- cross-posted to:
- antiwork@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- antiwork@lemmy.ml
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A company offered me a million dollars to work for them, but then I remembered the ping pong table at my current employer and said no way. Totally worth it.
Money can’t buy what a ping pong table brings.
Yeah, often when an employee leaves it’s about the lack of ping-pong table.
“Yes, boss, I’m leaving because I’m tired of playing ping-pong on unoccupied morgue tables, you really should’ve bought a proper ping pong table instead”
How many of these companies think employees are going to say it’s about the money during an exit interview? Usually if you agree to an exit interview it’s to be diplomatic and not burn your bridges. You’re not going to tell the truth, you’re going to say what they want to hear.
I was abundantly clear that I was leaving for the money. They countered with a salary that was pretty much identical, but I wasn’t shy about telling hr that it shouldn’t take me getting another offer to convince them that I was worth paying market rates for.
No bridges burned, they’ve reached out twice now to see if I’d come back and the salary is now pretty competitive but I’m in a good spot and not interested in leaving.
You can be honest and diplomatic…if you try.
So what you’re saying is that your reason for leaving wasn’t about the money
It was specifically about the money. Please don’t be one of those people so ignorant as to believe that a firm who doesn’t value their employees until they’re one foot out the door is somewhere that will pay you what you’re worth in the long run. Being competitive now doesn’t mean I’d be making more money, it just means they’re now in the range for my position.
Money isn’t only valuable in this instant, the availability of money in the future is also an important factor.
I always have. If that’s the reason, why wouldn’t you? It’s just business. Once, they’ve offered me a potentential promotion or salary increase to try to retain me (but not nearly as much as I got from the new job). I doubled my salary and got my title promoted twice in 2 years by switching employers twice. If I keep it up I’ll be a CEO in no-time, lol.
Of course, nobody with two brain cells to rub together who reads that answer is sitting there thinking to themselves, “Huh… I guess I’ve had it wrong all this time, focusing so much on money.” Rather, they’re instinctively blurting out, “Yeah right – I call bull!”
But I’ll give them partial credit; frequently it’s about money. Sometimes, it’s just about a work environment that used to be great going to crap. And sometimes, it’s about the employee coming to an epiphany, and realizing that their work environment was actually crap all along.
That said, it may be true that not every job that I’ve ditched was entirely because of money… but it should go without saying that it’s always a factor in where I went for the next job. Also, it’s never the only factor – but it’s certainly one of the more significant ones.
I actually convinced my boss to get us a ping pong table, all I had to do was forego my pay for a year!
Totally worth, since I’m not working for the money, I’m working for the culture (our culture is now a ping pong table). It’s so awesome that I can use it during my state-mandated breaks 🙂
state-mandated breaks 🙂
Looks like someone doesn’t do construction work in Texas.
There is a bit of truth here. Toxic culture and out of touch management will make people walk as well.
Thing is, there might just be a wad of cash big enough to make me put up with that against my health interests.
Fuck ping pong tables though. No one left a company because they didn’t have enough fucking table sports. If you think they are then you are the problem. Exit interview your own fucking arse.
yeah, the "not necessarily pay is accurate, but the “right” answer being ping-pong table pivots things from “ok, they have some understanding” to “incredibly tone deaf”.
I mean not enough ping-pong tables could be reason to leave for a PE teacher or something
This is what I came to say. Good management will make people stay for a long time with less pay.
But obviously HR doesn’t get that lmao.
One of the best bosses I ever had once told me that people will stay for the culture but leave for money. His philosophy was to try and ensure that money was not a factor in people’s decision, then build as good a culture as he could.
And to be clear, by making money not a factor, I mean he paid well.
I had a meeting years ago with my company’s CTO about my salary. He kicked off the meeting by saying “you care a lot more about what you make than I do” which prompted me to ask for 50% more than I had been planning to ask for. He agreed to it without argument. TBF he was a coke addict married to the daughter of the company’s owner and within six months he’d been divorced and fired, but I got to keep my salary.
Was his name Keith?
Phillip. Of course, we knew him better by the name his eventually ex-wife gave him on Facebook: “Ol’ Three Inches Two Minutes”.
“Man, my job pays horribly and the benefits barely cover anything, but they have a ping-pong table so it’s honestly a tough call.”
I struggle to understand how someone could seriously write something like that question without a lack of self-awareness so dire that a walk to the kitchen would come with a near-death experience. It just can’t be real.
That was beautifully put.
Chants for your next strike action:
- “Our CEO’S a DING DONG, WE JUST WANT THE PING PONG!!!”
- “Hey hey! ho ho! Give us balls and paddles or we’re going to go! Hey hey! Ho ho!”
- “The workers without ping pong, will never work the day long!”
- “The people with no paddles, will never be your chattel!”
- “backhands, forehands, we don’t need your labels, the only thing we need are fucking ping pong tables!”
perfectly maps to startups selling working at a startup as “we’re a family”, “you’re a googler”, etc. give them a ping pong table and free beer on fridays and you can pay considerably less.
Damn. Now I want a ping pong table.
Hey, wanted to level-set with you real quick. Some people in the office have commented that they see you playing ping pong quite a bit. I know you’re just playing on your breaks but It’s really not a good look.
Thanks for the chat.
I have one, but it’s just not the same having one at home as it is having one at work y’know?
That’s funny. I want additional responsibilities
Oh yeah, fun fact, in my former and current job every year we get invited to a town halls with some executive and every year we hear the complaints that we can’t keep employees.
Every year I ask the same question, “We keep hearing that we have a attrition problem so why do we keep chasing the industry standard for pay and benefits, why can’t we adjust our pay scale and promotion process to actual reward performance to actually keep our high performers?”
Every year, is a non-answer, nothing changes, we lose good people and only keep our industry standard people.
Though it was funny that since I’m on multiple projects/teams I did get the same speil multiple times from the same person and the third time in two years I got called I didn’t even have to ask before I got the boiler plate.
It’s true that it’s not always about the money, but it’s probably never about a ping pong table
Well, hypothetical speaking, if there were two completely absolutely identical jobs, but the one had a ping pong table. I might choose the one without and ask them to get a Foosball table, since I’m no good at ping pong.
It also depends on whether it’s about a pingpong table in the office, or whether I get one for at home and we’re talking a fully remote job.
Getting a free pingpong table isn’t a bad bonus! I’d prefer a decent crokinole board though, tbh
What is Crokinole?
Shut up and sit down has a video where they rave about it. It’s a dexterity game that uses a large board and sliding pieces.
It seems simplistic, but it is genuinely amazing to paly.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=XMKzeg78peg
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
It’s a bad bonus if you don’t have space for a ping pong table. Speaking from experience, I got a free ping pong table for Christmas once…
I thought this was chatgpt for a second because I didn’t want to believe anyone but ai could be this tone deaf. then I remembered humans and got depressed
Middle of the road: pay your employees in ping pong tables, increase monthly ping pong table quota.
As a professional in this field, top reasons would be…
- Dissatisfaction with pay
- Limited/No career progression
- Dissatisfaction with environment/culture
- Dissatisfaction with management
- Poor work-life balance
- Poor job design/expectations of role
- Poor taining quality/knowledge management
- Inadequate tools/systems
Edit: I should also point out we have about half a dozen ping-pong tables scattered around my work and our turnover figures were bang on average for annual benchmarking against the sector. I consider the average too high, though, and will be targeting better retention over this year. We’ll need at least double the amount of ping-pong tables.
I don’t see pizza party or ping pong table on that list so you’re obviously not a professional.
A real professional knows employees want pizza parties instead of higher pay and they want more responsibilities with the same pay!
:P
I had this argument with a boomer HR consultant and she just doubled down, even though I explained that neither I nor my colleagues, give two hoots about fussball or team building. Our position is a resounding “fuck you pay me” but oh no - boomer knows best.
