this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2025
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Do they really think people give a shit about ping-pong tables? I don't care about your little table games, pay me.
I've been permanently wfh since 2015, i'll stick my foot in a fucking bacon slicer before i return to the office.
It’s a tactic these dipshits use to downplay your legitimate concerns. Nobody gives a fuck about ping pong tables, snacks, paid lunches.
Pay well or fuck off, the end.
Paid luches are nice. But if I get the choice between $10.000 yearly more or paid lunches, obviously i'd go for the cash. It's supposed to be a bonus (i.e. free), and not a way to cut corners and undermine your employees.
Maybe it does do the company some good in terms of retention, but counting on "I'll save $6k if I spend $4k on lunches per person on average by cutting pay for new hires" is not a good strategy. Same for ping pong tables, horseraces, pizza parties and whatever else.
incredible instance name btw
Just being in HR gives you some kind of brainworm but being in HR and posting about it with what seems to be a personal account is more like having a brain shai-hulud
Shai-Hulud actually does some good though. Bless the Maker and His water. Bless the coming and going of Him. May His passage cleanse the world. May He keep the world for His people.
Considering the rest of the post I would guess that HR sees it as a signal that the place allows their employees to leave their desk and not pretend to work for 15 minutes (morally repugnant to an American Protestant)
It’s playing into the 2010s culture of workplaces being “cool hangouts with beer taps,“ and acting like that’s all millennials care about.
What they never understood is yeah, that stuff could be nice I guess in certain contexts, but that’s not why we went to work. None of us forced those companies to do that shit. And some of us even didn’t like it, because those places could often blur the lines between a place of business and a place for socializing, which often led to women being sexually harassed.
WeWork anyone?
Agree, but I’ll say of those gimmicks on site subsidized food places and gyms are genuinely nice. Like I don’t want to play ping pong at work, but if you’re saving me a few gym and food trips a week I’m down.
Food and gym could be sweet. Cold brew on tap too.
To be clear, this was always the goal. If an employer could have you work 80 hours a week and sleep under your desk, they would. The goal is to give employees things to do around the office, so they don’t feel the need to actually leave work. Because if you’re playing ping pong in the break room, you’re immediately available for your manager to go “hey, we have a project for you.” Even if you’re not clocked in while playing ping pong, you’re essentially on call.
Oh definitely. And companies like Google loved when you hung around and workshopped ideas because then you wouldn’t take it for yourself, you would give it to them. And if you didn’t give it to them, they would show how you worked on it at work.
Those were gimmicks from that boom time, when wages were generally high and sooner folks switched jobs within weeks. Perks mattered in that period. Then wages dropped but the mindset that these perks mattered remained.
Yeah the only “perks” I give a shit about are healthcare and PTO lol
All I want to do is get in, do my job, and go home, which is where I really want to be. I like my coworkers well enough, but I'm not interested in socialising with them in or outside of work.