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| Peek inside a vending machine. Photo: salimfadhley, Flickr. |
One employee's behavioral experiment is another's paradise. "I'm really, really jealous," says Jon over at MTV Networks, after being informed of AOL's snack excesses. Featuring far more pedestrian fare like Rice Krispies Treats, Nacho Cheese Doritos and Reese's Pieces, MTV's vending options won't turn any heads. Jon laments that the only real stand-out is the 25-cent can of Coke. "I guess that proves that international conglomerates are in cahoots!" he says. Or it's just a ploy to keep people awake and alert for optimum productivity.
Other big companies aren't faring much better. Jen gave us the scoop on IBM's snack selection, which was similarly standard, with plenty of chips, candy bars and the like. Still, they do try to push some healthier options. "There's a green leaf next to anything that is considered a 'balanced choice,' " says Jen. "It shows IBM's effort in trying to bring about some healthy options to a typically unhealthy way to get food." Don't expect to see any quarter Cokes, though. "The prices are really high, almost $2 for a small bag of chips," she notes. "Price alone would be the reason I wouldn't purchase from the vending machines." Maybe this is IBM's way of discouraging vending machine snacks in favor of fresh fruit or brown-bagged options?
For ramen-fueled college students, $2 might be all they're willing to spend on an entire meal. Taylor, who works on the University of Pennsylvania campus, informed us that their prices aren't so bad, but the selection isn't much better -- the unique highlights of which are Pita Chips, Swedish Fish and the oft-neglected Peanut Chews. What can we glean about Penn based on this selection? "People here like Cheez-Its," Taylor says. "We are always out ... on 2 floors."
Maybe a District of Columbia-based law firm can up the ante. A quick chat with Scott, a lawyer who works in our nation's capital, taught us that those in the legal profession still snack like the rest of us. After providing us with a complete list of their generic vending-machine contents, Scott offers his interpretation: "While we would like to project the image of a company that is progressive and catering to those who wish to eat natural foods [such as trail mix] or are health conscious [by offering Snackwells], at base we are a traditional, conservative firm which tends not to stray far from office staples [M&Ms, Fritos]." Can't get more Washingtonian than that!
What do the vending machines at your office say about your company? Tell us in the comments what snacks your vending machines offer -- and what you think they say about your place of business.
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9-24-2009 @3:36PM Seth said... My company's vending machines contain your standard junk food and sodas. They have a few healthier options though - Nature Valley bars, Sun Chips, etc. They're subsidized, too, so the healthy snacks (30-60 cents) are significantly cheaper than, say, a Snicker's ($1.25).
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9-24-2009 @3:50PM christopher said... one more reason we should all work from home.
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9-24-2009 @4:14PM ajw said... I got really spoiled by my last company... they had no vending machines. Instead, there was always a bounty of free food and a fridge full of drinks in the break room (they actually had another fridge for lunch storage - the drink fridge was filled to the gills)
They would order snacks from Amazon in bulk, usually the organic, natural and in theory healthier trailmixes and bars.
The ad agency I currently work at doesn't even have a vending machine, much less a free snack cornucopia. :(
The Google offices are supposedly a wonderland. I've heard that Google's 50th employee was a full-time chef!
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9-24-2009 @4:39PM Ben said... Speaking of the nation's capitol, the congressional office buildings have pretty sweet vending machines. Pizza, hot pockets, hotdogs, sandwiches, any snack or soda you could want, along with, of course, ice cream for those late night law making sessions. You can all rest assured that our nation's leaders are dining on the highest quality processed food dispensed from a machine.
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9-29-2009 @10:10AM Mel said... My current company has a single vending machine - $0.25 soda. But, it also offers a one-shot machine for gourmet coffee and tea selections provided by the company. Not the snack and treat bonanza of the mid 90's, but pretty good.
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9-25-2009 @10:17PM Bagman520 said... To the "author"
How can you call yourself a professional writer/journalist when you don't know the difference between "fare" and "fair"??
"Other big companies aren't fairing much better."
"To fare" in the sense you misused it means "getting along" or simply "doing" as in "Other big companies aren't doing much better."
So the sentence should read, "Other big companies aren't *faring* much better."
Shame on you for not knowing a word that I would expect any 6th grader to know and be able to use.
And shame on AOL for letting someone so deficient in language skills write for you.
Bernie520
Seattle, WA
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9-28-2009 @11:41AM beanspants said... The company I work for hasn't had free coffee since 2005, 12 oz cokes in the machine are $.60, and the snack machine has your standard fare.
Booo to them!
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9-28-2009 @12:26PM amanda said... @Bernie, you can point out that someone has made an error without becoming so condescending.
On a daily basis, professional writing goes live/to press with typos, grammatical errors, or factual errors that have managed to slip past writers and editors. Making one error doesn't make one uneducated, it makes one human. Your "shaming" rant is excessive for one simple slip-up. Save your diatribes for writers who deserve it, such as those who think that capitalization and punctuation are obsolete.
About the article: as I work in a building without any vending machines, I found this kind of fascinating. It gave me vivid flashbacks to college days when I'd have to strategically plan stops in certain campus buildings according to the contents of their vending machines.
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