this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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Meta is bolstering perks like happy hours and company swag as it pushes staff to return to office, despite its 'year of efficiency'::The company has revived a number of employee perks, according to Bloomberg, including branded t-shirts, laundry services, and free haircuts.

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[–] [email protected] 110 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Imagine having to endure a happy hour wearing your Meta t-shirt while zuck monitors your joy level through a huge camera in the corner of the room.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And the happy hours are unpaid time.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Meta prides themselves on a 'family' culture.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Zuck on a mic: "Please increase your happiness by 14%."

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 76 points 1 year ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (15 children)

Why not simply increase basic pay? The younglings no longer want these """"""""""""""perks""""""""""""" because they know it comes with many caveats.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Upper mgmt "We need our employees back in the office." Lowrt mgmt "Did you see the numbers? Since our employees started working from home, we've been smashing targets." Upper mgmt "Yeah that's why we need them back. Just imagine how much better the numbers could have been if we were making sure they weren't slacking off."

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wonder if it's also that now their investors are going to expect growth on top of whatever accelerated growth they have experienced in this WFH era. meta wants a nice, predictable cruise uphill, not a sprint that they'll now need to continue, progress be damned.

Side note: that's a theory I've had regarding technological advancements in devices like phones. Apple, Samsung etc. want small incremental advancements they can drip-feed to consumers for stable growth, so they probably try to keep the big leaps infrequent. Yeah I know Moore's Law can't go on forever, and it might be getting to that point soon... alright I'll take off the tinfoil hat.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I work in tech and my workplace is also getting deeply aware that layoffs and cost cutting policies have a lasting negative impact on the happiness levels. What a fucking aha moment...

Besides, It seems like, as the economy starts to hit bottom, companies are getting aware that the fight for talent will start again soon.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

One thing about tech workers is historically they will crunch themselves hard to minimize downtime and meet deadlines because they care about their code and infrastructure. That totally breaks down when they see a bunch of their friends get shitcanned or sees their company making greedy decisions at the expense of their employees.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

As someone at a FAANG company, there is one "perk" that these companies offer that few others can match, and that's freedom of movement. There are few companies where you can join in NYC, work a year, then move fully to London, Berlin, Sydney, Singapore, etc - all sponsored and paid for by the employer. Not only that, but where the employer will pay to find permanent residency and citizenship.

IMO, these are the true perks of the tech industry, and a reason why so many young people are ditching FAANG companies lately, as they start to cut back on allowing people to move teams internationally.

My org at Amazon was polled on retention, and over 50% of the team wanted to move teams after the layoffs. Amazon no longer sponsor international visas, and lots of people wanting to move to North America or Europe are jumping to other companies that will allow them to do so.

Funny enough, for the cost of some of the stupid events that my work have put on for RTO, they could have funded several visas and moves for candidates that wanted to try a new team. Hell, some literally cannot go to their current office, and would love to move somewhere where they could - but no, gotta keep those retention figures low to help the bottom line...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

100% agreed. I left the States in 2017. Job searching is tricky now but it's an absolute deal breaker.. Remote or goodbye. I will accept nothing else.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Maybe I'm the odd one out, but I've never felt like moving to a different country to work. I can barely imagine moving from the east coast to the west coast. Perhaps I'm missing something, but never once have I visited a place and said, "I would love to spend 8 hours of my life every day in an office here."

But I am at the ripe old age of 30, so maybe I'm past that demographic

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Am I out of touch?

No surely one more pizza party will turn this around.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

Company swag? Nah, just pay me more I wouldn't want people to know I work for meta.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (13 children)

Alright lemmings reality check time. Would you take a job offer from meta if it was in your field and the pay was good?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Benefits matter, too.

I'm in the AAA gaming industry. EA laid me off earlier this year, and so I wound up looking for work elsewhere.

I've learned that really - the pay doesn't matter if you hate your life every day. If I wanted good pay, I would learn COBOL and write software at a bank. What matters the most is the quality of the team you're working with (primary), and what benefits your employer has (secondary).

If Meta were to call me up and say "Hey, we want you to be on a team with the greatest coworkers you've ever had," then I'd at least hear them out. What is their culture? Do they believe in crunch? How do they handle sick days? Vacations?

And yes, WFH is part of that, too. But if they were willing to pay to relocate me, buy me a house near a metro station... yeah, I'd take it.

But if they were to offer me that exact same deal - except there's no guarantees about production schedules/timelines, there's the "bus problem" (where the project couldn't survive someone important being hit by a bus), there's a lot of crunch (or just bad experiences from friends who've worked there... Blizzard offered me a sweetheart deal and I said no because of that history)... I'm less likely to want to bite.

And everyone has different preferences. I've known some people who love the office. I don't mind it myself, with the right group. But everyone has to make their own call.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Metro station... oh you sweet summer child. You know what public transit is available near the Meta campus? Maybe, and I mean maybe, a bus stop to get on the homeless express across the bay.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

I've built my life around working from home now, if that's not a part of the offer then it's a non-starter

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Nope. Professionals have standards 😂

Seriously, Meta is for me in a very short list of companies where I would not work under any circustances, so the pay could be as good as you want but is a no.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

No. Remote is better for the company and for me. There's tons of better opportunities.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Maybe but they'd probably just sunset the project anyway and in ten years it will look more like a stain on my resume than a badge. Plus traffic on Willow Road is a no for me dawg.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

If it's fully remote, yes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I did and still am.

Happy hours never went away. Swag also never went away. I don't know if the writer here actually knows anyone or just overheard someone talking about that stuff and assumed it was new.

Covid did reduce the amount of stuff being bought. Freezer went away so ice cream went away. Less alcohol in the game rooms (though no shortage during happy hours), custodial stopped working on weekends (not too many people here anyway, just don't leave food in your trash bin anymore). They cut a "health" allowance from 3k to 2k =(

Anyway, it's easily the best decision I've ever made. I make twice my city's median household income. The push for RTO blows (I'm convinced Lori/HR need to justify their existence). At first it was 3 days, now we just got told two specific days (happy hour days are going to rotate, RIP). There's even a whole HRIS system in place for compliance tracking and all kinds of other wasted money/man hours that went into this. Makes no sense. They keep reference "the data" and "studies" but aren't showing us what they're saying. Nevermind that the C suite all got Exceeds Expectations after having to fire dozens of thousands of people (we still believe executive performance = company performance).

Things are coming back since our stock is back to starting with a 3. The only thing that pissed me off was how many laid off people's positions were re-filled like 6 months later. It's like the layoffs were just to get dilute the blood in the water that investors were looking for and hearing about a bunch of layoffs make rich people happy. Other than that, my team is amazing, my manager is awesome, work schedule is extremely flexible (single with 2 kids, I don't know how I'd manage at any of my previous places I've worked). There's the usual "cost saving" bullshit (although, there are honestly a LOT of areas that have been streamlined without any real detrimental effect, so kudos to that) but honestly that's not Meta-specific. Meta just makes the news because it serves 1/3 of the planet.

Also, we make fun of Reality Labs for not being profitable and we don't give a shit about Threads because it was made in a few months by a few people. Twitter isn't really that hard to emulate.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (5 children)

This dude really need to change his haircut lol he looks like he just do it himself at home.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Verily, one must maintain the utmost reverence when discussing our illustrious Emperor. Criticizing his haircut would be an affront to the grandeur and authority of our magnificent Meta Empire. Let us, instead, extol the virtues of Meta and the remarkable achievements of our Emperor.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Imagine how good it would look if he cut it at the office!

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why would they return to the office just because you offered them drinks?

Zuck: they are dumbfucks

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

So much for saving the planet

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

If employees could afford their own pizza then you wouldnt need pizza parties

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What about zuck and board members? Do they come into the office everyday?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Of course. Do you think that they'd risk missing out on a free branded t-shirt?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

All that money, and he still can’t find a decent hairstyle.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Allegedly, he purposely cuts his hair like that because he thinks of himself as a modern Augustus (Octavian).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

He looks like he cuts it himself with nail trimmers.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Free haircut, like the haircut Zuck gets? 🤨 No. Thanks.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Meta is trying to tempt employees to return to the office by bringing back perks such as happy hours and branded t-shirts.

The company has revived a number of pre-pandemic employee perks, according to Bloomberg, a change that unnamed sources said has boosted morale amongst staff after a year of layoffs and acrimony over Meta's return-to-the-office policies.

The perks returning include branded t-shirts, happy hours, laundry services, and free haircuts.

The tech giant's drive to cut costs and boost profitability has seen it lay off about 25% of its staff since November 2022, although Meta has recently begun to rehire some of those who lost their jobs.

The revived perks, which also include a new coffee bar and earlier dinners, are part of Meta's renewed effort to lure staff back into the office.

Last month, Meta announced that employees would be required to work in the office at least three days a week, and warned that those who repeatedly refused to comply risked losing their jobs.


The original article contains 309 words, the summary contains 166 words. Saved 46%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

If a free haircut makes me look like Zuckerberg, no thanks.

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