Forget that I ever existed

MgComp

I think there are different extremes of this. My company has a pool table in the communal kitchen, and we occasiaonlly will go to the pub for lunch on a friday, but certainly dont have weekly events or holidays! My SO has subsidised holidays with his company, and has been skiing with them once, but i dont think he would be keen to get too involved with other trips.

Again it's all about what you feel comfortable doing, and there are companies out there who have an element of 'fun' without being overbearing.

meadow2018

We had a company like this who had the floor above our office.  Some days they were really noisy.  Our boss went up to see what was happening and apparently they were doing races on office chairs  (if they were sober enough).

Takeaway_Addict

[Deleted User] said:

Dox said:

ushjr said:

What are peoples thoughts on this?

I recently had an interview at a place where they were going through all the great things about working there. Every week they have team lunches and company nights out. They have a ping pong table, yoga and unlimited beer in the office. They have weekends away and ski trips. There was maybe more, but it was putting me off working there if anything. I don't mind the odd team lunch or occasional drink with colleagues, but I certainly don't want to be going on a ski trip with them.

My last company had things like that, though nowhere near as extreme as the place I mentioned above. Fortunately there wasn't any pressure to partake in these activities so more often than not I didn't. We had free beer in the office in the last hour on a Friday but I didn't drink it because I don't like drinking beer without having my dinner first. It was mostly drunk by the same few people who would try and drink as much as they possible could in an hour.

Pretty simple. If you don't like the sound of the culture, don't work there.

They were asking for people's thoughts. I know those are yours, but hardly helpful.

Well it is, it was putting the otherside to your comment. Nothing wrong with an employer wanting a specific member of staff

MovingForwards

A lot depends on the people you work with.

I've been a one company, had loads of laughs and was happy to go on the odd night out when it happened.

Another company was fine to start with, but a few people came in and the whole dynamics changed. People stopped attending events, the ethos had also changed from being a voluntary contribution towards something to compulsory and being named and shamed if you didn't.

Others I've point blank not got involved in after working with them all day, I've reached a point and had enough of them.

If you're asking here, it doesn't sound like something you would want to do, or do regularly.

AskAsk

ushjr said:

I'd say the most off-putting thing about it is the fake enthusiasm that comes with it. Work is boring so having these things that make your job not just purely work isn't a bad thing. But at the same time, these places say everyone is passionate and excited by their work. If that was true then there would be no need for anything other than work if it really gets people excited.

I once worked somewhere that was the other extreme, conversing with colleagues was frowned upon. The only time you were allowed to leave your desk other than the toilet was if it was your turn to go to the on site cafe for your section that day. I generally like my colleagues though, nobody was pretending to enjoy their job, we were all there just to make money and looked forward to going home at the end of the day.

It's been many years since I did a non-career job, but to me the only thing that makes a career job better than a non-career job is that it pays more money. It probably only pays more money because nobody would do it if it didn't. 

i wouldn't work for an employer if they were that authotarian, where you can't even talk to your colleagues!  that is the whole point of me coming to work in the first place, and having people to chat to makes the day go faster.

i find work difficult to cope with in the main as it is either too hard to do or too boring to do, so like yourself, it is all about the money for me.  however, i have had jobs where i really did enjoy working there and looked forward to going into the office.

Mickey666

So much negativity!  

I once worked for tech company based in a country mansion with wonderful grounds.  Team meetings and working outdoors in the summer months certainly made a change from identikit air-con offices.  As for being paid for out of employee salaries, that wasn’t my experience and the few times I looked at comparable jobs confirmed that we were being paid in the top 10% for our industry.  In fact, such companies pay for such things out of their profitability, which tends to be higher than in companies where employees do not enjoy their work and become demotivated.  Sure, the hours can be longer than the standard 9-5 but that’s because it becomes immersive and challenging.  

Having said that, I never thought of such work as a lifetime career.  It was fun while I was younger, had no family and lots of energy, so in that respect it was like a ‘kick-starter’ that allowed me to earn very good money for later life phases.  

Cynicism is cheap and generally gets you nowhere in life.  Some will see such companies as exploiting their employees but I’ve always seen things as the exact opposite.  Take control of your own life and exploit these companies for everything you can - it can then be a win-win proposition.  Work hard, play hard.  Yes, I know that’s an overused phrase but it worked for me and meant I could retire a tad before my 50th birthday.  So who was exploiting who?

[Deleted User]

Mickey666 said:

 So who was exploiting who?

So sad that it's come down to a race to the bottom. A competition on who's exploiting whom - no wonder most people aren't happy at work.

Mickey666

I guess you're one of the cynical ones then?

I never said I wasn't happy at work and my point was that a win-win situation isn't really exploitation by either party, more of a fair exchange.  A lot of this stuff is all in the mind.  Unless you happen to believe that everything should ge given to people on a plate then it follows that people have to earn a living.  My approach has never been to simply ask who will give me any old job, it has always been how can I get what I want, how can I find a company that can provide me with work I'm interested in, a good salary and pleasant working conditions.  I don't see that as a race to the bottom of anything, in fact it means I had to up my game (education, qualifications, skills, experience etc) and companies have to do much the same (offer interesting work, good salaries, great working environments etc).

Of course, much depends on the market/industry but that's a choice people have to make for themselves and we all know that some jobs pay well and others don't, for example (money isn't everything of course).  There is also an element of 'luck', though in my experience people often make their own luck - good or bad - and from what I've seen 'bad' luck often arises through simply not having a 'life plan' to guide them through all the inevitable choices they'll be faced with, resulting in short-term thinking and poor decisions.  Perhaps it all boils down to ambition?

AskAsk

Mickey666 said:

So much negativity!  

I once worked for tech company based in a country mansion with wonderful grounds.  Team meetings and working outdoors in the summer months certainly made a change from identikit air-con offices.  As for being paid for out of employee salaries, that wasn’t my experience and the few times I looked at comparable jobs confirmed that we were being paid in the top 10% for our industry.  In fact, such companies pay for such things out of their profitability, which tends to be higher than in companies where employees do not enjoy their work and become demotivated.  Sure, the hours can be longer than the standard 9-5 but that’s because it becomes immersive and challenging.  

Having said that, I never thought of such work as a lifetime career.  It was fun while I was younger, had no family and lots of energy, so in that respect it was like a ‘kick-starter’ that allowed me to earn very good money for later life phases.  

Cynicism is cheap and generally gets you nowhere in life.  Some will see such companies as exploiting their employees but I’ve always seen things as the exact opposite.  Take control of your own life and exploit these companies for everything you can - it can then be a win-win proposition.  Work hard, play hard.  Yes, I know that’s an overused phrase but it worked for me and meant I could retire a tad before my 50th birthday.  So who was exploiting who?

you have been very lucky to find companies that give employees lots of benefits out of their profits.  i have worked for many employers in my time, and i find the ones with the least benefits and no bonus, are the ones that pay the highest basic salary.

for me, the highest basic salary is what i am after.  it is of course nice to have all the benefits, but i would rather this be given to me in salary.  even if the benefits were paid for from the employer's profits, i would prefer this is passed on to me in my salary.

it is not true that productivity is poor when there are no employer benefits.  if the salary is high enough, productivity will follow.  and i have also found employees to be very happy at work in companies where there are no benefits but they get high pay.

benefits are not great as not everyone will benefit from them.  the drinks culture for example would only benefit someone who drinks a lot and those that do not, will be subsidising the boozers.

prowla

One of, probably the, worst job I had was one with all of the gamification stuff, even to the point of rolling a blow-up dice to see what prize someone who had made some sort of achievement deemed worthy would get (usually a bag of sweets).