Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at Facebook and other tech cos

Re:Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at Faceboo... by htmlfan on Thursday July 26, 2018 @05:19PM (#17621272)

This can definitely help support local business. But seems unfair to lower-salary employees. As an employee who used to have free lunch and now doesn't, I have felt the financial effects.

Dining out truly can make a big impact on the wallet- $10 dollars per meal (unlikely in Mountain View unless fast food) x 5 meals a week x 48 weeks a year (let's be generous and assume you get that much PTO) = $2,400 annually

Company-provided meals also tend to provide healthy options which can be expensive to purchase outside of work- and tend to contain less sodium and sugar than restaurant foods.

I can see this potentially benefitting the local business of 'Amazon WholeFoods' and Costco as people buy more groceries to bring lunch to work with them and eat at their desks. Eating out every day is expensive.

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Re:Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at Faceboo... by jazoom on Thursday July 26, 2018 @05:24PM (#17621318)

Everywhere I've ever worked, >90% of people bring their meals to work >90% of the time.

This sounds like another of those special microcosm "problems".

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Re:Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at Faceboo... by walshemj on Friday July 27, 2018 @04:53PM (#17629297)

In which country and for which roles certainly in the developed world professional workers don't often bring a packed lunch.

I maybe do it one or two days a month and I am in the minority here.

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Re:Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at Faceboo... by htmlfan on Thursday July 26, 2018 @05:29PM (#17621377)

Where have you worked?

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Re:Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at Faceboo... by jazoom on Thursday July 26, 2018 @05:38PM (#17621476)

I've worked at over 10 companies in my life so far.

I've also done locum work in more than that.

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Re:Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at Faceboo... by inostia on Thursday July 26, 2018 @05:28PM (#17621368)

There's nothing stopping the companies from providing a dine-out per diem if they choose to. They could for example form relationships with local eateries to subsidize those meals either in full or through discounts, which would support the local economy but also provide that benefit to employees. But of course it's cheaper for them if they control the entire operation.

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Re:Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at Faceboo... by hellisothers on Thursday July 26, 2018 @08:15PM (#17622486)

The problem is dine in food (catering etc) is 50% tax deductible, dine out food is 0% deductible but having your own in-house restaurant is 100% deductible. None of these articles mention this issue, plus any meal subsidies would not only not go as far for the employer but the employee would be taxed on them.

I’ve been provided meals at work for the last 12 years and I will certainly factor that in to any salary calculus in the future. Given this only impacts new buildings, this puts future employers/business at a disadvantage.

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Re:Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at Faceboo... by walshemj on Friday July 27, 2018 @04:54PM (#17629308)

And from experience its removal of minor perks that really piss off employees - much more so than not getting a COLA increase

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