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Comment by danpalmer | Hacker News Reader

This is true, but I'd rather have an office with tea/coffee, a drinks fridge, etc, than the extra salary that the company is spending on providing that.

In part I'm paying 40% in tax so if I'm going to buy coffees it's actually more effective to have them provided by the company. But in general, that sort of convenience and benefit is often worth more than the monetary value.

Tea/coffee in the office is very different to a expensive social events, but it's all on a spectrum, and I value some of those things more than the money. I do however earn a good salary, this could well be different for many others.

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> In part I'm paying 40% in tax so if I'm going to buy coffees it's actually more effective to have them provided by the company. But in general, that sort of convenience and benefit is often worth more than the monetary value.

I actually started of my working career as a factory worker (nightshift, 12 hour shifts, seven days a week). It was customary to bring along a flask of coffee and a packed lunch.

Right now, even though we have company-provided coffee, I'd rather they just give me the money to bring a flask of my own coffee.

It's more convenient, I get to make a trade-off between quality and cost as the situation calls for it, I get to switch coffees if I need to.

In current reality, though, you are correct - overall it's cheaper for the company to provide coffee instead of giving you the marginal cost of the coffee you consume. I just wanted to provide an alternative viewpoint.

I completely agree – this all depends on the company, the people, the environment, everything.

I just think that saying "just give me the money" in all cases is a) not necessarily efficient, and b) glosses over the idea that a benefit can be worth more to people than the monetary value.

It can also be worth more to the employer! The UK government don't provide tea/coffee typically because it all ends up on public record and there's a perception that the media will be outraged if the government spent £10k on tea bags, even if that might be a perfectly reasonable expense across tens of thousands of employees (made up numbers, not important). The result is that in some offices you get contractors being paid £800 a day taking a 15 minute break to go down to the shop to buy milk for their tea, or to get a coffee from a coffee shop, costing far more than it would cost to just have some available in the office.

Tea and coffee ought to be a baseline in any office environment imo. I think it'd be worth it for companies to just pay for it, otherwise employees set up a tea club, spend work time doing it and fall out over it.

Terence McKenna used to remind people that tea and coffee benefit an employer more than an employee - it's not a break to rest, it's an employer encouraged chemical stimulant to make you work harder. As an employee, you're hyped to work harder - which isn't necessarily a benefit to you at all.

That companies have then reframed it as an "employee perk" is a very slick PR move.

I agree with the idea that many employee perks are actually detrimental to employees. But this one is pretty 50/50. I'm going to drink two cups of coffee every day no matter what, so employer-provided coffee benefits me. After-hours coffee I agree with.

If the company puts too much emphasis on the free coffee they provide, it's a red flag. It means you will need it.

I've often thought that instead of an expensive coffee machine, ping pong table or playstation, I'd like a tea lady (or tea person as they would/should be called now)

My previous company put emphasis on the free coffee, but it was a pretty chill place to work at.

Good point!

I was thinking of it more as the human right to a cup of tea (not meaning to belittle real human rights struggles)

Interesting, there's no tea/coffee club at my office - my company doesn't provide tea/coffee/beverages, but does provide keurig machines. People either bring in their own coffee machines/coffee/french presses or they bring in their own k-pods. I am perfectly fine with it myself.

I've never even worked at a company that could afford walls

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