Intel

Profit sharing, smart co-workers and environment, and educational benefits.

Project work can be quite interesting, exhilarating, and challenging.

Regular Intel employees get free fruit and soft drinks, exercise facilities, and showers.

Large cafeterias with wide varieties of food.

These comments take into account my experiences both as a regular employee and a contingent worker.

"Blue Badges" (regular Intel employees) are expected to work long hours and are often worked far beyond what anyone should work. As a former blue badge in the 1990s, I worked for almost 2 years without ever seeing my children except on Sundays - Intel expected me to be there. Laptops are routinely issued to Blue Badge employees so that they will put more hours in when they are away from the office. The ranking and rating system is designed so that it is possible for a manager to sink an employee's advancement opportunities without ever consulting the other managers and team members the employee works with. This happened to a handful of my co-workers and was quite demoralizing.

"Green Badges" (contractors) are second-class citizens, barred from any activity or benefit that could be considered a job perk (example: can't shower - so don't think of riding your bike to work). They are barred from reading much non-secret material on the company's internal website - for fear that they would feel too much like employees and sue for better benefits.

This place is more than frugal -- it's cheap. For example, the toilet paper here is like sandpaper. I've been waiting for my cube to be vacuumed for a month. No such service is happening. I can't find out from anyone how to get my floor cleaned.

Stop grinding your workers to dust.

Stop treating contingent workers like social lepers.

Letting us use the showers or have a free Diet Coke isn't going to land you in a lawsuit.

And if you want employees to be at work so much, put some decent TP in the restrooms.

You just had a record profit -- act like it meant something.