01/23/2004: "Mmmmmm, doughhhhhhnuuuuuuuts...."

It has always amazed me the power that free food has over educated minds. Despite the fact that I have a well paying job, dozens of groceries, markets, and health food stores withing easy reach, the motivational power that free doughnuts have is still extremely strong.

It is a common habit in Californian companies to provide free bagels and doughnuts to their employees on Friday mornings. I'm not sure where this habit started, nor if it has anything to do with "Casual Friday" (more on that later), but it is certainly well-ingrained into the corporate culture. In fact, I am surprised that companies don't list Friday doughnuts when they are detailing their "Competitive benefits package"s.

"Sure, we only get two weeks vacation a year, but hey, we get free doughnuts"

The second company I worked for (Atmel) was quite large, so competition for the doughnuts could be quite fierce - especially when some people would walk out of the break room with five or six stuffed in their pockets. I would rush to get there early, because if I arrived after nine am, there would be no doughnuts left, and a slim choice of bagels. To get to work before nine meant fighting the worst of the rush-hour traffic, including the detestable "Filters" they have on freeway entrances, which alone would cost me an extra 10 minutes (the filters are switched off after 9:00am). Fighting the worst of the traffic would easily cost me 15 minutes extra. Just for a doughnut. The doughnut shop I passed on the way to work sells a dozen doughnuts for five bucks. Yet it just was not the same as free doughnuts.

Now I wonder if this isn't some nefarious plot on the part of Corporate America. "Fill 'em up with free doughnuts, don't give 'em too many holidays, and eventually they will just get stuck at their desks, and we'll get the maximum work out of them." There's one for you conspiracy theorists...

Casual Friday was a quaint little custom when I first moved to California, where on Friday, trousers and shirts would be replaced with jeans and a T-shirt. Pretty soon, of course, it became "casual everyday". I mean, people should be allowed to wear what they want to work, right? Its one of the things I _love_ about California. In the early days, I would work a lot with Salesmen, who still wear the "Uniform" of business, suit, tie, the whole stick-up-the-but outfit. I was always under pressure from them to dress like a salesman when doing customer visits, and most of the time I would (we worked all over America). But in California, things were different. The Salesman outfit was the same, but we were selling to _Engineers_. Even the VPs were wearing jeans. Pretty soon, it became apparent that the engineers wouldn't even listen to me if I walked in wearing a suit and tie - "He's a salesman" was all they needed to think to dismiss me. So, under protest from the sales force, I started dressing how I wanted to - which was the same as the Engineers I would meet with - Jeans, perhaps a polo-shirt. The difference was astounding. I would sit in a meeting, the salesman would say something, and the engineers would be unimpressed. I would say the same thing, and they would immediately pay close attention - this is an engineer talking, not a sales guy....