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Comment by stevenwu | Hacker News Reader

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Allowance

Fresh, organic, local fruits and vegetables are great to have on-hand, so we'd also like to offer a CSA membership to you. Finding a local provider will be up to you, but you can expense the cost of a seasonal or annual CSA share as an employee benefit, up to $1,000/year.

Count that as a perk I've never heard of before.

Cool peek into how a company that works remotely can function successfully. This handbook could be a blueprint for that model - are there any other examples of remote companies publishing their internal handbooks?

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> Count that as a perk I've never heard of before.

A company I used to work for used to send people to the local farmers markets and stock up the kitchen at work. Employees were allowed to take home whatever they wanted and to cook whatever they wanted at lunch -- it was awesome! You quickly learn to make friends with the skilled amateur chefs in your department.

As a skilled amateur chef myself, this would be awesome. I feel pretty strongly about the power of a shared meal and I make an effort to regularly make meals for groups. I think being able to share a meal as coworkers would be a fantastic workplace team builder that wouldn't take that much investment on the part of a company.

GitLab also publishes their handbook. [1]

[1] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/

Valve: http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...

I don't really like this kind of perk. Just give me the cash and I can decide what to do.

I'm OK with these kinds of quirky add-on allowances so long as the category for the add-on is positive, either for you as a person (e.g.: fitness, learning) or the local community (e.g.: paid time off volunteering, charity matching). We'd all be better off if we were a little more involved with our community, a little more active, and eating a little bit healthier, and the most common excuse for not doing these is "I don't have the time/money." If you just give extra cash how can you achieve the same effect in encouraging people to live healthier?

I exercise daily at home. Probably more than most of the people who get the gym paid for.

It's not a big deal but I wouldn't mind some extra cash.

One company I worked for had a benefit of paying up to $1000/yr for a gym membership OR up to $1000 of gym equipment for your home per year.

I guess I can get a really expensive yoga mat :-)

I dunno, that seems a little parental. To quote the article: "at the end of the day it's a job." I'm not wild about the company trying to influence aspects of my personal life that don't directly affect the company.

At least in the US, as the company is footing the bill for employee health insurance, the company has incentive to fund assorted employee wellness programs.

I agree; basically if you want to get the full compensation out of your employment (because perks are part of compensation) you have to participate in weird stuff like this.

not sure if they have their whole handbook public but Zapier posts a lot of good stuff about how to run a remote startup

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