Mildly Infuriating

It's true that it's not always about the money, but it's probably never about a ping pong table

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.

Yeah, often when an employee leaves it's about the lack of ping-pong table.

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.

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 !

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.

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.

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.

They said employee, not wage slave

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.

"Usually, in our narrow and sad description of what an employee wants, it's not money. Clearly it's more related to the lack of ping-pong tables and extra responsibilities." 🤡

These people have absolutely forgotten what it means to be an employee.

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 🙂

It’s true, most people don’t care about money.

They care about what money can help them buy, like another day of survival.

It was never about the money. It was about maslovs heirarchy of needs; which, at the very bottom, is a foosball table.

Most people quit because of bad bosses. I know I have...

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!"

Damn. Now I want a ping pong table.

This is the reason why but never the reason I give. If I make employers think at any time that I focus too much on the money, they will see me as a troublemaker. Instead, I come up with some bullshit excuse such as medical reasons and the smart employers will work it out on their own.

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.

Was "A ping pong table and enough free time in my schedule to actually use it for half an hour on a quiet day without the area manager coming in and demanding that we get back to work" too long?

Ill stay at an average paying job with a great culture, over a shitty culture and more money. But only to a point.

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.

share this with workreform. they'll love it. I would link but forgot how

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

A ping pong table? What for? So HR can punish you when you use it?

That's 95% correct. Ping Pong table is dumb but it's very often not about the money.

Wild. They both "might" help. They both cost the company money. They should both be correct.

Middle of the road: pay your employees in ping pong tables, increase monthly ping pong table quota.

Never quit a job over lack of ping pong tables.

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.

Questions like these make me wonder if large capitalists actually live in an alternate universe but through some time and space shenanigans they are still here. There's just no way they can make this type of shit up (assuming it's a real question) without being delusional or sadistic.