Valleywag reports a rumour that on Monday Google will announce the end of free food for employees. CNET reports that their email to a Google representative about the issue has at the moment gone unanswered – this is still rumour.
I think there would be some bad PR if they did stop it – I enjoyed the free food immensely on my trip to the Dublin Googleplex though our host did say that people put on a lot of weight when they first start working for Google.
I think its smart to have free food – I bet employees come into work earlier, take less time for lunch and leave later and have chats about work over meals. I bet they are far more productive the way it is now than if they stopped the free food.
http://valleywag.com/5040986/googles-food-perks-on-the-chopping-block |
Valleywag posted a follow-up saying "Google's food cutbacks are more targeted than we'd first heard. Dinner will still be served in buildings which house engineers, according to a former Google chef who's made his own inquiries about the changes at the Googleplex cafeterias. Google's only eliminating the evening meal in cafes frequented by nontechnical employees." http://valleywag.com/5041464/dinner-saved-for-googles-geeks
And Alley Insider says "Apparently Google isn’t discontinuing free dinner at the Googleplex after all: The company told CNBC’s Jim Goldman this afternoon that the rumors, started yesterday by Valleywag, are completely untrue and that they don’t know where they came from. ... An anonymous tipster tells us that closing dinner in some buildings rather than others has nothing to do with technical or non-technical employees, it's just Google consolidating the cafes for dinner." http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/google-tells-cnbc-that-dinner-s-still-on |