this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024

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433

Meta fires staffers for using $25 meal credits on household goods (arstechnica.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org to c/technology@lemmy.world

109 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Gotta get creative with your layoffs when you already did massive layoffs but still need to please wall street.

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[–] TOModera@lemmy.world 83 points 3 weeks ago (11 children)

I don't think Meta thought this through, unless the staff already know you can be fired for small things like this. Sure, they stretched what you are supposed to spend money on, broke the rules, fine. Fuck around, find out, not something i do professionally. But it's $25. You're a 1.5$ trillion company. It comes off as petty.

If I was still working at Meta, I'd be job hunting. And maybe that's what they want. Maybe they need to downsize some more.

But eventually Meta will have the minimum amount of staff and need to grow again or necessary people will leave, and when they try to hire people they may find this article and demand more money to make up for the pettiness or they won't apply, because no one likes to be under a microscope.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 43 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

And maybe that’s what they want

It's absolutely what they want. I think they're trying to cull their workforce, and cracking down on random policies in this way is intended to get people to leave w/o having to pay out severance packages.

they may find this article and demand more money

I highly doubt that. People will continue to apply to Meta because it's a prestigious job and pays remarkably well. Unfortunately, Meta will get away with this, and it's honestly disgusting to me.

[–] TOModera@lemmy.world 18 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

100% agree on your first point.

I would caution your second point. A few years ago, news articles pointed out Meta had to pay people more compared to other similar companies due to people not wanting to work there. Sadly Google search isn't showing me those older articles.

A few websites are saying Meta's ~~average~~ median pay is 379k (Zuckerberg takes a $1 so he isn't driving that number) vs Google at $315k vs Microsoft $193k vs Nvidia 267k. That's a lot of difference. So running a company like a pedant has a real dollar difference, especially for workers who can demand it. Meta lost a lot of money on the Metaverse and they are spending to catch up AI, meaning they already have to be competitive for employees compared to other companies. Add in the perks are a trap to get fired, and your costs just keep going up. Perks are typically offered in lieu of higher costs and in this case incentive people to work longer in an office. Now they leave for food or go home and you have lost those benefits.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Meta had to pay people more compared to other similar companies due to people not wanting to work there

It's probably more because they were offered a position at some other prestigious firm, like Google or Netflix. Meta doesn't need to compete with you local mom-and-pop software company, they're competing with other large tech firms, so if they want "the best," they need to pay up for it.

Microsoft $193k

I think there's a lot more variety of roles in some of those companies though. Microsoft has a big hardware division (XBox, Surface, mouse/keyboard, etc), which means a lot of lower-paid support staff, logistics, etc. Meta is relatively new to that (mostly just their VR), so they probably have a lot fewer lower-paid roles. Microsoft also has a lot of campuses in lower COL areas, whereas my understanding is that Meta is almost entirely in the SF Bay area, with relatively few satellites (i.e. much higher average COL).

So just looking at average salaries doesn't tell the whole story, we'd need to look at equivalent roles. You could absolutely be right here, I'm just pointing out the metrics don't necessarily support the conclusions.

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[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I’m just trying to understand how UberEats is a good way to feed an office. Are we talking about 3 people in a WeWork space somewhere? I can’t imagine 250 UberEats orders all arriving somewhere at once and getting to the right people. Or even 25.

[–] TOModera@lemmy.world 19 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Oh, it's terrible. The entire policy is Bananas. And you can't pool funds? So if it is 3 people, $75 worth of pizza will feed them for a long time. But they got fired for pooling them.

How much time were the Accountants spending verifying this? Or did workers just receive vouchers? If a handful of people were abusing it, how did they notice? No refunds on vouchers, so you'd assume an amount of late nights and then refill as needed. It was already budgeted, so it's a sunk cost.

Also in some places I've worked, $25 after the delivery costs isn't that much food either. I'd be ignoring that perk forever if I still worked there, too much red tape.

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 12 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah the pooling funds part confuses me. What is the damn issue?

Well, they also just straight up laid off 9,000 people this week so they are clearly in a mood to get rid of people. And I suppose they don’t mind firing people for small infractions because it accomplishes two things for them:

no severance required
sets an example and scares people into obedience

Free food is after all a perk that most people don’t get at work. And it’s just the tip of the iceberg of perks that Meta employees get. I know for a fact that executives get sick and tired of employees being spoiled by all this and they probably took personal enjoyment in these terminations.

[–] TOModera@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

I agree, this stinks of petty gotcha, which is why i dont think its a good idea, as remaining employees with devalue those perks and stop working for Meta as a result.

And yes, these are perks above all else, but remember Meta created these incentives to keep people in the office longer without having to pay them (a lot) more. A few people abusing it in order to ensure the majority of workers stay nights and weekends (at small satellite offices) is a small price. Now? "Hey, worker X, staying late tonight?" "No, going home to eat, don't want to make a mistake on ordering Uber Eats and get fired" means you don't get 5-40 hours per week extra time from that worker X. And you already paid for the vouchers, so you don't save money. Also other workers won't stay because more people leave.

Granted we are talking Mark Z here, so eating food is probably too alien for him to understand.

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[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 56 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Some decent bootlicking in here...

"Leadership" gets strippers and nobody cares lol

[–] TOModera@lemmy.world 46 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm reminded of a video from Gary Vee where he had a small moment of reality: Some guy was complaining his employee quit 3 weeks after starting because they were all lazy. Also note it was always his only employee.

Gary asks him how much they paid the employee (min wage) and if he demanded they work over 40 hours (yes and no ot), then pointed out the guy was walking home with all the money and expecting someone to work hard with no return.

The entire audience was confused. Now they are in these comments.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 17 points 3 weeks ago

These grifters get super cagey when you point basic math... Capitalism for me, but no for thee🤡

[–] SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's crazy to see people justify this. I wonder how they'd feel getting microscoped at work until fired. There's always a cause if your scummy enough.

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[–] procrastitron@lemmy.world 54 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

My first thought is that this entire article reads like a camouflaged press release from Meta.

The source for the article seems to be an anonymous, internal leak, but those “leaks” are often from the company itself as a way to send a message while maintaining plausible deniability.

My second thought is that they are grouping together wildly different types of infractions without saying how many people were guilty of each one. It’s possible that one person was committing outright fraud while everyone else was just accused of a minor technicality.

Finally, the accusation of “pooling” funds seems like a big tell. That’s what you should want the employees to do to save the company money. Without specific details about why that was wrong this sounds more like a gotcha than a legitimate reason to fire someone.

All of these together make this article seem like a way of scaring employees into resigning so they can cut the workforce without being subject to WARN act requirements.

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 weeks ago

I work in a Meta office nearby, it's the talk of the town, many people think it's true.

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[–] subtext@lemmy.world 49 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Staff are given daily allowances of $20 for breakfast, $25 for lunch, and $25 for dinner, with meal credits issued in $25 increments.

Hot damn this is absolutely wild. Even if you only look at lunch, that’s ~$6k/person. If you add in breakfast and dinner that’s ~$17k/person.

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 31 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

As someone who works at Meta:

Ya the benefits are nice.

[–] magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Sounds like that one evil corp homer worked for.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 14 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

You better not be talking shit of my boi Hank Scorpio!

[–] OCATMBBL@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Hank Scorpio did nothing wrong.

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[–] vxx@lemmy.world 23 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I would just convince everyone at the company to use their full credit every single day from now on. Give the food to a homeless person or something.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 20 points 3 weeks ago

Fired for illegally feeding the homeless.

[–] xepher@piefed.social 20 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

If it was made clear that it was only to be used for food and to only use while you were at the office, then fine. Harsh, but whatever.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 22 points 3 weeks ago (24 children)

Stupid policy is stupid.

Are they requiring receipts from those that follow the directions to make sure they spend all $25 on lunch?

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[–] blackbelt352@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

The severity of punishment does not match the severity of violating the policy. We've already figured this idea out in real life and across numerous genres of fiction that at this point is a common trope. It's literally a sci-fi trope at this point of the paradise planet that everyone loves but the biggest flaw is that any infraction against the law however minor is tje death penalty. The concept of fair punishments is literally baked into the constitution through the bill of rights with the 8th amendment, no cruel and unusual punishments, no excessive bail or excessive fines.

[–] SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Lick lick lick slurp is all I see with this comment.

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[–] toiletobserver@lemmy.world 15 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Can i have that $400k job?

[–] Letstakealook@lemm.ee 11 points 3 weeks ago

Right? I promise not to scheme on $10 worth of toothpaste.

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[–] SloppyPuppy@lemmy.world 15 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I also get about 25$ a day for meals. They accumulate over the month. At the end of the month I just buy shit from the market with them including alcohol and cleaning products and what not. They dont fucking care!!

[–] aidan@lemmy.world 15 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I also get about 25$ a day for meals.

That's crazy though. $25 a day in meals for 1 person is genuine luxury.

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[–] Moah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 3 weeks ago

Until they need an excuse to fire someone

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 15 points 3 weeks ago

including acne pads, wine glasses, and laundry detergent.

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 13 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Sorry, trying to scam your employer isn't smart. Food vouchers, not couch vouchers.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 weeks ago

Exactly. Force them to do layoffs, don't give them an easy out to fire you for misconduct.

That said, Meta could absolutely have just ended the program for people who abused the policy. But it seems their intent is to reduce headcount as cheaply as possible, so that's why they went this direction.

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[–] Nougat@fedia.io 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, that's how that works: when you abuse a perk for meals in the office by using it for other stuff, you're rolling the dice, aren't you?

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[–] buzz86us@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

So they got all mad that some employees decided to pack lunch and use the credits for regular supplies

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