We went to visit Facebook and the least I can say is that we weren’t disappointed at all. When you work there, pretty much everything that you’ll find in the campus is free. I am not even joking, you eat for free, you drink for free and you pay really cheap for the massage. That’s cool isn’t it?
I’ll just add something now; whatever you can get for free or cheap, you’ll only find it inside the campus. Have you really thought that they were gonna pay your lunch at a fancy restaurant in the city? Doesn’t this hide something? Behind this beautiful facade that facebook represents, I think there are some disadvantages.
First of all, employees don’t have fixed schedule. You basically have tasks to do and you’ll manage your own time on how to accomplish those. That might be nice but on the other hand, you clearly always have something to do. So, when you’ll achieve one task you’ll have to go for the next one. Another point is that some tasks may involve you staying late because you simply need to finish it for the next day. Managing your own schedule isn’t that much of a bad idea but that’s certainly one way to retain employees on the campus.
Another thing that retains employees inside the campus is the fact that there’s everything you need in it. You can eat there, shop there. When we were there, they even had a pop-up store for Valentine’s Day. We can obviously debate on the fact that it’s good or not to have everything close to your workplace. At this point, employees doesn’t have any advantage/reason to go outside for food or massage, enjoying this at Facebook is the best choice mainly because of the price (which is mostly free).
Last thing is that not everybody can work at Facebook. You don’t apply to work at the company, the company comes and get you (you can obviously choose if you want to accept their offer or not). That give the person a feeling of uniqueness, that I can totally understand because you’re the one selected between a large amount of people. So when you’ll be there at Facebook, you’ll want to do it well.
In conclusion, working at a company that offers you this much is awesome, I can’t deny it. You’ll get more money at the end of the month when you don’t pay for your lunch! The negative point is that all your mind (this doesn’t apply to every person) will be focused on Facebook, even when you’ll meet someone at one of the restaurant on the campus, that’s still gonna be your Facebook colleague. Of course, that’s what you signed for, that’s your work.
I think we can really congratulate Facebook for having built something that big that you can manage to retain employees easily and happily. On the other hand, I think this part of working at Facebook is something to know and get clear before accepting an offer from them. The question is, are you willing to trade a « big part of your life » for the advantages that Facebook offers?