What is the weirdest office perk an employer has offered?
A great advertising solution to get high quality customers.
I’m not sure how weird any of these are but from talking to people they are not generally common:
- At HP I had a company car – because I worked with customers face-to-face daily and the company wanted a particular image projected by field sales, applications and support employees. So EVERY year I got a new car – and in the spring, it was part of the ritual to pick what color you wanted. I went through the entire spectrum of offered colors. I even picked green before it was a thing – I got heat for it being “ugly” but I just told them it was green for money. The next year most of the other sales reps picked green.
- At HP, since I was in sales, I was eligible for “performance reward meetings” – I qualified every year I was in the field. The trips included staying at luxury hotels in Kauai, Maui, Vegas, Orlando, Scottsdale, etc. with all expenses paid for my spouse and I. Often gift packages were included.
- At HP I had a company credit card which a fairly stratospheric, nose-bleed credit limit. Side benefit: the card is in your name but paid by the company so YOUR credit report gets the bonus of having $1,000s or more of monthly transactions paid off every month on time.
- At HP when I became the first “webmaster” (per HR’s job categories), I was able to define my own pay curve because the job category never existed before and I simply negotiated the position’s pay as I wanted it (and because my “required” salary couldn’t fit any other pay curves) – it was a 35% raise over my previous job not counting that I negotiated keeping my company car for an extra year. Now of course “webmasters” are a routine service job but at one time it was something special.
- At HP and other employers I travel(ed) a lot. I always put a few days on the beginning and end of international travel for jet lag. Strictly it’s vacation functionally – when I arrive, I go out and have fun wearing myself out and acclimating to the new time zone. I’m useless from jet lag for a while and its business-related/caused so it’s counted as work time – not vacation time
- In addition with travel, once you are at a foreign location, it’s easy to take a weekend to yet another nearby location. When I was at meetings in Europe or Asia I would take a side-trips to various places like Bali, Thailand, Ibiza, etc. on weekends. Domestically I’d visit museums and other tourist attractions in cities I’d normally never visit for any other reason.
- Of course with a ton of travel there are frequent flyer miles and other perks. On Alaska Airlines I flew them so often I was ALWAYS upgraded to 1st/business class without ever asking – just as I checked in, free upgrade – which at the time included real nice seats and a goodie basket. Earning free trips isn’t too hard. Just take quarterly or more frequent trips to Asia and you rack up free travel quickly.
- At HP while I was in a field district for the Western US so other colleagues in my district were scattered all over the Western US. Our boss was based in Salt Lake City so when we had quarterly district meetings, they were always at Snow Bird or Alta ski resorts. We’d have half a day of meetings and then the next day and half skiing as team building. Luckily I like skiing and ski pretty well.
- When I moved to Taiwan for work some year ago, my employer paid for 3 months of intensive Chinese classes and it was counted as work time. I’m very fond of learning and speaking foreign languages so this was gravy and very helpful to this day.
- When I’m traveling I get to try all sorts of clubs and bars, which outside the US are generally far nicer, better and sometimes wilder. #1 difference: “closing at 2 am” is distinctly American and very parochial – usually places close when people decide to leave and the action simply dies organically, which is often sunrise. Then there’s the common tradition of breakfast places just for people who’ve stayed up all night. I enjoy this so it’s a perk.
- I’m writing this now from a hotel in Taipei, Taiwan – and I’m glad to be here. The food is amazing. The mass transit is amazing. The healthcare system is amazing – if I have to get sick, I’d rather it be here: I’ll probably live while in the US it’s really hard to say.
Again, I’m not sure these are really too exotic or weird. They are what any person could do if they put themselves into the right situation and made themselves legitimately useful.