To each their own. I struggle with compulsive eating and free food at a workplace correlates with weight gain for me.

Of course, that's just me. I'm not saying you should be deprived. I like getting a free beer or two on Thirsty Thursdays but if I were a recovering alcoholic I would hate it.

I believe GP was being sarcastic... That said, while I don't mind free food and drinks, I also don't mind taking care of it on my own. The only difference is if there is a weekly event for all company with food + drink, sort of a gathering. That does wonders for morale.

Yeah, where I am now has after-work drinks on Thursdays and I really like it. We chat, play some video games (we make them so it makes sense), have a beer or two - it's good.

But I would not be shocked if at least some of the people who I know never come do so because there's a not small percentage of the population for whom being around alcohol is incredibly challenging. I'm like that with food - and truth be told, on those Thursdays I tend to eat too much. But eating too much doesn't have the same impact professionally as getting drunk (it's still not great, though).

I agree. Nice to have free coffee though.

Well, it's kind of a signal, see Steve Blank's essay:

https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...

Sometimes financial decisions that are seemingly rational on their face can precipitate mass exodus of your best engineers.

Exactly. Free food is worth ~$300/mo. for me - easily compensated for by ~$5K extra in base pay. But this is a signal to me that the company does not care about employee happiness / convenience.

I don't think Amazon ever had free food and drinks so that's a difference.

It's a cheap perk that makes employees happier. Employee happiness is important.

It also means you don't have to put energy into sorting out your lunch, which I see personally as a huge productivity boost.

It's also generally more cost effective for the company to buy food in bulk compared to passing the cash onto you in your salary for you to buy food on an individual basis.

Plus (and this is dependent on the company handles the providing free food business), food cooked or prepared on site is potentially healthier and tastier than whatever calorific sandwich and chocolate bar you picked up on the way to work. Healthier and happier employees are a win for both parties.

Depending on where your office is, it could be.

My last company was in an office park in the middle of no where and I don't drive. There were no stores within walking distance either. So if I felt like having a snack or something to drink that wasn't water I'd be SOL. So it was nice that we had snacks and drinks available and made working in such a remote spot much more tolerable.

I definitely stay at work, and stay on campus longer because of the free breakfasts and lunches.

I don't understand how this is an argument in favour of free food/drink. You're selling whatever additional time you give to your employer for a rock bottom price. It's not a good deal.

> It's not a good deal.

It is, though, for the employer. I think the GP was trying to say that free food/drinks are a bad place to start saving money.

Without knowing details of compensation you can't really say whether they've given their extra time at a rock bottom price or not.

For most employees, especially those commenting here, every hour above 40.0 is $0. It doesn't get much more rock bottom than that.

I don’t consider myself to be on an hourly wage. I’m on a salary. If I need to work more hours I work more hours, if that’s what it takes to get the job done.

I don't think he is arguing for free food/drinks, nowhere did he say he was arguing in favour.

Spend your free time on work... Very stupid idea.

Depends on the relationship that you have with your employer.

I always (in the past) tried to drink the kool-aid as much as I could ... (until that got abused) ...

If I start a business, one of my main goals is going to be to build a team that does justice to the passion that it's members put in to it.

What can be a passion for business that is not even yours? You want the impossible.

Plenty of people are self aware enough to know they don't have what it takes to [start,own,run] a business. They can still be passionate about the work they're doing.

I have been passionate about working for organizations that were not mine.

Many of the people that I work with are pretty passionate about what they do as well.

it isn't really your free time if it involves going out and finding food