Business Citing $13 Million Price Tag With 20% Capacity Used - Elon Musk Cancels Twitter's Free Meal Program. Employees Cry Some More. - “There are more people preparing breakfast than eating breakfast”

Well, the worst nightmare of "workers" at Twitter, having to work more and party less, just got that much worse... the latest perk to be taken? Free lunches (that nobody used).




Twitter workers who survived the chopping block after Elon Musk overpaid for the social media site will soon have to pay for their own meals.

The billionaire said he will scrap the free meals served at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco because it was costing the company around $400 per worker.

Musk completed his $44 billion takeover of Twitter last month and promptly fired about half of the 7,500-person workforce.

He also proceeded to mandate a return to the office and pointed to the lack of mouths to feed as driving up the cost of the free-lunch program.

Musk took to Twitter on Sunday to say that offering free meals at the company cafeteria had become unsustainable because “almost no one came to the office.”

He estimated the free meals cost the company around $13 million a year.

A Twitter employee who quit after Musk took over denied his claims hours later, saying the free meals cost the company no more than $25 per person per day.

“There are more people preparing breakfast than eating breakfast,” Musk said. “They don’t even bother serving dinner, because there is no one in the building.”

FULL ARTICLE

As you'd expect, the usual suspects are Tweeting with Rage (tm) at Musk, claiming everything from being starved to him lying about the costs.

Also as you'd expect, the blowback from the non-Twitterized public has been prompt, massive and unsympathetic, with the majority of people pointing out your average worker does NOT get fed for free should they CHOOSE to come into the office.

 

[Johan Schmidt]

I'm guessing it also includes stuff like the cost of the whole kitchen staff.

I suppose. If it's breakfast then you'd only need them for max 6 hours. That way you could cover a 8-10 + an hour each side, with some wiggle room regarding clean up and set up. If you're paying the cooks $16 an hour (jewgle tells me that's the wage of a single line cook.); then a single cook racks in at a like $12-$14 a person from just wages. Maybe like another 6-7 for bulk ingredients.

 

[AnOminous]

I'd love to see them try to 'work remotely' at the McDonald's job they'll have to get when Musk realizes most of these people's 'jobs' consist of a handful of emails, farting around, and occasionally making presentations.

And don't forget doing "content moderation" which means completely ignoring pedophiles grooming children while solely going after people whose politics you personally disagree with.

I'm serious, I'll bet a LOT of people were willing to blow money on a platform that would never turn a profit as long as they got their ego stroked with a verified account the ability to complain to the "Community and Safety" team to get old rivals banned for spurious reasons.

And you know this money wasn't going to Twitter itself. The criminals taking bribes were almost certainly embezzling them themselves then claiming they "verified" whatever nobody had bribed them.

They're actually lucky they're just being fired and not criminally prosecuted.

 

[sadrefrigerator]

Before the pandemic, almost every mid size or above company in SF and a lot of the bay area had at least free lunch, with a lot having some breakfast and dinner program.

This was a very good idea from the company's pov because

- food was very expensive in SF. It was probably cheaper overall to collectively feed employees
- an extra 6k was insignificant in developer comp. Free food had a greater psychological effect.
- having free lunch encouraged employees to stay in the office, reducing lost productivity from going out to lunch. Having breakfast and dinner encouraged longer hours in total. (The company gained a lot of value when comparing food costs to engineering man-hours)
- once one big tech giant started free meals, the others had to follow suit to remain competitive in hiring.

After the offices shut down, so did the food program. With wfh being more popular, free food was less of a draw.

 

[Fomo Hoire]

$25 per person per day for a single meal?

View attachment 3866730

More than that if you consider that's what it costs to produce (it would be more if they were selling it like a restaurant), but less than that if you assume they eat more than one meal a day there and it might go through crazy accounting where it is a benefit but it's not salary so it's valued weirdly.

I imagine the extravagance was the whole point. Weighing costs and benefits is for the unwashed masses - paying for things that you'll never use is how you demonstrate real status.

Could also be long term contracts with suppliers that they can't shrink on a whim, and the uncertainty of when if ever they'll need to return to full capacity again.

- having free lunch encouraged employees to stay in the office, reducing lost productivity from going out to lunch. Having breakfast and dinner encouraged longer hours in total. (The company gained a lot of value when comparing food costs to engineering man-hours)

I've heard this rationale applies to other amenities like laundry, gyms and sleep pods.

That's right, sleep pods.

Not because they want you to sleep at work, but because they want it to be real easy to convince you to do stupid late overtime. Worst case scenario, skip your 4 hour commute, sleep at the office! Never go home, you're stuck here now.

 

[pikachudidnothingwrong]

Didn't he ban working from home?

Damn, he's even more based than I thought!

 

[JosephStalin]

A good one.

 

[sadrefrigerator]

I've heard this rationale applies to other amenities like laundry, gyms and sleep pods.

That's right, sleep pods.

Not because they want you to sleep at work, but because they want it to be real easy to convince you to do stupid late overtime. Worst case scenario, skip your 4 hour commute, sleep at the office! Never go home, you're stuck here now.

Yep. A bit tech giant campus is a lot like a mini town. They have post offices, shuttles, laundry, stores, etc. Zuck even paid women to freeze their eggs.

It's hard for people not in the industry to understand. Engineering is the value generator for these companies. Employee related costs is always going to be the greatest cost to a company, but these companies profitted 3-10x per employee that they hired. Employees are all salaried, so some companies try everything to squeeze the maximum amount of productivity from every employee. Free food is a drop in the bucket.
Even if it seems like there's not a lot to do for an established website, even discounting new features, there's tons that go into maintaining and updating the website. Without an adequate team, the app goes to shit very quickly.

That being said, Twitter was known as a easy company where employees barely worked.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

Going by the headline I thought Musk shut down a project feeding the homeless because most of the food went to waste. But he was actually just shutting down a twitter program feeding lazy bums.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Bring your own lunch you fucking parasite laptop Niggers.

 

[JosephStalin]

Before the pandemic, almost every mid size or above company in SF and a lot of the bay area had at least free lunch, with a lot having some breakfast and dinner program.

This was a very good idea from the company's pov because

- food was very expensive in SF. It was probably cheaper overall to collectively feed employees
- an extra 6k was insignificant in developer comp. Free food had a greater psychological effect.
- having free lunch encouraged employees to stay in the office, reducing lost productivity from going out to lunch. Having breakfast and dinner encouraged longer hours in total. (The company gained a lot of value when comparing food costs to engineering man-hours)
- once one big tech giant started free meals, the others had to follow suit to remain competitive in hiring.

After the offices shut down, so did the food program. With wfh being more popular, free food was less of a draw.

When at Microsoft, many years ago, each office building had a number of what we called "kitchens". Cereal and fruit were supplied. There was a coffee machine and espresso machine. There were large convenience store-style refrigerators in each kitchen. One had Coke products, one Pepsi products, one Odwalla juices, and one with milks. All these were free, used to load the backpack nightly with Odwallas for the kids. Donuts came in once a week. Only thing requiring money was the candy machine, but in our building if you knew where the Hotmail people's candy/snack room was you just helped yourself. Nobody gave a fuck.

Once a week our little group had a meeting. Day before the meeting a menu went around and we picked our meals, all free. Hey, a working lunch.

 

[Naes]

On another note, I am waiting on his announcement that he is moving HQ out of CA and to, maybe Texas... OR, FL OR TN (lol) .imagine the screeching over that.

seems like it would be a good idea.

 

[sadrefrigerator]

When at Microsoft, many years ago, each office building had a number of what we called "kitchens". Cereal and fruit were supplied. There was a coffee machine and espresso machine. There were large convenience store-style refrigerators in each kitchen. One had Coke products, one Pepsi products, one Odwalla juices, and one with milks. All these were free, used to load the backpack nightly with Odwallas for the kids. Donuts came in once a week. Only thing requiring money was the candy machine, but in our building if you knew where the Hotmail people's candy/snack room was you just helped yourself. Nobody gave a fuck.

Once a week our little group had a meeting. Day before the meeting a menu went around and we picked our meals, all free. Hey, a working lunch.

I've worked at the hq in Redmond many years ago. This was after their deal with coke, so they only had coke products with coke freestyle machines at select cafeterias. I used to shuttle to the closest freestyle machine to get refills. They also had an energy water I liked that was exclusively for ms, so I couldn't buy it after I left.

As great as it was, their food program was kind of lacking since you had to pay for food at the cafeterias. It was cheap enough though. They had 5 dollar steaks

 

[Sparkletor 2.0]

Spoiler: Sorry to those who died in the crash, but...

 

[Kheapathic]

When at Microsoft, many years ago, each office building had a number of what we called "kitchens". Cereal and fruit were supplied. There was a coffee machine and espresso machine. There were large convenience store-style refrigerators in each kitchen. One had Coke products, one Pepsi products, one Odwalla juices, and one with milks. All these were free, used to load the backpack nightly with Odwallas for the kids. Donuts came in once a week. Only thing requiring money was the candy machine, but in our building if you knew where the Hotmail people's candy/snack room was you just helped yourself. Nobody gave a fuck.

Once a week our little group had a meeting. Day before the meeting a menu went around and we picked our meals, all free. Hey, a working lunch.

Worked at a casino; employee lunchroom had a hotline and a cold line. Hot line was usually buffet items that were never put out and stuff that was nearing its best by date in the freezers; cold line was salad bar and deserts and the like, some of which were again, things not used or nearing its best by date. They also had a grill and if you knew better, you could get a custom burger/sandwich/etc instead of whatever is in the lines. All at no cost, not the best and you don't always have options; but it was free and you didn't get monitored. People who worked swing shift and graveyard got a free meal at one of the restaurants. Left-overs from special events were also great; because a free lunch of brisket and cake is pretty awesome.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

#LearnToCook Twitterati.

 

[Alligator Alcatraz]

It is a symbol of the overwhelming wealth in tech companies. Check out this article from 2012 by Penny Arcade, when they began reporting on gaming industry topics and decided the first thing they will do is tour Valve:

https://web.archive.org/web/2012101...penny-arcade-report-goes-for-a-tour-though-th







It isn't just Twitter that needs to downside on retardation, that's for sure. Gen Xers seem to treat their workplaces as playgrounds and school cafeterias.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

A Twitter employee who quit after Musk took over denied his claims hours later, saying the free meals cost the company no more than $25 per person per day.

Musk should fact check this employee who probably ignores the cost of maintaining and the salary of the chefs and cleaners.

 

[Aidan]

It is a symbol of the overwhelming wealth in tech companies. Check out this article from 2012 by Penny Arcade, when they began reporting on gaming industry topics and decided the first thing they will do is tour Valve:

https://web.archive.org/web/2012101...penny-arcade-report-goes-for-a-tour-though-th

View attachment 3868686

View attachment 3868689

View attachment 3868692

It isn't just Twitter that needs to downside on retardation, that's for sure. Gen Xers seem to treat their workplaces as playgrounds and school cafeterias.

To be fair to Valve, they make a ton of money and are a private company. Twitter and so many others are public companies hemorrhaging money, relying on venture capitalist money to exist.

 

[I (Don't) Have A Gun]

How the fuck was this place making money with all these ridiculous expenses?

It wasn't, it was a giant money pit kept going purely by outside investments by parties looking to exert some form of control over "the conversation". That whole ESG nonsense.

I wouldn't even say it was swindling. Everyone knew Twitter was a black hole for money but for some reasn venture capital had an even bigger hard-on for it than normal, despite the fact it was kinda clear that like Facebook it had basically hit it's max market growth.

There's also cases like the Saudis investing in twitter, likely to hide their numerous and frequent human rights abuses. The venture capital investments were likely tried to ESG ratings inflating their value.

Jesus, what fucking breakfast costs 25 a day? Even in our spiralling economic depression zone of the UK; eggs are like £2 a carton for 12. Butter is £1.50 a big tub, bread is £1 a loaf. Ham is like £4-5 a kilo. Fried egg, and ham sandwich each morning should be running you less than a £1 a person.

Yeah but they weren't just eating eggs, toast and ham.

When at Microsoft, many years ago, each office building had a number of what we called "kitchens". Cereal and fruit were supplied. There was a coffee machine and espresso machine. There were large convenience store-style refrigerators in each kitchen. One had Coke products, one Pepsi products, one Odwalla juices, and one with milks. All these were free, used to load the backpack nightly with Odwallas for the kids. Donuts came in once a week. Only thing requiring money was the candy machine, but in our building if you knew where the Hotmail people's candy/snack room was you just helped yourself. Nobody gave a fuck.

Once a week our little group had a meeting. Day before the meeting a menu went around and we picked our meals, all free. Hey, a working lunch.

Reminds me of the place I worked. This more or less seem to be basic setup for a medium and up tech company that wants to give the employees some benefits, but doesn't want to spend too much effort on it.

 

[sadrefrigerator]

It is a symbol of the overwhelming wealth in tech companies. Check out this article from 2012 by Penny Arcade, when they began reporting on gaming industry topics and decided the first thing they will do is tour Valve:

https://web.archive.org/web/2012101...penny-arcade-report-goes-for-a-tour-though-th

View attachment 3868686

View attachment 3868689

View attachment 3868692

It isn't just Twitter that needs to downside on retardation, that's for sure. Gen Xers seem to treat their workplaces as playgrounds and school cafeterias.

There is nothing really unique about valve's office. You can find rooms like that in most offices. You'll find game rooms and cafeterias in almost any company that isn't struggling for money. The pyroland room is more of an art thing, which makes sense considering they are a game company (I've seen similar art at riot HQ). Most wealthy companies have some kind of art installations that get cycles every few years or so.
I've toured valve back then and their office was actually extremely small for the amount of products that they actually make. Its like 4 or 5 stories of a skyscraper in bellevue with parts of the floor cut out to be more like one room.