply sarcastic, I'll go mark that with a tone indicator. But no, I don't think it's the purge. I also don't think they're an ethical company, but I'm fairly certain they have...
I was being deeply sarcastic, I'll go mark that with a tone indicator.
But no, I don't think it's the purge. I also don't think they're an ethical company, but I'm fairly certain they have policies about the use of their benefits (or their computers, or their gym or basically anything)
There's also a difference between hiring minions who are willing to do awful things to outside "clients", vs minions who have proven they do awful things to the internal organization. The obvious...
There's also a difference between hiring minions who are willing to do awful things to outside "clients", vs minions who have proven they do awful things to the internal organization. The obvious point is that if you hire folks with inconsistent ethics you're going to get folks with inconsistent ethics, but the idea is that FB needs to occasionally make clear they do this nonsense "out there, not in here".
A lot of organisations still haven't figured this point out. They hire manipulative assholes that play customers like fiddles, assuming they'll never turn around and fleece the company? Whenever...
A lot of organisations still haven't figured this point out. They hire manipulative assholes that play customers like fiddles, assuming they'll never turn around and fleece the company? Whenever everyone is exclusively looking out for themselves, organizational cohesion will suffer.
I think it's also possible that meta assessed (correctly, in my opinion) that the kind of person who would steal - even something small like this - is not the kind of person you want working for...
I think it's also possible that meta assessed (correctly, in my opinion) that the kind of person who would steal - even something small like this - is not the kind of person you want working for your company.
Seems like a trust/ethics/judgment issue. A Microsoft intern got fired for raiding an office kitchen one evening. The office kitchens are stocked with free bottled/canned drinks and snacks for...
Seems like a trust/ethics/judgment issue.
A Microsoft intern got fired for raiding an office kitchen one evening. The office kitchens are stocked with free bottled/canned drinks and snacks for employees. The intern brought a suitcase and stuffed it.
It probably cost Microsoft like, what, $50 of drinks and snacks at wholesale prices? But it’s super dumb and annoying and indicative of just really bad overall judgment and jerkiness and untrustworthiness.
Wow. And I felt bad for taking a drink and a couple snacks to go after work. But loading up a suit case is the embezzlement red flag equivalent of psychopathic children hurting animals. Keep them...
Wow. And I felt bad for taking a drink and a couple snacks to go after work.
But loading up a suit case is the embezzlement red flag equivalent of psychopathic children hurting animals. Keep them around long enough and they’ll be stealing 10s of thousands.
TIL I'm deeply unethical, I guess. Fresh out of college, I worked for a company that provided all kinds of snacks at the office. Dinner, too, at a specific time (8PM). I had tens of thousands of...
TIL I'm deeply unethical, I guess.
Fresh out of college, I worked for a company that provided all kinds of snacks at the office. Dinner, too, at a specific time (8PM).
I had tens of thousands of dollars of student loans. Rent was not cheap. I worked long hours, and even came in on weekends pretty frequently to get out of my apartment (I know, but my social life wasn't in a good place and I was in a long distance relationship).
I ate pretty much every meal at the office. I took cup o noodles and snack bags home from the kitchen almost every night for dinner and snacks. I kept a snack stockpile in my desk. I took extra bread from breakfast to make myself sandwiches for lunch (with nut butters from the office, of course) -- the company didn't provide lunch, oddly.
And I would eat dinner at work pretty often. Sometimes I would go for a run in a nearby park, return to the office, eat dinner, then go back home.
Honestly, I don't think I was being unethical. I didn't hurt anyone. The company never even noticed the volume of snacks -- it was simply too large to care or track them. It helped me keep expenses low so I could focus on my anxiety-inducing student loans, kept me at the office (as I'm sure was the intention), where I put in extra hours of work, and made me grateful for the amenities provided by the company.
So I ask: was this immoral? I have a hard time imagining any employee can, short of embezzling or negligence, truly hurt a corporation. I would never take a ton of snacks from a coworker who offered a little, of course. But corporations aren't people. It's a little confusing to me how everyone in this thread seems to think taking advantage of a company amenity is such an awful thing to do.
Another scenario, to see if I'm truly deranged: on a recent work trip, I hadn't expensed anything for a couple of days. I did a grocery run a couple of days before, and didn't need anything for a while after. A bit later, I got dinner with my coworkers, and bought a round of drinks for everyone. Seeing as I hadn't spent any company money in over 48 hours, I expensed those drinks. Was that wrong, because the drinks weren't specifically for me?
Sorry for the length. This whole thread has me baffled, to be honest.
No, because everything you did is within the bounds of expectations for the company. Whatever company you worked for is more than happy that you ate all three meals at the office - that's part of...
No, because everything you did is within the bounds of expectations for the company. Whatever company you worked for is more than happy that you ate all three meals at the office - that's part of the point, after all. A snack or two a day is well within the social expectation that people took. The snacks are there to be consumed by employees, there's just a boundary.
Taking a suitcase of sodas back from the fridge? You don't see how that's very, very different from what you did? Or lying on reimbursements, like the OP? That's fraud and embezzlement. It's not even about the monetary cost, that kind of social transgression is just a huge red flag.
I see what you mean. Where it confuses me is when I literally lived off the office food: even if I was at the office a lot, surely I was eating way more than my fair share! And I had no problem,...
I see what you mean. Where it confuses me is when I literally lived off the office food: even if I was at the office a lot, surely I was eating way more than my fair share! And I had no problem, at the end of a snack-fueled workday, taking a snack and a drink home in my backpack.
I think it's the tone that's really confusing me. At the end of the day, I don't mind if a coworker who doesn't want a GrubHub dinner orders a bunch of laundry pods, then makes a sandwich (though I do understand the potential tax implications for the company, but I get the impression that for most reimbursement, GrubHub = food in some system if you aren't itemizing). I'm a bit surprised to see so many folks here sticking up for corporations because I honesly wouldn't care at all if I saw a coworker loading up a backpack with a certain snack they loved. I'd probably chuckle, open a bag for myself, and return to minding my own business at my own desk. Not my problem.
I don't actually care about a coworker doing that, I do care if that thing is going to make everyone lose the benefit (literally an issue in my previous job, "but technically" loopholes are not...
I don't actually care about a coworker doing that, I do care if that thing is going to make everyone lose the benefit (literally an issue in my previous job, "but technically" loopholes are not what the auditor wants to hear about) I'm not pro Meta here but it sounds to me like they got fired for misusing the benefit and/or ethical violations. And like, they have a huge number of perks on top of a high salary. I don't make anywhere near that much and I'm not in tech, I never will make that much (I'd have to be the president of a university basically or a football coach) I don't think the employee is a criminal monster, or immoral asshole, but I think it's weird to be shocked he and others had consequences. I don't see this as a company mistreating an employee or punishing someone struggling to feed themselves. Maybe I'm wrong, and this is some weird sour grapes, I do miss my meal plan, but I don't think I am?
Thanks for answering. You and others have cleared up my confusion considerably. I think we can all agree that it's the blatant abuse of the perk that's really bothering us. You should feel ashamed...
Thanks for answering. You and others have cleared up my confusion considerably. I think we can all agree that it's the blatant abuse of the perk that's really bothering us. You should feel ashamed of abusing a perk like that, especially because it risks losing the perk for everyone eventually. Most of us wouldn't notice or care if someone took one extra snack every coffee break, squirreled it away in a backpack, and nobody else was any wiser. But not trying to hide the behaviour at all, like the suitcase example, is a sign of poor judgment and potentially troubling social behaviour.
Tl;DR for company perks, user discretion is advised
No, I disagree. It's not that it's blatant abuse and a lack of discretion. It's the repeated abuse combined with the magnitude of it. Abuse being defined as using the spend outside the category...
No, I disagree. It's not that it's blatant abuse and a lack of discretion. It's the repeated abuse combined with the magnitude of it. Abuse being defined as using the spend outside the category that it was given for or the timeframe it was specified for.
I don't think anyone is sticking up for companies on this thread, or we are saying it's hurting the company. We're saying that some things are obviously over a cultural acceptable line. We don't...
I don't think anyone is sticking up for companies on this thread, or we are saying it's hurting the company. We're saying that some things are obviously over a cultural acceptable line.
We don't microwave fish in the lunch room even though we have a microwave and everyone nukes their food
We can cover our hands with company hand soap every wash and use half a roll to wipe and that's okay. Taking half the quantity home to use is not okay. The intention is use at work.
Drinking 50 sodas at work each day is terrible for you but fine ethically. Taking an extra one for the drive home is okay. Taking 10 sodas home is not. In this case the cultural acceptability gradient falls between 1-10 because the intention was sodas while working, and arguably there might be one last drink opened during the last second of work that you're carrying out.
Using 10000 staples for a work presentation is fine. Using 1 staples for your kid's essay is not okay even if you punched it at work.
Work things are for work. Work perks are for work. Anything extra is a grandient on cultural acceptability and open to reprimand
Your living off of work is fine because you ate the food at work. Carrying one out is fine but people absolutely notice. They may never say anything but that doesn't mean it's not noted even if everyone does it
Mostly agreed, except for the staples thing for the kid's report. Staples and even paper are so cheap and ubiquitious at the office, unless someone abuses their availability outrageously I just...
Mostly agreed, except for the staples thing for the kid's report. Staples and even paper are so cheap and ubiquitious at the office, unless someone abuses their availability outrageously I just don't care.
Back in the day, I didn't have a printer, so I would occasionally print things for personal use with company printers after hours. Nothing crazy long, but it was a lot easier than maintaining a personal printer in my cramped, expensive apartment. But I was also a bit ashamed to be doing so, and I always made sure not to print personal stuff until after everyone else went home; in my mind, my extra time was 'paying' for my borrowed resources. Like I mention in another thread: little things like this are fine if you're discreet about them, and only take advantage occasionally. But you should be careful not to cross that line too often.
The last half of your paragraph is exactly what I mean by even a single staple. Again I'm not here to throw stones. I've obviously printed stuff at work and stapled stuff at work that wasn't...
The last half of your paragraph is exactly what I mean by even a single staple.
Again I'm not here to throw stones. I've obviously printed stuff at work and stapled stuff at work that wasn't strictly speaking for work. There's even a sense of glee when I did it at a company that was practicing wage theft.
But the fact is that, if it's behaviour you wouldn't do in plain sight of everyone during your interview, you know it's not appropriate work behavior.
That one shouldn't feel bad about it, that work probably doesn't care, that everyone is doing it, and that maybe it's not legal to fire someone over, are all beside the point.
For a particular individual, it’s more of a “you reap what you sow” thing. Wouldn’t snitch, but I’m hardly going to feel sorry for the people knowingly committing fraud for no apparent need. And...
For a particular individual, it’s more of a “you reap what you sow” thing. Wouldn’t snitch, but I’m hardly going to feel sorry for the people knowingly committing fraud for no apparent need.
And if it’s systematic, it runs the risk of causing the whole perk to be removed or locked down.
I think for me it's unclear exactly what the rules were; if the company truly sold this as a perk to get dinner when you work late, it feels wrong to use it when you aren't actually working late....
I think for me it's unclear exactly what the rules were; if the company truly sold this as a perk to get dinner when you work late, it feels wrong to use it when you aren't actually working late. But they also need to define a specific time: is 6:30 late, for instance? 7? 8?
The GrubHub/Uber Eats part of it is much more annoying and makes me more sympathetic with the folks who were fired. Food on those platforms is super expensive. Employees who used the perk likely paid extra out of their own pockets even for very simple meals. Honestly, I'd rather get $15 of expensibility (with receipts) than $25 on those platforms. Maybe even $10. Especially if HR is clueless and constantly tells people about this great free GrubHub perk, that grates on you over time. At the very least, I hope the company policy made it vert clear what you could order, and what you couldn't (i know this seems obvious, but at tech companies, it isn't always). At the very least I hope HR gave out warnings at some point to remind people to only order food, and nothing else, even if it was food related like wine glasses.
Of course, if you work for Meta, you're enabling a cancerous, immoral company owned by a downright evil man for your own personal disgustingly bloated profits, all on the back of a product that claims to be 'social' but actually only exists to stir up controversies, lock people in political bubbles, and act as a middleman between friends and family. Accepting that job offer in the first place put the ethics of every one of these people in the bottom 5%.
Same energy as people who think sick days are just a kind of special vacation day that requires a lie in order to use.
“On days where I would not be eating at the office, like if my husband was cooking or if I was grabbing dinner with friends, I figured I ought not to waste the dinner credit.”
Same energy as people who think sick days are just a kind of special vacation day that requires a lie in order to use.
Sick days should just be plain ol days off anyway (it's not like we get official "vacation days" by most US laws). You can't control when you get sick, nor how bad the sickness is. And we're being...
Sick days should just be plain ol days off anyway (it's not like we get official "vacation days" by most US laws). You can't control when you get sick, nor how bad the sickness is. And we're being more and more aware of sicknesses that aren't just running phlegm everywhere and requires a doctor's note.
The food stipend... Idk, I'm mixed. It's a specific stipend for a reason, but the timing/office requirement is overly strict. What if you order lunch and bring it home? I'd just let it cover food period.
Also, $25 isn't covering anything but the cheapest Doordash in LA anyway if that's the intention.
I believe they have onsite food service for the regular business day, that's why it's a special after hours only credit. I don't think that's unreasonable but I've worked where food (and housing)...
I believe they have onsite food service for the regular business day, that's why it's a special after hours only credit.
I don't think that's unreasonable but I've worked where food (and housing) are provided and if you don't want to be taxed on those things they have to be for a business use. Like "I had to eat while at the office" rather than "food for later."
If they're taxable benefits then I wouldn't expect usage restrictions but your paycheck would get dinged with whatever % of $25 for each usage.
I see. I thought theses would be to compensate for cafeterials closing down. But that was knoweldge from the COVID era in 2022. Could easily be open again.
I see. I thought theses would be to compensate for cafeterials closing down. But that was knoweldge from the COVID era in 2022. Could easily be open again.
This one says there are credits for the other meals: https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/meta-fires-staff-who-abused-25-meal-vouchers-report This one says those credits are available at smaller...
One user wrote that more than 30 people were fired last week because they used the credits for "non-food items, shared credits with people, or went above budget".
Examples of the non-food items bought included toothpaste, toothbrushes and wine glasses.
Yeah, Meta isn't HQ'd in the LA area, so that makes sense that they are satellite offices. Going "over budget" in LA for $25/day when it sounds like this is used for doordash is absolutely crazy...
Yeah, Meta isn't HQ'd in the LA area, so that makes sense that they are satellite offices.
Going "over budget" in LA for $25/day when it sounds like this is used for doordash is absolutely crazy though. I can try to order a single burger from McDonalds and I can nearly hit $20 with all the crazy fees being added these days. Pretty much loses the point of these lunch stipends typically being used to keep you inside the office.
Considering how many versions of the story there are I'm not going to assume I know their policy correctly at this point. I don't doordash basically ever because it's cashy and don't know if the...
Considering how many versions of the story there are I'm not going to assume I know their policy correctly at this point. I don't doordash basically ever because it's cashy and don't know if the credit also covers the delivery fees or if it's basically designed to cover that fee but you're paying the cost of the food. Ordering delivery at those prices daily is wild.
Agreed on the "over budget" thing. Does that mean they couldn't pay the extra out of pocket? Toothbrushes and toothpaste don't seem too crazy to me, either -- if I'm working late and I order...
Agreed on the "over budget" thing. Does that mean they couldn't pay the extra out of pocket? Toothbrushes and toothpaste don't seem too crazy to me, either -- if I'm working late and I order something that's going to get stuck in my teeth, why not also be able to order a toothbrush to the office so I can keep working?
I give a specific number of vacation days, and unlimited paid sick days. I think it’s abusive to simply start taking paid days off for no reason but some people just see employment as a game where...
I give a specific number of vacation days, and unlimited paid sick days. I think it’s abusive to simply start taking paid days off for no reason but some people just see employment as a game where their objective is to extract as much money from a company as they can while doing the bare minimum to avoid getting fired.
Given the modern attitude of companies, I can't blame you. They've proven that being good at your job doesn't guarantee job security. Doesn't even guarantee getting a inflation based raise....
some people just see employment as a game where their objective is to extract as much money from a company as they can while doing the bare minimum to avoid getting fired.
Given the modern attitude of companies, I can't blame you. They've proven that being good at your job doesn't guarantee job security. Doesn't even guarantee getting a inflation based raise.
Doesn't excuse abusing company benefits, but we've pretty much lost all reasons to not "work the bare minimum" over the last 20 years. We get laid off/fired in the end anyway.
I’m curious what the communication was on having meals delivered home if you weren’t coming into the office. I’ve worked for a remote company before where we would be given credits to order food...
I’m curious what the communication was on having meals delivered home if you weren’t coming into the office. I’ve worked for a remote company before where we would be given credits to order food delivery to our homes. If you’re working in the office 2 or 3 days a week I could understand if you thought the credits were for every weekday regardless of where you were working.
But I am supportive of firing people for expense fraud. It’s completely fair in the case of people ordering cleaning supplies etc.
It seemed like it was specifically for meals when "in office after 6pm" because their onsite food services were closed at that point. I read a different article though so it may not have been in...
It seemed like it was specifically for meals when "in office after 6pm" because their onsite food services were closed at that point. I read a different article though so it may not have been in this one or the one I read was wrong.
In several European countries - at least Belgium and France that I know of -, we have "chèque-repas" or "tickets restaurant" ("meal vouchers" basically), that have a legal framework around them. I...
In several European countries - at least Belgium and France that I know of -, we have "chèque-repas" or "tickets restaurant" ("meal vouchers" basically), that have a legal framework around them. I have a special card that is topped up every month with the equivalent of x€ for each day I work, and I can use this card to buy lunch or groceries in most shops and many restaurants. I think it's even more restricted in France, you can only buy lunch in a radius of a few kilometers around your place of employment. It's designed to help local businesses.
Anyway, my point is since there's a legal framework, it only works for food. I think that can be a bit abused, but the blame would be definitely put on the seller, not the customer.
OMG I stole money and they fired me for it, it's so surreal! 😱 😂🤣 I can't tell if they're that dumb or surprised they got fired when they were caught, maybe thinking they were too important to...
admitted to the oversight when human resources investigated the practice, before later being unexpectedly fired. “It was almost surreal that this was happening,”
OMG I stole money and they fired me for it, it's so surreal! 😱 😂🤣 I can't tell if they're that dumb or surprised they got fired when they were caught, maybe thinking they were too important to fire.
Good on Meta though, don't see me saying that often. Meta could have just taken away the credits and been done with it. It's the bastards that abuse such things that can potentially ruin it for everyone else.
I'm surprised Meta allowed them to use the credits on non-food stuff long enough to get to this point, makes me wonder what the "credits" are. Are each given a gift card that they drop the credits in daily and then don't think to get receipts for this stuff? Maybe they saw it, but let it pass because their contribution to the company was worth overlooking it.. until they needed to downsize. Who better to fire first than employees who steal from you? It'd save them a ton on severance packages.
I think it's essentially a doordash gift card they can use. I'm sure it's tracked but probably someone didn't think to check what was being purchased or where it was being delivered initially.
I think it's essentially a doordash gift card they can use. I'm sure it's tracked but probably someone didn't think to check what was being purchased or where it was being delivered initially.
I'm not exactly rooting for them over this if this was just a petty firing excuse over some ethical upheaval and/or HR trying to justify not being laid off next. I'd even wager their "best...
I'm not exactly rooting for them over this if this was just a petty firing excuse over some ethical upheaval and/or HR trying to justify not being laid off next. I'd even wager their "best workers" are still getting away with it.
My bet is this is their business operations/management/budget/internal audit office making a fuss. If it's a non-taxable benefit you can't use it outside its designated purpose. If it's taxable...
My bet is this is their business operations/management/budget/internal audit office making a fuss. If it's a non-taxable benefit you can't use it outside its designated purpose. If it's taxable and thus yours to use as you like, then you pay based on what you spend/receive in that benefit.
Free work shirt I can wear wherever, taxable
Free uniform shirt I have to wear to work and am not supposed to wear elsewhere? Non-taxable. Same vibes with this. I don't their big guys get to abuse this, they might get a different benefit instead I suppose.
I mean..... You make $400,000 a year.
The terms are obviously that there's free food at work, not, the company will buy you groceries / meals at home. How hard is it to only order protein repeatedly at work, eat your own cheap sides, and Tupperware the haul home each day?
These are the kind of rich people I'm used to working with. They make ridiculous amounts of money, but they're cheap as hell, and will argue pricing with you over every nickel.
They don't seem to stop being turds until they're making over a couple million. Then something happens after millions and millions of dollars and they turn into scrooge mcducks again, but that's a longer conversation.
They also tend not to tip delivery drivers, appliance installers, or movers very well. They'll often tip heavily at a restaurant when showing off to those eating with them, but will also leave no tip (or even skip out on the bill) if alone.
Lol, I got into this with a few friends that work in tech, who bought their homes in the bay area in cash, and have plenty of money. We went on a MTB trip up to Tahoe and stopped at a mom and pop grocery store with a legendary food counter inside the small store. We all ordered sandwiches/drinks and I was putting it all on my card and we were going to figure it out after with venmo. When I went to add the tip (20%) my friend stuck his head in and said "Dude, this is self serve. Don't tip them!". Which kicked us into a big argument on how little they make, how small of an impact the tip has on him and how large of an impact it can have for them, and wage inequality. All away from the counter at least, but it was still pretty jarring. He was still bitter about paying tip at the end.
Idk, I still don’t think it makes any sense to tip for things like takeout or self serve, especially if it’s in area like California where there isn’t a separate tipped wage.
If that’s being a miser, most of the world is miserly.
The problem is that it's no longer actually related to "this person did a job for you, possibly well, so you should tip them" but is instead "This person is hellishly underpaid, don't you feel guilty enough to tip them because otherwise they might not make rent?"
So no, logically you are not tipping for any sane reason in relation to a service, it's basically just begging with extra steps because the whole system has been fucked up.
People look at me like I'm crazy when I suggest the minimum wage in SF should be $30/hr. I think with that and a ban on meaningless tips they'd be okay.
Depends on where and how. I don't think it's really that easy because California is several decades of stupid decisions down the rabbit hole of both trying to be pro worker, but also pro corporation/rich home owner. Their entire housing economy is just jacked in an absurd number of ways, and starting at any one point isn't really likely to fix it.
In your example, I honestly feel that if you just put out a $30 minimum wage and jacked up tips, you'd just see even higher rent.
Well yes. We also need to add a fucking shitload of rental units to the city. Like 50,000 right now (for a city of 800,000). Maybe more.
SF is like the 9th circle of hell of NIMBYism. Its kind of amazing how so many factors have all come together in one place to make a uniquely god awful housing market.
I would expect Palo Alto would beat SF in a head-to-head NIMBY-off.
That doesn't even apply in California, where this hypothetical is set, as there is no separate tipped wage. I don't think merely being a cashier would apply as a tipped position in states that do have a separate on either.
I'm aware there's no separate tipped wage in California. People are still very much underpaid. Including tipped positions.
And so why is the cashier more deserving of the donation than the back of kitchen?
Who said they are?
I'm literally describing the actual process, not advocating for it.
Rather than being a tip for a service provided, it's a moral appeal for a donation.
Is your argument that you'll never donate if it doesn't go to everyone who deserves it? Because fine, ok, but I don't really care either way? The whole system is fucked.
Edit- And by your logic, are you saying you should be tipping more? I've handed back of the house workers cash before because I know they get screwed and I know they did the work I was tipping for. Nothing's really stopping you in most cases.
I like the "if you have the means approach". When I was an undergraduate I got a work on a research project abroad. I was a typical broke college kid and at the end of the day when the team would go out for beers, one of the professors always comped my beers. He said "One day, you'll be making real money and then you can pass on the free beers to the people working with you". It completely changed my experience on the trip and cost him almost nothing in the grand scheme of things (the total tab for the field season was probably ~$300). I didn't have to pinch my pennies, I didn't have to bow out of participating. When you have almost no money it makes a big difference. I think of tipping the same. I worked a minimum wage job when I was younger and getting a good tip or bonus or whatever could change your day. And I was doing it when rent and COL was still reasonable!
I don't think it makes you a miser not to tip. But I would consider the impact your dollars could have in their pocket rather than yours if you are financially comfortable.
You can apply the same logic to any interaction. If you see someone who looks like they're having a rough time financially on the street, do you hand all of them a $20?
If not, why does the act of processing your money make these people more worthy of your money than the sous-chef who made the food? Or the construction worker who built the restaurant? Do you tip less if the person looks well off and vice versa?
If it's wealth redistribution you're after, tipping for service is probably the worst possible way to do it.
America is one of the few places where tipping is the norm and it's worse off for it.
I personally don’t tip on self serve ever. But I do tip generously elsewhere. Rich Californians need to see tipping for the wealth redistribution that it is.
Related: I once ate dinner with some rich bay area home owners. I already ate at home before because I was invited last minute. So I got around $20 worth of food. Everyone else spent $60-70. The guy that just bought a $2.2MM home and complained he was poor suggested we all split the bill evenly.
We have no idea how the tipping structure is actually passed to whom and how. Is it pooled? Does the owner skim it? Does back of kitchen staff just get paid less for some reason? Do only people who give you food deserve said wealth distribution? It seems like donations would simply be more effective.
Honestly, in places without tipped wage, I think no tip should be the norm. The only justification for a baseline tip is that tipped roles have a lower minimum. But probably not a popular opinion in the states.
In California tips are "sole property of the employee or employees". I wouldn't think owners skim it often, and if they do I doubt they get away with it. The state is very pro worker, at least as far as the US goes.
You would be wrong in that assumption from the anecdotal evidence i've seen. Both large corporations and small businesses still do plenty of shady shit with tips in cali.
And outside of Cali the situation is far more dire. I've seen GMs go 'yoink' out of a shared tip jar like it was their own personal piggybank, not to mention the number of violators that don't top-off to minimum wage.
Yikes. While I am a very frugal person, I don't think I have the thick skin to call out a coworker who tips handsomely along with my share. I would silently note it and get my own next time. That being said I also don't tip self serve and I also hate the entire capitalist society that makes tipping our problem. It's like the idiotic cruise industry tipping scheme but for real life.
A long long time ago I once had a guy in a very nice house write a check for a pizza delivery. He had his young son answer the door, give me the check, and like two nickels and some pennies as a "tip".
Asshole wrote the check for less than the cost of the pizza, and the fucking tip didn't cover the difference, shorting me about 3 cents.
I didn't complain, or mention it to anyone at work.
...But from then on that asshole always got his pizza cold and as late as possible without going over the delivery time limit.
To paraphrase the "Bill Gates" character from a vintage "The Simposon's" episode
On a serious note, I wonder if making $400K a year is all that much in Silicon Valley. Maybe at that level being cheap still makes a difference.
To be fair, like you, I have also met my share of people (who did not start off poor and struggling ) who make large amounts of money who are cheap to self-sabotaging degree.
$400K is a lot in Silicon Valley. If your spouse is also working you can comfortably buy one of those $1.5MM houses in the suburbs. That makes you rich IMO.
I didn't realize a house was that "cheap" in the Silicon Valley area. My metropolitan area has old 1920s cracker box bungalows built for federal workers going for ~$1million dollars.
The last few years have essentially brought much of the country into the reality Silicon Valley has been in. A friend that moved from Palo Alto to Florida says rents there aren’t much lower now so he might as well move back.
No kidding, I was reading about the ultra wealthy building mansions atop skyscrapers, but the Bangalore white house skymansion is only valued at $20m. One of those won't even get you half of this Vancouver mansion.
“Silicon Valley” is a pretty spread out area. People think of some kind of techno-urban area, but it’s just suburbs. SF is the densest region in the area and it’s not even in Silicon Valley.
Yeah, it's a bizzare place. A while back I looked up Apple's complex in Cupertino and it's bizzare to me that it's this gigantic circular building surrounded entirely by single family detatched houses with fairly big yards.
I always find this definition of rich weird. At the end of the day someone making 400k a year in California isn’t going to own multiple homes, have a yacht, fly first class, or any of those other things.
If they’re lucky they can raise kids without going broke.
Cost of living vastly affects wealth, and while 400k in Silicon Valley is still very very nice, it’s really not far from basically living like The Simpsons.
Now granted I get that even being able to afford to have a house and a kid without massive worry is much more rare than it should be, but I feel like expanding rich to “people who can finally afford to live in their work area comfortably” gets weird.
They’re very upper percentiles of income. The middle class is now the rich. What remains of the middle class is in the 90-98th percentile range.
In an apocalypse the rich man is the one who can still access penicillin. In Silicon Valley it’s the man who can buy a single family home.
I just can't help that feel this framing winds up causing more harm than good. When someone says "yeah we need to tax the rich more", if this is your framework, you're saying we need to not just hit the people who own yachts, but also the people who are just finally comfortable in these kinds of cities.
I realize i'm getting into the weeds of this, but it's just a point where I've found the messaging people use to be self defeating because it makes a lot of people who probably have the same goal nervous. Countries have a history of claiming to tax the rich and mostly punching the middle class in the face.
I'm not calling for taxes on these people. We should go top down. I think we'd stop well short of mere bay area home owners before we made some real progress on social good.
Right, I don't think you are, but so often the conversation becomes "tax the rich", and then in other conversations it's "well yes they're rich", but there's a WORLD of difference between them and those at the very top, or even inbetween.
When the government starts saying we'll tax the rich, well that's when low and behold we find loopholes that multimillion dollar lawyers and accountants will manage while small businesses and high paying but straightforward people get nuked with taxes.
These days I wonder if we are all living in Metropolis.
Even if they're relatively breakeven after high cost of living, they can always pack it up and move to a different part of America and become wealthy with their savings. Most of the rest of America does not have the same power. I'm not shedding any tears for them nor would I fight efforts to tax them more. Living in the Bay is a choice.
There are many reasons this is just not true. These people exist, sure, but there's plenty of very real scenarios where "just leave" isn't much of an option, and certainly doesn't leave you "rich" when you move.
Conversations die if we're always considering outlier cases. The average person making $400K in the Bay Area is well off relative to the rest of America.
Edit: "more well off enough and in more than enough cases that they're way more well off" that I do not agree with the idea of considering their cost of living. Engineers that bought homes there can literally sell their homes in 30 years time and buy a beautiful home in Chicago and have another million left over. My parents could sell their home in Chicago and it would be a down payment in the Bay. That is the disparity.
The average person making $80,000 anywhere is well off relative to the rest of America, full stop. Doesn't mean they're the ones who people should be trying to kick in the teeth, nor that they're the problem, nor are they living comfortably depending on the cost of living of the area they're in.
These aren't outlier cases. Just about everything you've said leads me to believe you know little to nothing about what the job market in the bay area, especially around these salaries, is like, and how very hard it can be to take those skills anywhere else. Further a LARGE % of those jobs come with obscene student debt which is a huge reason why these people are paid so much.
In 15-20 years when their debt it actually paid off yes they'll be sitting pretty, but again this assumption that salary tells the whole story is insane.
I work at a FAANG-like as an SWE. Take your assumptions elsewhere. I know this field intimately and I despise the Bay Area woe-is-me mentality.
Should I ask for pity because my monthly income looks lower when I'm paying off my mortgage and doing a mega backdoor Roth? No, so why should people making 5x the US average household income deserve any pity because they're sticking their money into their mortgage?
EDIT: "intimately" might have been overselling it. I know it as well as anyone who works at FAANG and keeps an occasional eye on levels.fyi or HN or r/cscareerquestions.
$70/day for food on top of a $400,000/year salary is literally unfathomable for me. It sounds make-believe.
For some perspective on where I’m coming from: during Teacher Appreciation Week last year, our “gifts”were coupons to a site that sells teacher supplies.
We got gifted discounts on the things we need for our jobs that we have to spend our own money on.
The things that we need to do our jobs.
That we have to spend our own money on.
Our “gift” was that we can now get those things slightly cheaper.
For Teacher Appreciation Week.
I’m not trying to make this a “woe is me” thing (I chose this career and knew what I was getting into). But, if you’re someone on this site who gets things like free meals or whatnot from your job, please appreciate those as the genuinely incredible perks that they are. Not everyone is so lucky.
What’s worse is some of these people complain they’re underpaid.
Yeah that's criminal. I know so many teachers who have quit to homeschool their own kid and why not good for them. At some point as a society we have decided not to fund teachers, only school district's and administers and business bullcrap and luxury condo builders, and we don't deserve teachers.
Edit: in case it wasn't clear, I am advocating for you to quit and go work in tech. You're a kind, intelligent person and you deserve more financially security than you're currently getting
As another teacher, I've settled on the fact that I would hate working as another cog in the corporate machine. I'd rather feel like I'm bringing a net good to society, my community, and the future. I need this for my mental health.
Unfortunately, it's this exact feeling that helps keep teacher wages low.
I whisper that to myself pretty often as I try to choke down some of the bs that comes with the job, but lately I've been fantasizing about making 60k doing the most mundane meaningless shit for some massive company. I work with society and, I dunno, I'm starting to think we're getting what we deserve. A couple of pointless meetings, a bunch of paperwork, maybe a podcast or livestream running for a good chunk of the day, not having to be 'on' all the time. It all sounds like a nice way to ride out what might be the final years of stability and prosperity.
But then as soon as I'm done imagining my exit interview, some little snot-nosed bastard will do something I just taught them or say something incredibly sweet/charming and pull me back in.
I feel like y'all are such amazing people that if you would only take a minimum wage 9-5 packing groceries, you'd be able to do some extremely amazing volunteering for your community in your new found spare time and reach so many more young people with your suddenly available petty cash.
Teaching is life sapping and I hate the helpless feeling of seeing our good and our best deal with burn out, depression, stress and poverty. You wouldn't let your best kids go this way.
The way I see it:
Police, firefighters, and sanitation workers are well-compensated because if they stop performing their work, the outcomes are immediate: the community would notice no one dealing with murders and robberies and house fires or the trash piling up in streets. Their unions have a lot of leverage over taxpayers.
But if teachers stopped teaching, the results would not be visible for years.
We got a sneak peek of this when COVID prevented teachers from teaching in their full capacity: we now have a generation of students that is significantly impaired in their development. Math and reading literacy took a hit.
I’m willing to bet $1,000 that as the current cohort matriculates, we’re going to see crime rates rise and labor participation rates fall.
A possible solution is to track children throughout their lives. Teachers then some % of students’ earnings when they enter the workforce.
Here in Canada, 71% of firefighters are volunteers. We stopped paying them a while back and we're literally watching this place burn to the ground.
Health care workers (not administrators) aren't paid anything like good either unless they're private sector small practice owners.
Sanitation doesn't pay anything like good either.
The Police are a sort of military, an exception to the dismantling of civic structure, so their pay goes up year by year.
Education'll take a long time to collapse but it's happening. One of the visible sign is the brain drain: into other professions and also right out of the country.
Perhaps it's just Because I work for the state government and it's currently ethics test time but come on. This is why I have co-workers who don't understand why they're getting in trouble when they are actively looking for loopholes in policies that are designed to protect their benefits
My guess is that Facebook wanted to fire these people anyway and this was a great reason to dismiss them without paying severance.
Basically: don't do things that allow your employer to fire you for free during a restructuring.
I really doubt it. A few dozen people is a grain of sand relative to Meta’s overall employee base. It wouldn’t even be worth the pay for the HR staff to gather evidence and pursue the cases.
I think they just don’t want people embezzling money. If nothing else, it’s problematic tax-wise.
The article also states that these employees weren't fired for mis-spending a single $25 credit (which would be wild even in America, the land of at-will employment); rather, they were "deemed to have abused the food credit system over a long period of time", including collaborating to e.g. pool credits. This was almost certainly obviously against policy, and IMO It's likely they'd gotten warnings about it already.
In a sense it's dumb, because it makes no difference to Facebook whether those credits are spent on food or sundries, but I can't blame companies that much for enforcing non-abusive policies. The timing corresponding with a reorg is suspicious, but companies this size both reorganize subunits and fire people absolutely constantly; a priori it's at least as likely to be coincidence as a malicious plot to deprive people of unemployment.
In my experience employers want to get rid of employees for lots of reasons (e.g. they are underperforming) and do their best to do so while limiting their legal liability.
The issue is that it’s simply not worth the effort to concoct some of kind of plot just to not pay them severance you don’t have to pay them in the US anyway. It’s far cheaper to just pay them to go away.
There is no legal liability to laying people off in the US. Everywhere is at will.
In my experience if you want to dismiss someone the general strategy is to go find some infraction they've committed and then remove them for that.
You can just lay then off, but I think the severance is more for hush money.
e.g. When you accept severance, you generally accept a non-disparagement agreement and limit/remove your ability to sue the company for the layoff/firing. These pr/legal disasters of even 1% of these happen among layoffs is probably worth just CYA with some extra pay.
That 1% is probably a high estimate. but Given the compensation and knowledge of the workers I'm probably not that far off.
Yeah that's possible, but since they're already doing layoffs, I'm less convinced this is the key reason.
I've gotten a meal plan benefit at my job before. We could absolutely use all of it, but the department paid per meal used. Using my meal plan to buy a take out meal for my friend every day would not have been ok (it wasn't a taxed benefit). I know it's wild for Meta to have ethics policies (/s), but buying toothpaste with your optional, monitored meal benefit is how you lose that benefit for everyone.
This is also how we get irritating policies like requiring doctor’s notes for sick days.
Which is some bullshit, and I am glad I am protected from that barring a long absence (though my boss and dept are chill and my partner being in the hospital was not an issue.)
But yes, it turns into overreaching management or loss of the "perks" that try to compensate for the less fun parts of work
…is it? Do people think that Meta offices are the purge or something? Why?
There’s a big difference between the nuanced and subjective discussion of their impact on society and “don’t embezzle money”.
I was being deeply sarcastic, I'll go mark that with a tone indicator.
But no, I don't think it's the purge. I also don't think they're an ethical company, but I'm fairly certain they have policies about the use of their benefits (or their computers, or their gym or basically anything)
There's also a difference between hiring minions who are willing to do awful things to outside "clients", vs minions who have proven they do awful things to the internal organization. The obvious point is that if you hire folks with inconsistent ethics you're going to get folks with inconsistent ethics, but the idea is that FB needs to occasionally make clear they do this nonsense "out there, not in here".
A lot of organisations still haven't figured this point out. They hire manipulative assholes that play customers like fiddles, assuming they'll never turn around and fleece the company? Whenever everyone is exclusively looking out for themselves, organizational cohesion will suffer.
I think it's also possible that meta assessed (correctly, in my opinion) that the kind of person who would steal - even something small like this - is not the kind of person you want working for your company.
Seems like a trust/ethics/judgment issue.
A Microsoft intern got fired for raiding an office kitchen one evening. The office kitchens are stocked with free bottled/canned drinks and snacks for employees. The intern brought a suitcase and stuffed it.
It probably cost Microsoft like, what, $50 of drinks and snacks at wholesale prices? But it’s super dumb and annoying and indicative of just really bad overall judgment and jerkiness and untrustworthiness.
Wow. And I felt bad for taking a drink and a couple snacks to go after work.
But loading up a suit case is the embezzlement red flag equivalent of psychopathic children hurting animals. Keep them around long enough and they’ll be stealing 10s of thousands.
TIL I'm deeply unethical, I guess.
Fresh out of college, I worked for a company that provided all kinds of snacks at the office. Dinner, too, at a specific time (8PM).
I had tens of thousands of dollars of student loans. Rent was not cheap. I worked long hours, and even came in on weekends pretty frequently to get out of my apartment (I know, but my social life wasn't in a good place and I was in a long distance relationship).
I ate pretty much every meal at the office. I took cup o noodles and snack bags home from the kitchen almost every night for dinner and snacks. I kept a snack stockpile in my desk. I took extra bread from breakfast to make myself sandwiches for lunch (with nut butters from the office, of course) -- the company didn't provide lunch, oddly.
And I would eat dinner at work pretty often. Sometimes I would go for a run in a nearby park, return to the office, eat dinner, then go back home.
Honestly, I don't think I was being unethical. I didn't hurt anyone. The company never even noticed the volume of snacks -- it was simply too large to care or track them. It helped me keep expenses low so I could focus on my anxiety-inducing student loans, kept me at the office (as I'm sure was the intention), where I put in extra hours of work, and made me grateful for the amenities provided by the company.
So I ask: was this immoral? I have a hard time imagining any employee can, short of embezzling or negligence, truly hurt a corporation. I would never take a ton of snacks from a coworker who offered a little, of course. But corporations aren't people. It's a little confusing to me how everyone in this thread seems to think taking advantage of a company amenity is such an awful thing to do.
Another scenario, to see if I'm truly deranged: on a recent work trip, I hadn't expensed anything for a couple of days. I did a grocery run a couple of days before, and didn't need anything for a while after. A bit later, I got dinner with my coworkers, and bought a round of drinks for everyone. Seeing as I hadn't spent any company money in over 48 hours, I expensed those drinks. Was that wrong, because the drinks weren't specifically for me?
Sorry for the length. This whole thread has me baffled, to be honest.
No, because everything you did is within the bounds of expectations for the company. Whatever company you worked for is more than happy that you ate all three meals at the office - that's part of the point, after all. A snack or two a day is well within the social expectation that people took. The snacks are there to be consumed by employees, there's just a boundary.
Taking a suitcase of sodas back from the fridge? You don't see how that's very, very different from what you did? Or lying on reimbursements, like the OP? That's fraud and embezzlement. It's not even about the monetary cost, that kind of social transgression is just a huge red flag.
I see what you mean. Where it confuses me is when I literally lived off the office food: even if I was at the office a lot, surely I was eating way more than my fair share! And I had no problem, at the end of a snack-fueled workday, taking a snack and a drink home in my backpack.
I think it's the tone that's really confusing me. At the end of the day, I don't mind if a coworker who doesn't want a GrubHub dinner orders a bunch of laundry pods, then makes a sandwich (though I do understand the potential tax implications for the company, but I get the impression that for most reimbursement, GrubHub = food in some system if you aren't itemizing). I'm a bit surprised to see so many folks here sticking up for corporations because I honesly wouldn't care at all if I saw a coworker loading up a backpack with a certain snack they loved. I'd probably chuckle, open a bag for myself, and return to minding my own business at my own desk. Not my problem.
I don't actually care about a coworker doing that, I do care if that thing is going to make everyone lose the benefit (literally an issue in my previous job, "but technically" loopholes are not what the auditor wants to hear about) I'm not pro Meta here but it sounds to me like they got fired for misusing the benefit and/or ethical violations. And like, they have a huge number of perks on top of a high salary. I don't make anywhere near that much and I'm not in tech, I never will make that much (I'd have to be the president of a university basically
or a football coach) I don't think the employee is a criminal monster, or immoral asshole, but I think it's weird to be shocked he and others had consequences. I don't see this as a company mistreating an employee or punishing someone struggling to feed themselves. Maybe I'm wrong, and this is some weird sour grapes, I do miss my meal plan, but I don't think I am?Thanks for answering. You and others have cleared up my confusion considerably. I think we can all agree that it's the blatant abuse of the perk that's really bothering us. You should feel ashamed of abusing a perk like that, especially because it risks losing the perk for everyone eventually. Most of us wouldn't notice or care if someone took one extra snack every coffee break, squirreled it away in a backpack, and nobody else was any wiser. But not trying to hide the behaviour at all, like the suitcase example, is a sign of poor judgment and potentially troubling social behaviour.
Tl;DR for company perks, user discretion is advised
No, I disagree. It's not that it's blatant abuse and a lack of discretion. It's the repeated abuse combined with the magnitude of it. Abuse being defined as using the spend outside the category that it was given for or the timeframe it was specified for.
I don't think anyone is sticking up for companies on this thread, or we are saying it's hurting the company. We're saying that some things are obviously over a cultural acceptable line.
We don't microwave fish in the lunch room even though we have a microwave and everyone nukes their food
We can cover our hands with company hand soap every wash and use half a roll to wipe and that's okay. Taking half the quantity home to use is not okay. The intention is use at work.
Drinking 50 sodas at work each day is terrible for you but fine ethically. Taking an extra one for the drive home is okay. Taking 10 sodas home is not. In this case the cultural acceptability gradient falls between 1-10 because the intention was sodas while working, and arguably there might be one last drink opened during the last second of work that you're carrying out.
Using 10000 staples for a work presentation is fine. Using 1 staples for your kid's essay is not okay even if you punched it at work.
Work things are for work. Work perks are for work. Anything extra is a grandient on cultural acceptability and open to reprimand
Your living off of work is fine because you ate the food at work. Carrying one out is fine but people absolutely notice. They may never say anything but that doesn't mean it's not noted even if everyone does it
Mostly agreed, except for the staples thing for the kid's report. Staples and even paper are so cheap and ubiquitious at the office, unless someone abuses their availability outrageously I just don't care.
Back in the day, I didn't have a printer, so I would occasionally print things for personal use with company printers after hours. Nothing crazy long, but it was a lot easier than maintaining a personal printer in my cramped, expensive apartment. But I was also a bit ashamed to be doing so, and I always made sure not to print personal stuff until after everyone else went home; in my mind, my extra time was 'paying' for my borrowed resources. Like I mention in another thread: little things like this are fine if you're discreet about them, and only take advantage occasionally. But you should be careful not to cross that line too often.
The last half of your paragraph is exactly what I mean by even a single staple.
Again I'm not here to throw stones. I've obviously printed stuff at work and stapled stuff at work that wasn't strictly speaking for work. There's even a sense of glee when I did it at a company that was practicing wage theft.
But the fact is that, if it's behaviour you wouldn't do in plain sight of everyone during your interview, you know it's not appropriate work behavior.
That one shouldn't feel bad about it, that work probably doesn't care, that everyone is doing it, and that maybe it's not legal to fire someone over, are all beside the point.
For a particular individual, it’s more of a “you reap what you sow” thing. Wouldn’t snitch, but I’m hardly going to feel sorry for the people knowingly committing fraud for no apparent need.
And if it’s systematic, it runs the risk of causing the whole perk to be removed or locked down.
I think for me it's unclear exactly what the rules were; if the company truly sold this as a perk to get dinner when you work late, it feels wrong to use it when you aren't actually working late. But they also need to define a specific time: is 6:30 late, for instance? 7? 8?
The GrubHub/Uber Eats part of it is much more annoying and makes me more sympathetic with the folks who were fired. Food on those platforms is super expensive. Employees who used the perk likely paid extra out of their own pockets even for very simple meals. Honestly, I'd rather get $15 of expensibility (with receipts) than $25 on those platforms. Maybe even $10. Especially if HR is clueless and constantly tells people about this great free GrubHub perk, that grates on you over time. At the very least, I hope the company policy made it vert clear what you could order, and what you couldn't (i know this seems obvious, but at tech companies, it isn't always). At the very least I hope HR gave out warnings at some point to remind people to only order food, and nothing else, even if it was food related like wine glasses.
Of course, if you work for Meta, you're enabling a cancerous, immoral company owned by a downright evil man for your own personal disgustingly bloated profits, all on the back of a product that claims to be 'social' but actually only exists to stir up controversies, lock people in political bubbles, and act as a middleman between friends and family. Accepting that job offer in the first place put the ethics of every one of these people in the bottom 5%.
Archive link.
Same energy as people who think sick days are just a kind of special vacation day that requires a lie in order to use.
Sick days should just be plain ol days off anyway (it's not like we get official "vacation days" by most US laws). You can't control when you get sick, nor how bad the sickness is. And we're being more and more aware of sicknesses that aren't just running phlegm everywhere and requires a doctor's note.
The food stipend... Idk, I'm mixed. It's a specific stipend for a reason, but the timing/office requirement is overly strict. What if you order lunch and bring it home? I'd just let it cover food period.
Also, $25 isn't covering anything but the cheapest Doordash in LA anyway if that's the intention.
I believe they have onsite food service for the regular business day, that's why it's a special after hours only credit.
I don't think that's unreasonable but I've worked where food (and housing) are provided and if you don't want to be taxed on those things they have to be for a business use. Like "I had to eat while at the office" rather than "food for later."
If they're taxable benefits then I wouldn't expect usage restrictions but your paycheck would get dinged with whatever % of $25 for each usage.
I see. I thought theses would be to compensate for cafeterials closing down. But that was knoweldge from the COVID era in 2022. Could easily be open again.
This one says there are credits for the other meals: https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/meta-fires-staff-who-abused-25-meal-vouchers-report
This one says those credits are available at smaller offices that don't have built in food services: https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/17/tech/meta-employees-fired-meal-credits-layoffs/index.html
From BBC's article:
So idk seems like it's smaller offices where they don't have food service or possibly a main office after the regular cafeteria or whatever is closed.
Yeah, Meta isn't HQ'd in the LA area, so that makes sense that they are satellite offices.
Going "over budget" in LA for $25/day when it sounds like this is used for doordash is absolutely crazy though. I can try to order a single burger from McDonalds and I can nearly hit $20 with all the crazy fees being added these days. Pretty much loses the point of these lunch stipends typically being used to keep you inside the office.
Considering how many versions of the story there are I'm not going to assume I know their policy correctly at this point. I don't doordash basically ever because it's cashy and don't know if the credit also covers the delivery fees or if it's basically designed to cover that fee but you're paying the cost of the food. Ordering delivery at those prices daily is wild.
Agreed on the "over budget" thing. Does that mean they couldn't pay the extra out of pocket? Toothbrushes and toothpaste don't seem too crazy to me, either -- if I'm working late and I order something that's going to get stuck in my teeth, why not also be able to order a toothbrush to the office so I can keep working?
I give a specific number of vacation days, and unlimited paid sick days. I think it’s abusive to simply start taking paid days off for no reason but some people just see employment as a game where their objective is to extract as much money from a company as they can while doing the bare minimum to avoid getting fired.
Given the modern attitude of companies, I can't blame you. They've proven that being good at your job doesn't guarantee job security. Doesn't even guarantee getting a inflation based raise.
Doesn't excuse abusing company benefits, but we've pretty much lost all reasons to not "work the bare minimum" over the last 20 years. We get laid off/fired in the end anyway.
I’m curious what the communication was on having meals delivered home if you weren’t coming into the office. I’ve worked for a remote company before where we would be given credits to order food delivery to our homes. If you’re working in the office 2 or 3 days a week I could understand if you thought the credits were for every weekday regardless of where you were working.
But I am supportive of firing people for expense fraud. It’s completely fair in the case of people ordering cleaning supplies etc.
It seemed like it was specifically for meals when "in office after 6pm" because their onsite food services were closed at that point. I read a different article though so it may not have been in this one or the one I read was wrong.
In several European countries - at least Belgium and France that I know of -, we have "chèque-repas" or "tickets restaurant" ("meal vouchers" basically), that have a legal framework around them. I have a special card that is topped up every month with the equivalent of x€ for each day I work, and I can use this card to buy lunch or groceries in most shops and many restaurants. I think it's even more restricted in France, you can only buy lunch in a radius of a few kilometers around your place of employment. It's designed to help local businesses.
Anyway, my point is since there's a legal framework, it only works for food. I think that can be a bit abused, but the blame would be definitely put on the seller, not the customer.
OMG I stole money and they fired me for it, it's so surreal! 😱 😂🤣 I can't tell if they're that dumb or surprised they got fired when they were caught, maybe thinking they were too important to fire.
Good on Meta though, don't see me saying that often. Meta could have just taken away the credits and been done with it. It's the bastards that abuse such things that can potentially ruin it for everyone else.
I'm surprised Meta allowed them to use the credits on non-food stuff long enough to get to this point, makes me wonder what the "credits" are. Are each given a gift card that they drop the credits in daily and then don't think to get receipts for this stuff? Maybe they saw it, but let it pass because their contribution to the company was worth overlooking it.. until they needed to downsize. Who better to fire first than employees who steal from you? It'd save them a ton on severance packages.
I think it's essentially a doordash gift card they can use. I'm sure it's tracked but probably someone didn't think to check what was being purchased or where it was being delivered initially.
I'm not exactly rooting for them over this if this was just a petty firing excuse over some ethical upheaval and/or HR trying to justify not being laid off next. I'd even wager their "best workers" are still getting away with it.
My bet is this is their business operations/management/budget/internal audit office making a fuss. If it's a non-taxable benefit you can't use it outside its designated purpose. If it's taxable and thus yours to use as you like, then you pay based on what you spend/receive in that benefit.
Free work shirt I can wear wherever, taxable
Free uniform shirt I have to wear to work and am not supposed to wear elsewhere? Non-taxable. Same vibes with this. I don't their big guys get to abuse this, they might get a different benefit instead I suppose.