I feel like this is something that only inexperienced people fall for though. It's nice to get food, but perks like agency, autonomy, and trust are so much more important than free soda and pizza. Especially when I can get paid more and buy the kind of snacks I like.
Agency, trust, and autonomy are great, but they're no replacement for rock solid health, vision, and dental benefits, plus a matching 401k. Now that's sexy.
However, the absence of those can make you sad and bitter.
I work at a company with rock solid health, vision, and dental benefits, very good working hours, and I can't wait to get out.
It's full of married employees with children that hope to retire here. It is an excellent place for pregnant women, but no good if you're young or have any kind of ambition.
Ha, touché. I was coming from the assumption that those things are a baseline that you'll get at most salaried programming jobs, but you're right for calling out that assumption.
The hilarity of maturing. At 19, pizza, soda and video games after work were sexy. At 31, a stable retirement plan is what gets me revved up.
It is a bit more complex than that, a generation of geeks have been socialised to believe that eating free pizza at work is "living the dream". Even guys who are well experienced in the industry can fall for it. There are a whole bunch of tricks a savvy employer can use that cost next to nothing compared to the overtime the workers do in return for it.
