I once transferred to a department that gave me an office in a nearly windowless data center. Turned out the office was on one of the few floors that had windows, and high enough up that I had a gorgeous view of the metro downtown. (Classic view, if I could name the city.)Then the female VP of the department I had transferred out of paid a visit to the data center and saw my office. Shortly thereafter, my new department decided we should be located “out in the field.” So much for the window perq.
I used to work for a company that moved to a new building built to their specification. It was a concrete tilt-up, and each pair of slabs had one window divided down the middle, and no window on the other side. So there were two, half windows on one seam, then no windows on the next, then two, etc. The very end was all glass. The idea was that the president would get the all glass office, VP’s would get a whole window, department managers would get a half window, and everybody else got nothing. The problem was that they built the building before realizing that there weren’t enough windows to make that work. They spent three months wrangling over what to do. Finally, the VP of R&D said that he spent most of his time in the lab, so he didn’t need any windows. So he got an office with no windows, and everything else fit. When the next layoff came, they laid off more than a quarter of all the employees. The only supervisory person at any level to get the axe was the VP of R&D.
Concretionist almost 5 years ago
The window is definitely a perq. Of course, were she male, by now she’d have TWO windows…
Andrew Sleeth over 4 years ago
I’d hardly call a 50 percent raise “a little more.”
dsom8 over 4 years ago
I once transferred to a department that gave me an office in a nearly windowless data center. Turned out the office was on one of the few floors that had windows, and high enough up that I had a gorgeous view of the metro downtown. (Classic view, if I could name the city.)Then the female VP of the department I had transferred out of paid a visit to the data center and saw my office. Shortly thereafter, my new department decided we should be located “out in the field.” So much for the window perq.
gopher gofer over 4 years ago
and a glass ceiling…?
GreasyOldTam over 4 years ago
I used to work for a company that moved to a new building built to their specification. It was a concrete tilt-up, and each pair of slabs had one window divided down the middle, and no window on the other side. So there were two, half windows on one seam, then no windows on the next, then two, etc. The very end was all glass. The idea was that the president would get the all glass office, VP’s would get a whole window, department managers would get a half window, and everybody else got nothing. The problem was that they built the building before realizing that there weren’t enough windows to make that work. They spent three months wrangling over what to do. Finally, the VP of R&D said that he spent most of his time in the lab, so he didn’t need any windows. So he got an office with no windows, and everything else fit. When the next layoff came, they laid off more than a quarter of all the employees. The only supervisory person at any level to get the axe was the VP of R&D.