Discounts/free stuff from your work

[blas]

Did I mention there is a free on-sight doctor at the factory who treats/diagnoses work and non work related injuries/ailments FREE OF CHARGE?

Unfortunately for 3rd shifters, he doesn't come in until 8 am and by that time, most of us want to go home and sleep, not sit at the factory for an extra hour waiting.

[Zinjadu]

At the grocery store, 10% off store brand items; and since we're in a mall, a lot of the stores in the mall give a 10-15% discount to other mall employees.

At the warehouse, 15% off catalogue, retail store and outlet store merchandise, even if it's already on sale. Also, we get $25 gift certificates twice a year, but they're only good for catalogue merchandise.

[DrugstoreJulie]

- box of a variety of store-brand items every 6 months (organic foodstuffs, cosmetics, household products) ~25$ value, but comes with survey to fill out
- store-brand cosmetics that are still in their developmental stage (also with survey)
- fist dibs at perfume and cosmetics samples, before we hand them out to customers
-candy that is about to expire or has a damages packaging (we keep those in the office of emergency choccie needs )

[KamenRiderOsaka]

free cell phone service unless I add features, but there are discounted features I can add. 30% off cell phones twice a year as well.

We also have a discount site where we get discounts on online shopping, airfare, hotels. I also get a discount at my apartment complex because of my employer as well.

[upsidedown_orchid]

At the theatre, I have to see the show playing at least twice, and I can get quite a few free tickets/discounts for friends and family.

I get a free meal (or two ) every time I work, unlimited free pop, juice, coffee and tea, and if I'm the closing manager, free booze.

I save a lot on groceries.

[TNT]

Did I mention cable swag? I've a large collection of freebie items given to me both by the company and our content providers. Everything from pens, shirts, blankets and calendars up to playing cards and preview DVDs of upcoming shows on HBO and Showtime.

A friend of mine who buys and sells advertising memorabilia gets all excited when he visits my apartment and sees the stuff I've collected over the years.

[cinema guy]

Unlimited free movies for myself - although staff have to wait 2 weeks to see big movies, unless there is a staff preview the day before they are released.

Limited free movies for friends and family.

50% of certain kiosk items when I am working.

[BookstoreEscapee]

BN gives 30% off books and gift products, and 20% off music department merchandise (includes music, dvd, and music accessories). Twice a year (for a week in December and a weekend in June) they give an extra 10% for Employee Appreciation. Plus in the cafe you get 50% off "cafe consumables," ie, drinks and food from the bake case (this doesn't include mugs and other cafe gift stuff or whole cheesecakes, those fall under the 30% books/gift discount). They also have tuition assistance (for full-timers or part-timers after a year) for classes that could conceivably be related to a future position with the company (in other words, they're not going to help you go to nursing school, but business classes and stuff would be covered). Distribution center employees can order books directly from the warehouse and we get 40% off and don't pay sales tax. The DC doesn't carry music stuff, though. The other downside is that they only process orders once a week, so if you don't have it in by 10am on Wednesday you have to wait till the next week.

Other perks: you can take stripped books (most mass market paperbacks get the covers ripped off instead of being returned whole; the covers go back to the publisher and the books are destroyed). There's a limit (I think it's 5 per shift) but I've seen people walk out with shopping bags full (including me). We also used to be able to take magazines, but they don't strip them anymore (I don't know why; it seems like such a waste of money to ship back whole copies of magazines so someone else can recycle them, when we used to just throw them in the recycling bin anyway. They usually have hundreds of copies a week that get returned). They also give away the in store play CDs, after keeping them in rotation for a few months they are up for grabs.

[volatile]

I just came home with a free laptop. It's not much but I basically cannibalized a bunch of laptops that were going to be sent away and ended up with this as a spare laptop:

Dell Inspiron w/ Penitum 4m 1.7 (Guts)
1 GB memory taken from a different Dell
80gb HD from a Toshiba
Wireless Adapter from a Compaq

Pretty serviceable system.

[SuperDan]

At the moment, no discounts or perks to speak of. The insurance isn't even that great, and their idea of tuition reimbursement is to pay you a quarter for every hour you work during the semester. We are supposed to get a $10 gift certificate for every five 100% customer service audits we get, but the lazy ass managers just don't audit us like they're supposed to (the agreement a year and a half ago was that we would receive a manager CS audit EVERY TWO WEEKS, I've seen eleven since then). We do have a program where for certain things (6 or 12 months perfect attendance, positive safety audits, positive customer comments, etc) we get a colored sticker on our nametag and when we collect a whole set of stickers we get a different color nametag and a gift certificate. It takes a minimum of 18 months to move up to the next level with that program though, usually longer. (Last time they updated the stats, I was two stickers away from moving up to the last level of the program.) We do get a Christmas bonus, which they're nice enough to adjust so we take home what they want to give us (they would pay $118 if they intend to give you $100, for instance, so the taxes are out of their end not yours) but anyone receiving $30 or less gets gift certificates rather than cash. Our Christmas party and summer cookout usually come with freebies from vendors such as shirts, hats, sports tickets, and cool displays previoously used in the store.

I've noticed that grocery stores tend to not give discounts. Even when I worked at Super K-Mart, our discount did not apply to grocery items.

[Spiffy McMoron]

Cost plus 10% on anything that we can buy from our parent company or jobber suppliers--that goes for everything from a AAA battery to a 1100 hp racing motor. Plus I get 1/2 off the shop door rate-from $95/hour to $50/hour.

Plus the company buys everyone lunch on Saturdays, which is nice.

[captainvegetable02]

Grocery store - 5% and only on purchases of $10 or more

Tanning salon - unlimited free tanning (only one session per day of course) and 50% off products...which was awesome, some of those lotions are EXPENSIVE...but we had a customer who consistantly bought some of the pricier ones ($50-$80 for 8oz bottles) and left them behind; no matter how often we reminded her, she always forgot to take them home so the staff started using them

KB Toys - I think it was about 20%-25%

Hallmark store - 40% (but our store owners marked their non-Hallmark brand product up way more than other stores anyway)

Target - I think 10%, and you had to pay by check, cash, or Target credit card...no discount for purchases w/other credit or debit cards

The bank - Basically nothing. "Employee checking" was the same as our basic free checking, with the added perk of free money orders or official checks (and ours were a rip off anyway - $5 for a MO (I always just told customers to go to a gas station and get them for under $2), $7 for a OC). They still charged us for using other banks' atms, and they had a wonderful "employees should know better than to overdraw, so no overdraft charge refunds ever, end of story." As far as I'm concerned, they owe ME several hundred dollars in unfair overdraft charges (ie, caused by bank errors) that they refused to even investigate because I was an employee. And when I bought my car I got a better loan rate through the dealer than with my special employee rate at the bank. Can you tell I hated that company?

Salon/cosmetics store: 25% off products, 50% off salon services (first one was free). Twice a year during "friends and family week" the purchase discount is 35%. Salon employees get services free.

Department store I'm starting at the week after next - Don't know yet, but a friend of mine said she got 20% working there. I'll be working at a cosmetics counter so I'm sure I'll get a higher discount on those products and some gratis (because my makeup has to be 100% from the line I work for).

[Sliceanddice]

Mines pretty usual. 50% off food when we work, 15% when we don't, free soda all day every day (i can walk in on a day im off to check the schedule and handed a cup). We aren't stingie about it either. We give free sodas alot, management doesn't care and its a cheap and easy way to apease a pissed of guest.

[GayleShy]

Free food and beverages when we work so long as we don't eat where we prep food. It's a hospital, so it's totally understandable.

At Wal-Mart, we got a discount card for 10% as well as an extra 20% off one thing around Christmas time.

[Spiffy McMoron]

Oh! I forgot about this one!

I get a discount at the liquor store next door, just because of where I work. Very nice when you want a beer on a hot day like today...