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Jewish World Review July 7, 2011 / 5 Tamuz, 5771 Startups entice new talent with kickball, treehouses By Dale McFeatters
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
In California, the first faint signs have emerged that we may once again be on the threshold -- precipice for you pessimists -- of a new Age of Excess.
The sniper-eyed trend watchers at The Wall Street Journal have zeroed in on a San Francisco Internet startup -- and haven't we been here before, oh, say a decade ago -- whose "social calendar" posted on the wall announces a wine and cheese mixer on Wednesday, a rooftop barbecue on Friday and an air guitar concert on Saturday.
Mark it down to a generational difference but a chance to perform on air guitar is not enough to lure me into giving up part of my weekend. Comp time, yes; a little bonus, even better.
Our office, headquarters to three big Washington bureaus, does not have a wall social calendar. We have a bulletin board back in the mailroom with grimly official notices -- apparently the government ships you to Guantanamo if you remove one without authorization -- on the Polygraph Protection Act -- who knew? A stern statement from the U.S. Wage and Hour Division notes that the minimum wage is $7.25, not, one would think, a problem in Silicon Valley; and a bulletin from the U.S. Occupational and Safety Administration insists that we should not be afraid to report any hazards or dangerous conditions in the workplace, which rather dilutes the message by saying we have 30 days to report any employer retaliation.
On Thursday the high-tech outfit offers companywide kickball competition. Maybe it's true that the West Coast is a much mellower place and the employees much more caring and sharing than the more tightly wound East Coast. Our company's softball team was kicked out of Washington's media league because our second baseman, a top aide to a senior Democratic senator, threatened to kill a guy on the other team for barreling into the base standing up. She would have, too.
To keep the mood light, there's Mustache Monday where all the employees wear fake mustaches.
The Journal reports on one firm that keeps three kegs of beer on site with built in iPads to offer information on what's on tap. I would have thought simply tasting the beer would have settled that but that's perhaps why I missed the last dot-com bust and why I'm going to miss this one too.
One startup has an indoor tree house where a stressed employee can go to commune with the universe or just take a nap. I can see this presenting certain management problems:
"D.K., you have to come down now. It's time for the Sarbanes-Oxley compliance meeting.
"I know you consider SarBox 'sucky' but the Feds say we have to do it.
"I hate to play hardball here. But if you don't come down we'll take away your foosball table. And your juice bar privileges. There, that's better."
When I joined the newspaper business, the competition for talent wasn't quite as ferocious, certainly not perk-wise. My first day in the city room I was told to pick any desk and sit at it until somebody told me to move. Through hard work and enterprise, I was finally assigned my own drawer in somebody else's desk. Finally, I rose to the heights where I officially had first dibs on a desk when the owner wasn't there.
Like most city rooms, it was over blessed with oddballs, cranks, eccentrics and transient misfits, some of them quite talented, most of them very funny. But if I had walked in on Mustache Monday, I would have fled, for the lack of a tree house probably to the Yucatan Lounge across the street.
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• 07/05/11: Stranded tourists get rare treat • 06/30/11: The dollar Americans refuse to spend • 06/27/11: The hangman doesn't cometh
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