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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!
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…
Same here. In the past 5 years, it’s seen maybe 10 games, and a whole lot of laundry.
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.
I’m cannot deny that “where should we mail your crokinole board?” would work on me.
If they put in any kind of clackball table, I’m demanding noise canceling headphones and my own office.
I’m all about the air hockey table.
Most places that have HR like this work their employees too hard for them to have time to use a ping pong table anyway, so it’s really just a hollow gesture.
A company I used to work for had a fucking arcade of all sorts of video games, I NEVER saw anyone playing them
Indeed.
It’s telling that “basic dignity” or “managers who aren’t dicks” didn’t make the list.
Yeah. In my experience, “A manager who doesn’t suck” is most of the list.
Source: I’ve been the manager who did suck, and the one who doesn’t. I have some data points.
I wanted a foosball table dammit!
That’s the game of the debil!!!
Damnit Bobby what did I tell you about foosball!
Dammit, you beat me to it!
Ping pong tables are loud as fuck and disrupt the whole office. If they invest in a soundproof room to put it in, sure. Otherwise it just makes you feel like a massive douche.
Especially if your coworkers play like pros.
Thwack
thwack thwack
Thwack
My last job had a pingpong table. We’d even use it occasionally. That is, until people started getting pissy when they’d see us playing pingpong. Then management started bitching that we were playing pingpong instead of working. Eventually, nobody was allowed to use the pingpong table - it just sat there, in the middle of the room, with brand new paddles and packs of balls that we weren’t allowed to use.
The money was okay - not great, but not terrible. After some management fuckery, I left for a $10000/yr raise and 100% work from home. I’ve gone up $20K since then, been promoted to senior, still have upward trajectory, and still work 100% from home. I have a desk in Memphis somewhere, but I’ve never actually seen it.
It is if you’re managing an Olympic ping pong team
My employer really covered their bases. We have ping-pong, pool, and foosball. That guarantees that everyone has something that will keep them from quitting.
I was at my last job for 10 years.
If I had been well paid and treated well I would not have ever started that job search. Further even just having one of those two thing might have kept me from looking.
At that job I hit the tipping point of both. It’s was getting shittier everyday and the pay wasn’t budging year after year. Finally mid-Covid the power flipped to the employee and jobs were much easier to get. I started looking and jumped shipped.
It’s not ever not about the money around 0% of the times.
Eh. Toxic work culture can drive people away regardless of the pay. Obviously some people suck it up but not everyone. Ultimately the goal is to treat employees well all around. Good pay, benefits, and work culture will keep people happy.
I would quit if my employer got a ping pong table. I don’t mind ping pong but at the office? No.
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
Pizza party solves everything!!
Or…a lemon party!
I don’t want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these?
Make some kind of lemon powered rocket launcher and force life to take it’s lemons back!
Make lemonade, obviously
But I have no money and lemons are expensive! If only there was a way we could acquire lemons without paying for them… Anyone know where I could find a lemon tree?
Consult our mutual friend, the Lemon Stealing Whore
My top reasons for leaving a job:
- Too little pay
- Too many responsibilities
- The possibility of career progression
The three Big Nos. My optimal work-life balance is 0.1-99.9. If they trust me to be able to do even one thing, that pay better be huge.
Almost all of these applied to the last job I left, so I guess it’s pretty spot on.
Obviously right? I mean this post is definitely a joke
So ping pong table falls under the third point right? More ping pong = more fun = better culture? Right? /s just for clarity
Very correct. You can solve bad culture by throwing more money at the problem. Preferably all at once with zero maintenance budget or governance so that the amenities in question can become non-functional monuments to your superior culture. Future generations will find these and marvel at your ingenuity from the safety of the water cooler.
What field?
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.
Around 2012 I had a interview with a recruiter, he asked me what kind of company you’re looking for, and I replied, one without a ping pong table, he laughed at me, I am an immigrant, left home when I was 19, so around 2008, went around in my country and EU, and already understood that whenever a company had a ping pong table it had a shitty culture
11 years after, I wish I could speak with that recruiter to see if he understood that ping pong tables are low efforts solutions adopted by shitty-environment companies and if he would laugh at me again
He had to laugh at you, otherwise he would have cried because he knew you were right.
Lol he probably just thought you sucked at ping pong.
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.
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.
That was beautifully put.
This is it right here!
Last time a job tried to hire me from my current position, it was all about the money, my company was willing to compete. I stayed with the company.
This time where I’m throwing applications like campaign pamphlets, I’m willing to take a cut in pay.
It is shocking how a year can have a company go to the shitter.
Just encountered a similar situation where the company is drastically lowering the max bankable paid time off hours to “encourage people to take PTO.” Drastically = 75% reduction. What this will result in is everyone taking PTO in December to keep from losing it altogether…which is the end of the fiscal year when business demands and responsibilities are at their highest. Every time demands aren’t met they do a round of layoffs, which of course never touches senior management, the board, or owners, who cause the failures in the first place with their “vision.” Making the cut again doesn’t sound as appealing each time it happens, but I love my work and the team I work with, so I stay but never feel a sense of security.
The flip side is if you can’t be bothered to set aside some money for a ping pong table, as well have the sense to first ask around whether people would rather have foosball, or a proper pizza oven, or whatever the fuck, your company culture probably also sucks. A place for recreation means that you respect recreation and extend enough trust to have employees self-manage their need for it.
…of course, setting up that place only to have it be a hunting ground for micromanagers preying on unsuspecting workers is not what I’m talking about. If noone ever uses those areas, worry.
There’s only been two reasons for me to quit a job: shitty pay and shitty people in charge.
Sounds like this company has both.
None of these answers is correct, it’s simply not a multiple choice question.
For some the pay is important, others need a bit of distraction like a ping pong table.
Everybody has their own needs, the biggest HR loser is the one that fits all employees in the same square.
I suppose it depends on the pay raise. If the company is toxic as hell, I might take a pay cut to go elsewhere, but there are very few scenarios where I turn down a pay raise for something like a ping pong table.
Found that one that wanted the ping pong table.
A ping pong table? What for? So HR can punish you when you use it?
seriously，who has time to use a ping pong table at work? It’s like a decoration to remind you you’re not having fun.
You can only enjoy the perks during your 45 minute lunch break. Food or fun, your choice …
This is so true, and I don’t even have a pingpong table at work
Yeah, the main reason Ive changed jobs is money. Nobody gives raises like new bosses.
I always tell people the easiest way to get a raise is to find a new job. Nobody is keeping up with inflation anymore, it’s pretty much required to job hop to break even anymore.
Especially if you know exactly that your employer most likely has zero loyalty to you either.
If there was a way to get the same work for 20% less, my employer would happily do that.
I never understood that logic, tbh. It can’t be good for a business to lose half the staff every few years. Bringing in fresh blood once in a while is good, but you shouldn’t need constant transfusions.
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.
I once worked at a place with a ping pong table. I got a lot of ugly stares from managers if I actually tried to use it, so it was mostly left alone.
Now whenever I see jobs that list something like that as a perk, I usually see it as a negative.
I interviewed once for a part-time job at a potential startup, and the two people running it spent 75% of the time talking about how they had a pingpong table and how that meant it was a fun company…
The job wouldn’t be in the office tho, so for my position (and pretty much every employee) would only be able to use it off the clock.
They were very excited about the ping pong table tho, because their job was in office and they played a lot.
I didn’t take the job.
And the startup never opened.
You are a wise man, keep it up
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.
My then gf now wife moved in with me and my employer wouldn’t cover her under the insurance. I made it clear that this was important. They wouldn’t back down. So got a new job. During the exit interview I repeated what I told them. It was only about the health insurance. HR tried to get me to talk smack about my manager, a guy I actually liked. I praised him and again told them that this was only about insurance.
Told my manager about what they did on the way out the door.
Ping Pong table ? Are they serious ?!? We had a PS5 in the meeting room for ~4 month an no one ever touched it. I don’t go to work to have a fun time, I go to do my job, then leave and have a fun somewhere else. More correct answers for retaining employees:
- give them tasks they are interested in
- give them perspective for developement (promotions, raise, mobility, etc)
- value their contributions and support them moraly (you want to know your managers and colleages got your back)
- of course more money ! Or alternatively more freetime !
Absolutely correct. I always wonder when I see such reports where HR comes up with their completely stupid notion that work is not about earning money.
Well, it’s not just the money obviously, but a lot of HR takes that to the convenient extreme that “the money doesn’t matter”.
It also changes based on the compensation amount. Someone making $300k/year may feel less obsessed with a raise versus someone making $50k/year.
Someone making $300k/year may feel less obsessed with a raise versus someone making $50k/year.
I would not bet a penny on this…
Incorrect right answer a air hockey table you don’t want money you want to play the Foosball
Foosball is a four person game I’ll die on that hill. And not even because I suck at defence (as such, I do plenty of that mid-field and forward) but because the game isn’t about frantically grabbing handles. So yes air hockey is an excellent addition.
Profit sharing can be one hell of an incentive to retain and motivate employees.
One of my previous jobs had an employee exercise room. Some people used it and management didn’t like that so they said we’re not allowed to use it during our shift and only after hours. It was a government position so we weren’t allowed to be in the building before or after our shift.
These places only use them to advertise to new employees how “friendly” they are.
More correct answers for retaining employees:
- Have managers that aren’t oblivious idiots
- Have even higher-ups that aren’t oblivious idiots
- Don’t treat employees like easily replaceable money-eating parasites
It is pretty simple. Respect your employees and they will respect you. Respect starts with calling the employee’s contributions by paying them a fair wage. It continues with treating them well. A post of treating them well might be a point ping table, but that comes on top of a fair wage, not instead of.
A good manager might recognise a hard working team needs a way to relax and gets a pool table or something. The employees are happy and tell their friends they’ve got a pool table at work, everyone is jealous. It seems like the pool table is the reason but it is just a symptom of them being generally treated well.
I wonder if this is how this whole trend started: some decent manager recognized their hard working well-paid and taken care of team deserved some extra something, got them a pool table or whatnot, then other shittier companies copied this thinking it was a solution in itself without understanding why the thing was installed in the first place
I’ve never left a company because of money. I have left because the bullshit they put me through wasn’t worth the money. That’s not just being funny either. I’m okay with being under-compensated if the environment is positive, managers are friendly and flexible, and it actually feels like our sister teams have similar goals and we’re not working against each other.
I agree with this, with a caveat. I’m ok with being underpaid compared to industry standard, to a certain extent. However, I’m not ok with being underpaid compared to other colleagues doing similar work for the same employer.
I agree with this, with a caveat. I’m ok with being underpaid compared to industry standard, to a certain extent. However, I’m not ok with being underpaid compared to other colleagues doing similar work for the same employer.
I love that in theory,
There are so many systems/programs/policies that promise to do that verry thing that I wonder if their trying to pretend to improve rather than actually doing so. It doesnt work, just be a miserable failure of a cult.
genuine compassion is possable, you just gotta wade through the BS others are trying to sell your employer.
This reminds me of the Simpson episode where they are negotiating a new contract. It’s the same as the old one expect the they replace the dental plan with a keg of beer.
Season 4 Episode 17 “Last Exit to Springfield” .
Lisa needs braces
Dental plan
Lisa needs braces
drops a pencil in your crack
This is true but still not the right answer… it’s not always about the money
IT’S ABOUT THE METS BABY, LET’S GO METS, GONNA GET A HOMERUN, LOVE THE METS! LET’S GO METS!
