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0 pointslelanthran4y ago0 comments

> In part I'm paying 40% in tax so if I'm going to buy coffees it's actually more effective to have them provided by the company. But in general, that sort of convenience and benefit is often worth more than the monetary value.

I actually started of my working career as a factory worker (nightshift, 12 hour shifts, seven days a week). It was customary to bring along a flask of coffee and a packed lunch.

Right now, even though we have company-provided coffee, I'd rather they just give me the money to bring a flask of my own coffee.

It's more convenient, I get to make a trade-off between quality and cost as the situation calls for it, I get to switch coffees if I need to.

In current reality, though, you are correct - overall it's cheaper for the company to provide coffee instead of giving you the marginal cost of the coffee you consume. I just wanted to provide an alternative viewpoint.

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danpalmer4y ago

I completely agree – this all depends on the company, the people, the environment, everything.

I just think that saying "just give me the money" in all cases is a) not necessarily efficient, and b) glosses over the idea that a benefit can be worth more to people than the monetary value.

It can also be worth more to the employer! The UK government don't provide tea/coffee typically because it all ends up on public record and there's a perception that the media will be outraged if the government spent £10k on tea bags, even if that might be a perfectly reasonable expense across tens of thousands of employees (made up numbers, not important). The result is that in some offices you get contractors being paid £800 a day taking a 15 minute break to go down to the shop to buy milk for their tea, or to get a coffee from a coffee shop, costing far more than it would cost to just have some available in the office.

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