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Comment by neilk | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn't go so far as to call Google "evil" for reducing perks, but the microkitchens were a lot better before. They used to be overflowing with goodies, many perishable. After the bean-counter moment it was all dry cereal and prepackaged snacks.

For me it was just a "shrug, whatever" moment. I realized that as a growing public company Google wanted to control costs more.

And I might be weird, but excessive perks creep me out a little. I worry about it warping my mind too much. One day during my time at Google, I was in a grocery store and felt mild outrage at the thought that they were going to charge me for food.

Once you're used to a perk, it's another fishhook the company has embedded into your flesh.

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I imagine her main gripe would be that the free food was treated as a component of her compensation, and then withdrawn for the perfectly rational (but unrelated) reason of cutting costs.If someone did that to my salary (and it's happened a few times, for various reasons), that would generate a certain amount of ill-will.

That was her fault. She acknowledges her naïveté in accepting this as part of her salary negotiation, but strangely clings to her outrage as well.

That's true. I'd say that time is pretty much the only thing that can heal outrage about such things, though.

I've found that doing some introspection helps me to deal with situations where I'm upset.

It's also their fault. They made an offer they weren't planning on keeping. And they lose the most - an irate employee is a dead loss to an organization, but still gets a paycheck (until they more on or get fired, which takes a long time).

Well that's human nature people get far more upset about losing something losing $20 a day in free food feels much worse than gaining the same amount in pay.

"After the bean-counter moment it was all dry cereal and prepackaged snacks."

You must be going to different MKs than I do. My experience is the MKs have always had (at least since Dec 2008, when I started) plenty of seasonal fresh fruit, pre-made salads and sandwiches in addition to the dried cereals and pre-packaged snacks. <shrug>

The perks are nice but are far from the top of the list of things that I would miss about working here - working with world class people, the opportunity to work on huge problems at scale, the amount that's invested in internal tools and processes, a culture that allows and even encourages you to question management - those are the types of things that I would miss.

The perks are just nice extras.

yeah, i've been working there a few months, and the perks are very nice, but the people i get to work with, and the deep belief in code quality, are what makes it such a pleasure to work there. (that said, i'd be seriously upset if the shuttles were taken away).

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