Interestingly, not everyone likes free food! At least, in the company-provided sense.
I've had many engineers tell me that they find the emphasis on free food these days to be patronizing, as if engineers were not capable of obtaining their own food. Some of the disadvantages of free food:
- You are pressured to eat whatever the company provides. What if you prefer something else?
- You are socially pressured to eat with your coworkers every single day
- It's a transparent attempt to get people to spend more hours in the office, in return for food that is worth only a few dollars; not nearly as much as their time.
- It removes the natural opportunity for a break around lunchtime to go outside and get something to eat.
Anyway, your point is still valid that free food is less controversial than democratized management ... by a long shot :). But I thought that it was interesting how the culture around company-provided food is changing.
I've had many engineers tell me that they find the emphasis on free food these days to be patronizing, as if engineers were not capable of obtaining their own food. Some of the disadvantages of free food:
- You are pressured to eat whatever the company provides. What if you prefer something else?
- You are socially pressured to eat with your coworkers every single day
- It's a transparent attempt to get people to spend more hours in the office, in return for food that is worth only a few dollars; not nearly as much as their time.
- It removes the natural opportunity for a break around lunchtime to go outside and get something to eat.
Anyway, your point is still valid that free food is less controversial than democratized management ... by a long shot :). But I thought that it was interesting how the culture around company-provided food is changing.