Perks of your job?

[Boozy]

We get anywhere from 5-7 free bottles of wine every month.

We also get sent to the wineries on occasion for "education", or as the staff calls it, "world-class piss 'em up with full-course lunch"

[flybye023]

We don't have many but they do provide free coffee, tea, and hot chocolate. Also, my department lets us listen to our iPods/Zune/Mp3 players whenever we want.

[RichS]

I work as an on-call tech - basically, when the store needs me, they call me. Plus I do some work for the churches my wife works at.

Benefits - keys to the store and one of the churches, and a choice between 6MB, 3MB, or 768KB DSL connections.

At home, I have no choice other than dial-up. So, I have permission to use the DSL as I see fit. No illegal stuff - it's just when I need to work on one of my computers, either reinstalling the OS or getting updates, or nabbing the latest security software or game demo. It helps having access to the store when I'm having a major problem with a system and I could use one of the store tools.

Still, I wish I could get high-speed. Satellite is not an option, and the wireless connections I can get are 50/50 as far as reliability.

[FuzzyKitten99]

my restaurant job: 50% off anything I want to order, including the so-good-it's-evil tiramisu and molten chocolate lava desserts. If I work a weekday lunch buffet or the famous and extremely popular Sunday brunch buffet, I get to go through once for free on my break.

I also get experience in the industry I want to make my career at. The executive chef is from Sicily/Milan, Italy. I have learned a lot from him already, including how to speak some Italian.

My retail job: employee discount is nice, and we even get it on clearance items. I got the floor model of a desk I absolutely loved when it first was set up. New it would have cost over $700 alone, just for the desk part, which was all I really wanted anyway. But 8 months later, they discontinued the model (they do this with most of our furniture anyway), and clearance priced the desks down to $400. When those were all gone (they went pretty quick, which surprised me), the floor model was all that was left. It is/was heavy as hell and one piece because to get it apart was just too much to deal with. So my store management discounted the floor model to $280. Now I was salivating on it. And my manager knew that. I was looking at it while at work and he said if I could get the thing out of the store within 48 hours, he would give it to me for $200 flat, which would include my employee discount. They needed the room for new merchandise.

So... I got myself a nice desk (well, and I got it kind of in the mindset that my BF will likely work from home a bit and needs a nice setup) for well less than half of what it would have cost new.

[NightAngel]

Free meals on workdays. 1-2 depending on how many hours worked- saves on the grocery bill at home some.

And, our black Chef's uniforms make us look like Ninjas.

[sarasquirrel]

thinking about perks of my job make me realize we dont have many...

other than employee discount in the store, we also get it to verizon and another phone company...wooo

hmmm if a bag of candy gets ripped open we eat it....but were really not supposed to do that.....

i get to hide candy for myself and buy it went it gets marked down, like halloween candy muhahahaha.

damn <insert pharmacy company here> :shakes fist:

[AdminAssistant]

The Theatre History class I TA - especially the really awesome kids in it. The ones that pay attention, ask smart (or silly) questions, and are actually interested.

And the fact that when I lectured on Everyman and medieval drama on Thursday, I got to show a Lego version of Everyman. And they loved it.

That class more than makes up for the zombie frat kids in my Intro section. "Do we really have to see the play that's listed as mandatory in the syllabus? That's Homecoming weekend!! My sorority/fraternity has parties all that weekend!!" or "Is the midterm really the day before Fall Break? Because I want to go out of town two days early. Can I make the test up later?" gaahhhh.

[Jester]

Every job has its good points and bad points. Most of them have some kind of cool perks. I'm not talking about benefits, mind you, like medical and dental. I'm not even talking about discounts or flexible hours. I mean just cool shit that goes along with your job that isn't necessarily in the job description or, perhaps, even official.

For example, my job at The Bar has some perks I rather like. Such as:

--I get to work in a t-shirt, shorts, and sneakers, and a ball cap if I choose. Sure, the hat and shirt need to be of The Bar or its sister business, but that's fine by me. And on football Sundays (not that I work Sundays), we can wear jerseys of our respective teams.

--I get to drink. No, we don't get drunk behind the bar. And frankly, that is one of the main reasons we CAN drink behind the bar. We generally don't make a regular habit of it, but if customers want to buy us shots, no problem! And from time to time, management themselves will buy us shots.

--I get to try all kinds of new and cool rums. This is actually almost an official part of my job, as we are a bar that specializes in rum, and it is good to know your product.

--I get to be a smartass to people. Hell, it's how I make my money, since I sure as hell am not going to do it with my looks. I can't be a complete fuckwad, but I can mouth off to people, and since I generally know who I can do this with, I get away with it. As do, I should say, several of my coworkers. (Though to be fair, the smartassery is more acceptable when we're behind the bar than when we're waiting tables.


So, what are the unofficial perks of your jobs? What non-standard things make you think, "I love my job," or at the very least, "This makes my job more tolerable"?