Snacks - The New Corporate Bribe
How does the snack feel about being used as a corporate bribe? Does the snack start feeling like it’s money.
Do snacks start living under the impression that it is, in fact, money?
When taking on a gig, one of the implied questions, and the question that sends the lower ranks of the PM team into spirals of sweat and vomiting into trashcans outside of WholeFoods;
What are we eating
Is it wrapped in plastic
Is it everlasting joy
When interviewing for a job, a good question to stand out from the pool of other overqualified applicants might be;
What are we eating
Is it wrapped in plastic
Is it everlasting joy
there are a lot of snacks up for grabs in the corporate office that we’re shooting headshots at today. they are everywhere, there’s a lot of them and I feel like pocketing them all like groceries. I wonder how the people who work at the office go about managing an appropriate snack intake or if they are just accustomed to living around situations of extreme abundance? maybe everything that was ever missing was just “Food Jerky: 1 WHOLE ORGANIC MANGO”
The snacks are in a literal sense infinite - refilled on a daily basis. The people working here are used to it. They’re used to abundance and thus experts in moderation. With great abundance comes moderation. There’s a corporate ladder here and it’s probably really political. But this is also a holding station for food and flavored water.
Throughout the day I take the hyper-automatic elevators, where you don’t even have to press buttons. I stand in the elevator and listen to Linda (dominant) tell Kelly (subservient) about the high regard her boss holds her in by recounting a recent interaction which demonstrated this affinity and trust that her supervisor has for her. “That’s how close we are now”
I smell a devastating fear of poverty
As I exit the elevator, I notice this pink leather ribbon bracelet that has been dropped on the floor. It’s super skinny as if it belonged to a child. I pick it up out of curiosity. It smells very strong of female perfume, as if it came out of a Box of Girl. I hold on to it, put it in my bag. The smell lingers. I think of it as a strange souvenir
At the end of the day we roll the huge cart of equipment into the freight elevator, which apparently should have been finished operating for the day about 20 minutes ago. The photographer tells the operator that he hopes he at least gets some overtime? ”Overtime”, he says with a wide smile. It seems there is no overtime
He adds; “I like working here, the people are nice. And I get free snacks.”
Initially I planned on coming back up to the corporate office after load-out to do a dummy check for some small piece of equipment or roll of tape we might have left behind. Maybe get some last snacks. But once I get downstairs, outside, load out and listen to him banter about The Client, the thought of going back upstairs un-flanked starts to seem like a thing I’d feel strange doing. Something about the job security upstairs seems uncanny. The thought of returning to the fifth floor starts to feel physically impossible
Two weeks later I am sitting in a job interview. Since taking this job would not be exactly the direction I want to go in Career Wise and because full-time jobs = death, I am curious about what they have to offer money-wise. I ask in a measured way (since I’m pretty tied to/another company/where part of my soul still resides/wondering if now would be a good time/to ask/if it’s even appropriate for me to ask in the first place//what you offer?) in other words
(can I get paid please lmk,jk..if it’s ok..?uwu)
and the manager lady who has a bichon frisé named starlet says
“WELL, we can discuss salary specifics in a PRIVATE conversation. Outside of that, we do offer health care coverage and very good benefits across the board. The bottom-line is, GET the WORK. DONE. We also have great snacks.”
There’s a buzz of UNMUTED agreement throughout the zoom meeting as the members of the technical broadcasting team chime in. The snacks ARE great here.