this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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I don't think Meta thought this through, unless the staff already know you can be fired for small things like this. Sure, they stretched what you are supposed to spend money on, broke the rules, fine. Fuck around, find out, not something i do professionally. But it's $25. You're a 1.5$ trillion company. It comes off as petty.
If I was still working at Meta, I'd be job hunting. And maybe that's what they want. Maybe they need to downsize some more.
But eventually Meta will have the minimum amount of staff and need to grow again or necessary people will leave, and when they try to hire people they may find this article and demand more money to make up for the pettiness or they won't apply, because no one likes to be under a microscope.
It's absolutely what they want. I think they're trying to cull their workforce, and cracking down on random policies in this way is intended to get people to leave w/o having to pay out severance packages.
I highly doubt that. People will continue to apply to Meta because it's a prestigious job and pays remarkably well. Unfortunately, Meta will get away with this, and it's honestly disgusting to me.
100% agree on your first point.
I would caution your second point. A few years ago, news articles pointed out Meta had to pay people more compared to other similar companies due to people not wanting to work there. Sadly Google search isn't showing me those older articles.
A few websites are saying Meta's ~~average~~ median pay is 379k (Zuckerberg takes a $1 so he isn't driving that number) vs Google at $315k vs Microsoft $193k vs Nvidia 267k. That's a lot of difference. So running a company like a pedant has a real dollar difference, especially for workers who can demand it. Meta lost a lot of money on the Metaverse and they are spending to catch up AI, meaning they already have to be competitive for employees compared to other companies. Add in the perks are a trap to get fired, and your costs just keep going up. Perks are typically offered in lieu of higher costs and in this case incentive people to work longer in an office. Now they leave for food or go home and you have lost those benefits.
It's probably more because they were offered a position at some other prestigious firm, like Google or Netflix. Meta doesn't need to compete with you local mom-and-pop software company, they're competing with other large tech firms, so if they want "the best," they need to pay up for it.
I think there's a lot more variety of roles in some of those companies though. Microsoft has a big hardware division (XBox, Surface, mouse/keyboard, etc), which means a lot of lower-paid support staff, logistics, etc. Meta is relatively new to that (mostly just their VR), so they probably have a lot fewer lower-paid roles. Microsoft also has a lot of campuses in lower COL areas, whereas my understanding is that Meta is almost entirely in the SF Bay area, with relatively few satellites (i.e. much higher average COL).
So just looking at average salaries doesn't tell the whole story, we'd need to look at equivalent roles. You could absolutely be right here, I'm just pointing out the metrics don't necessarily support the conclusions.
Totally fair points. Probably next to impossible. Wish I could find those articles, but oh well. I just don't see this being good for future hiring at Meta at the end of the day.
I hope you're right, because I detest Meta and refuse to use anything they touch.
Not average salary, median salary. Big difference, be careful with words, friend.
Good catch, thanks, updated
Definitely seems like they want the layoff from my position in the industry.
The tech megagiants are massively reallocating their budgets from "paying people for new product development" to datacenter build-outs, under the belief that AI will fundamentally restructure all knowledge work into property you can own and extract rent from.
Unfortunately the industry is completely non union and a good chunk of employees are on H1B or TN visas where they will get deported if they get fired. That really puts a damper on wanting to rock the boat.
Expect things to get less stable and shittier over time as this trend continues.
Yup, and when I worked w/ a team @ Facebook on a project, there were a lot of immigrants there. That really sucks, but the solution here should be to improve our immigration system so workers can more easily switch companies instead of getting deported and having to reapply.
100% agreed. The fact that it's possible to deport someone who has lived in America for decades just for getting laid off is absurdly cruel.
Yup. If you're here legally, it should be really easy to stay here (i.e. you'd have to try to get deported).
I’m just trying to understand how UberEats is a good way to feed an office. Are we talking about 3 people in a WeWork space somewhere? I can’t imagine 250 UberEats orders all arriving somewhere at once and getting to the right people. Or even 25.
Oh, it's terrible. The entire policy is Bananas. And you can't pool funds? So if it is 3 people, $75 worth of pizza will feed them for a long time. But they got fired for pooling them.
How much time were the Accountants spending verifying this? Or did workers just receive vouchers? If a handful of people were abusing it, how did they notice? No refunds on vouchers, so you'd assume an amount of late nights and then refill as needed. It was already budgeted, so it's a sunk cost.
Also in some places I've worked, $25 after the delivery costs isn't that much food either. I'd be ignoring that perk forever if I still worked there, too much red tape.
Yeah the pooling funds part confuses me. What is the damn issue?
Well, they also just straight up laid off 9,000 people this week so they are clearly in a mood to get rid of people. And I suppose they don’t mind firing people for small infractions because it accomplishes two things for them:
Free food is after all a perk that most people don’t get at work. And it’s just the tip of the iceberg of perks that Meta employees get. I know for a fact that executives get sick and tired of employees being spoiled by all this and they probably took personal enjoyment in these terminations.
I agree, this stinks of petty gotcha, which is why i dont think its a good idea, as remaining employees with devalue those perks and stop working for Meta as a result.
And yes, these are perks above all else, but remember Meta created these incentives to keep people in the office longer without having to pay them (a lot) more. A few people abusing it in order to ensure the majority of workers stay nights and weekends (at small satellite offices) is a small price. Now? "Hey, worker X, staying late tonight?" "No, going home to eat, don't want to make a mistake on ordering Uber Eats and get fired" means you don't get 5-40 hours per week extra time from that worker X. And you already paid for the vouchers, so you don't save money. Also other workers won't stay because more people leave.
Granted we are talking Mark Z here, so eating food is probably too alien for him to understand.
Your fine with people violating your trust? Because that's what you're advocating.
If people are going to show they're willing to scam the company and steal from it, why would you keep them around.
Sorry, I would have a zero tolerance policy on theft. I've seen it first hand in a small business and in a massive retailer, not cool.
Really depends on how valuable all of the staff are. I too have seen theft of small and large offices I've worked in. Personally didn't buy pens until I started working from home. I also did the accounting and budgeting for office supplies and products from the product line (beer), which sometimes had free samples taken from it. Executives loved to grab samples daily. We ensured this was added to employees paychecks as a perk for tax purposes, but not down to the individual beer. We also had talks with anyone who took over their fair share.
The cost always came down to pennies per person. Their value as a worker was typically more valuable then micromanaging them and creating an environment where they were punished. Average employee made more for the company daily then what they took home. If they knew it was fine within some limits (which most did and I would argue these Meta workers were within given their pay/value of the company), it's actually better to just ignore it.
Now the remaining employees and future employees know any mistake could cost them their job, with no major warning, just 2 strikes and your out.
When you take this personally ("violating your trust"), you end up creating a shitty place to work to soothe your ego.
Where’s the scam? If the company is providing a $25 credit as a benefit, then they should just give the employees $25. Why should Meta get a say in how it’s spent?
Because that's part of the deal. They get free credits for 3 meals a day as an added bonus but they broke the very simple terms that came with those. That makes the employees untrustworthy since they can't keep a very simple promise.
Also they probably have to spend them that way because it becomes plain income otherwise, which means it will be taxed accordingly. And that will ruin this benefit for anyone.
Fuck meta and stuff, but this is a pretty great deal for employees.
Implying any of us are equivalent to a $1.5 trillion social media monopoly that has more political and social power than any other organization on the planet. Sure Jan, any one of us is exactly like that.
Shut the fuck up lmaooooo they already expect the employees to spend $25 per day, meal or not.
There’s no maliciousness from employees at that point, only real people trying to meet their needs so that they can keep working. FOR YOU!
Corps keep squeezing labor more and more, time to squeeze back a piddling little bit
Have you worked for a corpo?
"Trust" lol
I would just give them the voucher if they are in the office and let them decide what to do with it.