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Google replaced the snack-room M&M's with cereal! As Valleywag reported, the Google snack-rooms are being diluted. Google says it's for health reasons.

One Googler ranted about it on a 2000-member internal mailing list. Phil Goodwin said Google lied about the reasons — the switch was to save costs, not calories. And the deception "leaves a bad taste in my mouth that M&M's just aren't going to erase."

Is he a crackpot? Or is he all too right? Given the rising operating costs of massage therapists, server rooms, a day-care center, and a Segway fleet, of course Google cheaped out on the candy. It just made economic sense.


From: Phil Goodwin
Date: Apr 26, 2006 11:51 AM
Subject: Re: [Misc-mv] disappearance of the good snacks!
To: Avleen Vig
Cc: "Misc-Mv"

On 4/25/06, Avleen Vig wrote:
> > > Are you honestly suggesting that the food staff are being underhanded
> > > with the recent changes, and the "public shaming" is in any way
> > > appropriate here?
> >
> > Absolutely not. I simply desire a change, and think that public expression
> > of ideas is more effective than private ones, which is the entire reason for
> > a column in a newspaper being more effective than a letter.
>
> Yes, but we should be be fostering constructive discussion, not just
> complaining about how unhappy we are with changes and demanding M&M's
> be returned[1].

I'm a lot more unhappy about the selling of a cost cutting measure as
a nutrition raising measure. That leaves a bad taste in my mouth that
M&M's just aren't going to erase. As a dot com bust veteran I never
had any illusions that the polish wouldn't eventually start to come
off of our fancy perks, but I thought that our "don't be evil"
management would be conspicuously honest about it. They weren't and
that's important.


After the jump, Phil says "Googly." Yep. "Googly."

Life isn't about what you get, it's about the meaning of what you do.
The attraction, for me anyway, of Google's perks wasn't the goodies
themselves but the values that caused them to arrive. If we can't
spend so much per employee on snacks because of our swelling ranks,
that's fine, but let's be honest about it and find an innovative,
Googly, approach for dealing with it. Don't just replace the candy
with breakfast cereal and tell us it's health food, that's lame — to
put it nicely.

And if that's not really happened, or is happening, I wish that
someone would make it really clear. I'd much rather find that I've
been an idiot about this than go on thinking that I've been mislead by
the people who I thought were taking good care of me.

—
Phil Goodwin
x(redacted)

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Earlier: Google goes hungry [Valleywag]
And: Google snack rooms [Valleywag]