What were your best ever work perks?

scudzilla

I worked in Google for 11yrs as a contractor, the freebies were INSANE

Micro kitchens full of drinks and snack on every floor, 5 separate restaurants , there was a general one, a pizza bar, sandwich bar, coffee/pastry bar, all this for free.

Every Friday between 16:00 and 19:00 was TGIF, free booze/entertainment/snacks

Full gym with swimming pool

All sorts of merch (bags, shirts, hats etc)

If ya wanted anything technical, just go to techstop and ya got it

Finally had enough though, when i started it was awesome, by the end it was wearing me down, toxic workplace

YellowFeather

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117939122#Comment_117939122

Get yourself a blonde wig, a dress and some heels, and you can go in and pretend to be me! All repentant for quitting.

Was very stressful though. Glad for the ride, but happy to be out of it.

The J Stands for Jay

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117937389#Comment_117937389

Rural TD from a family line of TDs?

The J Stands for Jay

From various different jobs:

Non contributory DB final salary pension.

12% pension contribution, plus 4% matching (20% for a 4% contribution)

Flexitime - 12 days flexileave a year, no set start or finish time (be in by 10, stay till at least 4).

Free flights, just pay tax. New York to Amsterdam for €14 return. Trip to Miami for next to nothing.

Free meals.

Monthly free breakfast.

Free lunch if you had to attend a meeting at any time between 12 and 2.30.

StevenToast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117937389#Comment_117937389

Teacher

G_R

Worked in a cinema when I was in college.

Unlimited free cinema for myself, 12 free tickets a quarter for friends, and half price food.

You'd also get to go to staff showings for big films a few days before they were out, and every now and again we would stay back and have a playstation and beers night. Call of Duty on the big screen is deadly!

Nowadays I just have the boring normal ones, pension, health insurance, professional fees coverage etc.

beveragelady

Current job - something like 18 weeks off a year, plus bank holidays. I've never actually counted up the days off.

Past jobs - in the basement of a NUI library. Minimum wage, essentially unsupervised for two hours a day, all alone among stacks of books. I had about six books to shelve a day, which might take 10 minutes. The rest of the time was spent nosying among musty old volumes and exploring uncatalogued collections. Medical books, some 200 years old or more, were particularly interesting and I ended up using them as the basis for my thesis. Managed to get quite a lot of my thesis written while I was 'working.'

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117937389#Comment_117937389

Boards Web Dev?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117939151#Comment_117939151

I was waiting for the inevitable "but then it became a bit sh!t"

I was banging the boss’s wife.

Larbre34

Number of holidays and the quality of the pension aren't perks. They're probably down to industry standards.

Perks are free stuff you would otherwise not have or have to buy personally. Free meals, company wheels, reduced cost travel, reduced cost childcare etc.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117937389#Comment_117937389

You've a sh1t salary for Dublin though limited to below inflation increases. How much did you lose at the beginning of your career jobbing about with part time hours.

Sleepy

In case there are any owners/managers reading this I'll suggest one the company I've been with for the past decade has: we do a weekly shop for the kitchenette in the office for bread, cheese, cooked meats, salad, eggs, beans, condiments, cereal etc. and have a bean-to-cup coffee machine provided on a "buy x amount of beans per month and we'll provide the machine" deal with Java Republic set up beside a microwave & a panini grill. Literally costs the company a few hundred a month and means staff have the option of a free breakfast and lunch on-site which saves us all a small fortune in take-away coffees and deli-sandwiches etc.

pjdarcy

A friend of mine used to work for Nokia in the late ninties / early thousands (i.e. when Nokia was probably the biggest mobile phone company in the world). One day he was asked to take three clients on the Nokia private jet to Barcelona, take then out to a two michelin star restaurant for dinner, then to the Nou Camp to watch U2 perform then out for more drinks and back to Dublin on the private jet the following morning. God I miss the celtic tiger years sometimes...

Irish Stones

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117931720#Comment_117931720

43 days, I win 😊

swimming in a sea

From reading the comments it looks like most of the perks are in jobs where the base pay is low. I used to work in a subsidiary company and the head office where the head office had pay freeze for years and only way we could hold on to staff was to be very liberal with approving their expenses.

FintanMcluskey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117947726#Comment_117947726

They are perks if you don't have them

In a previous career I worked as a technician in the agricultural sector.

Buying all your own tools, no pension, no sick pay, no health insurance, no lunch allowance, standard rate payed for overtime, minimum holiday allowance, no on call allowance, vehicle/fuel only for work use.

I left the industry and now have all those things, and I consider them "perks".

endacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948266#Comment_117948266

I’ve had time to retrain in my second career, loads of time to develop and work at it, and an average combined working week of around 35 hours leaves me at multiples of the average salary for Dublin. Didn’t really think of it as a ‘career’ in the beginning. Was just some extra work that fell my way. Turns out, 1.25 hours on a Saturday counts as a year of pensionable service.

All good, thanks.

Timberrrrrrrr

Shìt pay, shìt hours....

But......

I got to drive a big fùck off tank 😀

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117951371#Comment_117951371

Low motivation, high potential damage. What can go wrong?

Degag

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117947726#Comment_117947726

Legally, a full time worker is entitled to 20 holidays a year i think. Some company's offer more than this when starting out and/or an incremental increase based on service. Or allow you to purchase extra holidays. Most definitely a perk

Some company's match employee contributions into their pension scheme. Some could be 2%, others 5%, even 10% etc etc. It's free money though that they are giving you. Again, most definitely a perk.

fits

Worked in middle of nowhere and travelled a lot on economy flights. I took so many flights that I quickly got frequent flyer status and had access to lounges all over Europe. Rarely had to buy food while travelling after that. I just ate whatever was in lounges. Rarely availed of the booze though. Free food and coffee and somewhere nice to sit was the main thing.

Mr Burny

Blowjob Fridays

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117951327#Comment_117951327

Oh so you have to work two jobs then in order to compensate for the sh1t salary by Dublin standards.

Must be inconvenient having to work Saturday as well while the rest of us enjoy a nice lie in and have the day free to do what we please without interruption

Not able to be fired or laid off either I suppose? You'll miss that sweet tax free redundancy then like I enjoyed a few years back and started a new job the following week. Ooh, and unlike your lump sum, I did not contribute a penny to it. Plus I'll have another lump sum come retirement assuming pension pot continues to grow.

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117952038#Comment_117952038

Wow, thought the thread title was "What were your best ever work perks?", not "Let's bash someone for enjoying their job!"

endacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117952038#Comment_117952038

Jaysus. You're in great form!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117952366#Comment_117952366

Thanks. I noticed how keen you are to think you are rubbing it in about how handy you have it and how the rest of us are paying for it at every opportunity you get going back years on these threads.

I take it you'll be limited to one lump sum in your career as well? The one you're paying significantly for. That's a bit of a pity.

bodhrandude

The last festival I worked, done fcuk all, just stood around in a hi viz, got wristbanded, 300 Euro in cash and food vouchers and got to see a lot of live music. This was a festival from a few weeks ago for 300 people so with the current pandemic rules, plus the weather was fantastic, really the makings of an Indian summer.

rainbowtrout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117952315#Comment_117952315

They have a history of teacher bashing, ignore it.

StupidLikeAFox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117952014#Comment_117952014

Was it worth the 7 years in the seminary though?

Pherekydes

Courses in Paris and St John's were great.

Courses in the Curragh were not so much...

Wompa1

18% annual bonus, company stock and vouchers if a co-worker filled in a thank you form for helping them with something.

The work was brutal though. I worked in IT. There were over 200k employees in the company. I ended up working most weekends. It wasn't worth it.

CaitCat

I had a receptionist job where everyone raced to answer the phones, so I could never answer them. I basically slept most of the day. I would also get sent to the local pub to by cigarettes for the boss and he always let me keep the change.

I was 18 so would come in hungover and just use the computer to message friends and then sleep after lunch. Living the dream.

Cookie_Monster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117931975#Comment_117931975

Yeah, that was good times alright. And the christmas parties were pretty epic too.

kirk.

..

Sunny_Arms

every 10 days I get a salary from a client. being a virtual assistant, I have 2 clients. so every week I get a salary. it's small but it's livable and helpful.

plus I work from home and handle all of my hours.

HildaOgdenx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117931975#Comment_117931975

I don't know why but the 'angry Michelin star chef' bit made me laugh. Sounds good though!

iguy

I used to work in a garden centre/nursery/wholesale/hardware(including ironworks, timber, building materials and we supplied made greenhouses/glass houses/sunrooms/gazebos, garden furniture/ornaments) structures etc sheds)/giftshop including all garden essentials and tools and machinery/cafe as manager(we also done landscaping, design ), I had full autonomy, my decisions could override the owners no questions asked, my weeks/hours were 5days/3days/6days in rotation (I still done 190 hours a month, 210 hours if you count my lunch hour, if I was at a loose end on my three day week I'd pop in to help out on Sundays, was always pretty busy after 2 on Sundays ), we'd go into work at 6am on summers mornings, to prep, tend to/water plants and do up customer orders and we'd open the gates for customers at 9.15 am(cafe 7.15am til 8.15pm) til (7.30 pm Approx) I'd go get a 15 min break, stay till midday, then I'd go home do my own stuff and come back at 3.30pm stay till 10pm, (I'd take a break for 15 mins every two hours), winter hours were slightly different, 7.30 am til 7.30 pm, cafe 8am till 7.15pm(last orders) my hours would be 7.30am til 12.30pm and then 3.30pm til 8.30pm, me and the deputy would stay in an hour after, to do paperwork and we'd plan for the next Spring/summer, see what's in and what's out, etc, etc, but sometimes and most of the time we'd do that from home, a couple if hours in the office once a week and we'd be up to speed with one another,

I had a company Van and truck to use at my leisure, free phone and top up, health Insurance, gift cards for Xmas, paid holidays, within Ireland and outside, once got an all expenses paid hol to Italy with my partner for eleven days, we got standard holiday days, but we'd give the odd day off, and if somebody really needed a day off we'd give it to them, high pressure it was, the owner also had a plot of bog and we sold turf and wood, kindling, that came from his land, we sold it in bags, although it was youngster or someone wanting an extra rew Bob in their pocket, footed the turf and sorted the wood, keeping everything in the shop floor was busy, and then we did coal, briquettes, all sorts, smoked at the time and the owner gave me cigs as and when I needed them, got free drink when every week, consisted of a bottle of red wine, a few cans and spirit of choice, plants/items not suitable for sale could be taken home for free, and anything else could have been bought at cost price, all the staff, 11+ full time and 7+ part-time, in summer we had more staff due to demand and sometimes during sowing and planting season(there were a few subcontractors re the landscaping side of things) got all the same perks from the owner, apart from the company vehicles, except my deputy, she had the company caravan(ford focus/and when needed for swanky meetings the owner let herself or myself use his range rover or whatever luxury car at his disposal was available, he had quite a car collection, and open insurance on everything, he'd let me use any of his cars if I needed them or didn't want to drive the company vehicles) the owner owned quite a few different businesses so he could get his hands on stuff easily, in the garden centre there was a mobile home on site and on Sundays when we closed early, we all, including the boss and his wife had drinks and take-out delivered, staffs family could join if they wished, there were so many perks and benefits that I didn't mention,

It was good while it lasted, the owner went into retirement, and whilst I and most other staff were kept on, the new owners made a hash of things, they didn't do their full research, made enemies out of loyal customers and suppliers, they thought they new best, fecked up the opening hours if which customers were used to, we had customers all hours of the day, consistently, we were always busy, we opened late for example for those who worked all day, we lost custom due to that, the manufacturing/landscaping took a hit, due to them increasing prices and using cheaper materials, and they done away with a 7 year guarantee, they gave us perks, even kept the drinking tradition going, they bought just 2 years or so before the Celtic tiger crash, then they went bust,2 or so years into the crash, the biggest employer in the area gone, they git a massive loan and they remortgaged property, even sold a plot of land to a developer just shy of a 2 million, they still managed to lose it all, they should have never bought the place in the first place, they came from the hospitality industry, the only thing they knew how to manage was the café, they even frigged that up though because 2 months before they went bust they spent quarter of a mill remodeling it, apparently paid for out of an inheritance, the should half know the it was bad, but they let an external accountant/, business advisor look after the money side of things, when the place was sold I wasn't privy to any of that anyone, but at the beginning it didn't bother me because it was one less responsibility for me, I lost a majority of my autonomy, but I was getting the same pay with certain perks, and my hours were different, they put me on 9 hour days, five day weeks, still split shifts, I could focus on other things I lived within the business, plants are my passion, I can tell you nobody saw it coming, the crash, I know the new owners made mistakes, but it was kind of the mindset at the time, oh things would get better attitude, and banks didn't care as long as you have them a few euro every month, to cover your backside, Shure you could owe them money and the banks would still throw it you, the whole place still stands empty 8/9 years on, the mobile home still stands, infrastructure along with everything else, thanks be to God, but it's actually been in the process of being bought again by the original owners son and the original owner is still alive and kicking, and he's coming on board as a consultant, and the good news is they want me to run the gaffe again, I'll soon be back where I belong, there is still demand for it, and over the last few years unfortunately other garden centres closed for a variety of reasons, certain things need to be done to bring the place up to current regulations, also they bought a site beside the current establishment and the plan is to build a warehouse to sell plants on-line, that's the plan when we are in profitability, the only thing now I've to get used to working them unusual hours again, as for the last 7 years I was only working between 28 and 44 hours a week, whilst doing the odd job outside of work in between for friends, family and neighbours....

So sorry for such a long post!!!

the whole year inn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117931463#Comment_117931463

Good Soup!

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

My work place has free tea, coffee, soft drinks and a beer fridge. Xbox in the canteen. We had an all expenses paid company trip to Fiji (from New Zealand, not Ireland!) before covid. I'll never work anywhere like it again.

Hotblack Desiato

*Bookmarking this for the next public sector pay whinge thread*

Cake Man

I work for a pet food manufacturing company, it's a national role so I'm often based at the head office location. At head office, you're allowed bring in your dog or cat so you have a typical open plan office area with those dog beds, bowls of kibble/treats/water dotted around the office. You'd be typing an email and someone's dog will come up to you sniffing around! On every desk there's usually a pack of treats like jerky that you can feed the dogs wandering around.

The kitchen area has two beer taps and a fridge full of more beer and wine, cupboards stocked with sweets, bars, crisps etc.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118034336#Comment_118034336

Sounds like absolute hell. Albeit I don't think you'd go work for a pet food company if you didn't like cats/dogs.

callaway92

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118034336#Comment_118034336

Imagine the disgusting smell there

elperello

Still and all free beer....................🙂

Autosport

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118034336#Comment_118034336

When do I start 👍😊