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Re:San Francisco Officials to Tech Workers: Buy Your Lunch by tolmasky on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @02:21PM (#17665334)
So, two things:

1. This proposal is for all new offices, which as usual, creates an amazing unfair advantage to established companies. The old companies will have an old office that can offer the perk of free lunch, whereas new companies cannot.

2. I have yet to go into some random restaurant and not have to wait an absurd amount of time in line. This city constantly feels like it does not have nearly enough restaurant or activity capacity, everything is just constantly crowded, all the time. So now I guess we will exacerbate that artificially? Lunch times will take 1.5x as long without any actual enjoyment from the extra time since it will just be spent waiting around in line for (probably) unhealthy food.

Re:San Francisco Officials to Tech Workers: Buy Your Lunch by stephencoyner on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @02:30PM (#17665467)
If someone joins a company solely because of free lunch then I would venture to say that's not an employee you want. Salesforce has never offered free lunch and continues to be voted as "the best place to work." The employees are incredibly happy and love the culture / leadership.

You can also order catered lunch to an office.

(I am an ex Salesforce employee)

Re:San Francisco Officials to Tech Workers: Buy Your Lunch by yellowapple on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @03:23PM (#17666047)
I doubt anyone joins a company solely because of free lunch, but I'm sure it's one of many important factors in an area with a ridiculously-high cost of living.
Re:San Francisco Officials to Tech Workers: Buy Your Lunch by misja111 on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @02:28PM (#17665435)
1. Why is it such an 'amazing unfair advantage' to be able to offer 'free' lunch to your employees? Because the lunch is not really free, it is paid indirectly from the salary of the employee; new companies can simply offer more salary instead.

2. Can't companies simply order lunch for their employees? Or pay a third party to serve lunches for their employees in a company canteen?

Re:San Francisco Officials to Tech Workers: Buy Your Lunch by pakitan on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @02:40PM (#17665592)
1. Free lunch may not be free but while it may cost $X for the company to offer that lunch and while they may deduct that $X from my salary, the value of that lunch to me is not $X but, say, 10 x $X because it saves me time going to and searching for places to eat, waiting in line, waiting for meal to be prepared, paying more per meal, including the tip...etc

2. Sure, they can. For example, Google will hire "Totally Unrelated To Google, Catering Inc".

Re:San Francisco Officials to Tech Workers: Buy Your Lunch by johnaoss on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @02:36PM (#17665548)
1. By taking a lower salary in exchange for lunches, you indirectly save on food expenses during the day. Additionally, you could save large amounts of money on taxes.

2. They could and probably do already, however that doesn't get citizens into local restaurants, which is what I'm assuming is this law's goal.

Re:San Francisco Officials to Tech Workers: Buy Your Lunch by erik_seaberg on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @02:31PM (#17665496)
> pay a third party to serve lunches for their employees in a company canteen

That's what happens today that they want to ban.

Re:San Francisco Officials to Tech Workers: Buy Your Lunch by bena on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @02:25PM (#17665402)
I think 1 is more of the prime motivator rather than driving business to the nearby shops.

This gives existing companies that extra perk because if you work for them, you won't have to deal with 2.