Meta is bolstering perks like happy hours and company swag as it pushes staff to return to office, despite its ‘year of efficiency’::The company has revived a number of employee perks, according to Bloomberg, including branded t-shirts, laundry services, and free haircuts.
Benefits matter, too.
I’m in the AAA gaming industry. EA laid me off earlier this year, and so I wound up looking for work elsewhere.
I’ve learned that really - the pay doesn’t matter if you hate your life every day. If I wanted good pay, I would learn COBOL and write software at a bank. What matters the most is the quality of the team you’re working with (primary), and what benefits your employer has (secondary).
If Meta were to call me up and say “Hey, we want you to be on a team with the greatest coworkers you’ve ever had,” then I’d at least hear them out. What is their culture? Do they believe in crunch? How do they handle sick days? Vacations?
And yes, WFH is part of that, too. But if they were willing to pay to relocate me, buy me a house near a metro station… yeah, I’d take it.
But if they were to offer me that exact same deal - except there’s no guarantees about production schedules/timelines, there’s the “bus problem” (where the project couldn’t survive someone important being hit by a bus), there’s a lot of crunch (or just bad experiences from friends who’ve worked there… Blizzard offered me a sweetheart deal and I said no because of that history)… I’m less likely to want to bite.
And everyone has different preferences. I’ve known some people who love the office. I don’t mind it myself, with the right group. But everyone has to make their own call.
That’s a pretty privileged position to be in. Not everyone can say no to a job because the quality of the team isn’t to par because they are more interested in keeping food on the table than being happy at work.
I don’t think the discussion is choosing between not working AT ALL and working there.
It is more about would you work at a good place that has good people and decent pay, or Meta.