Workers Share The 'Most Useless Job Perks' They've Ever Been Offered Instead Of More Pay
You get a half day off on your birthday. Unpaid!
MAYA LAB | Shutterstock Everyone loves a good job perk. Common ones are health insurance, paid time off, and retirement savings plans. They are meant to enhance employees' work experience and job satisfaction. Perks are additional benefits on top of the salary, and can often be the deciding factor in choosing one job offer over another.
But not all that glitters is gold when it comes to benefits, especially in our current employer-driven job market. The discontent comes when employers become too creative with perks, sometimes offering services that their workers do not need at all. Even worse, some companies will give out perks that actually hold no advantage, essentially a lie in disguise that enables them to keep salaries low under the guise of awesome benefits.
Workers shared the most ridiculous perks employers used to keep salaries low.
A Reddit discussion started from the question, "What’s the most useless job perk you’ve ever been offered?" And people went off. "One of the perks they bragged about at my job was a discounted gym membership," a user said. They added, "The nearest location for that gym chain is about 400 miles away."
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It's almost like the employers don't truly know their workers or don't care to. A user shared, "I won an 'in front of the office' parking space for being the employee of the month a couple of years back." The problem was, they said, "Office is in Minnesota, U.S. I'm in Asia."
Another worker shared a benefit that seemed good on the surface until they tried to use it. "We have a program called Plum Benefits that offers discounted tickets to plays and performances. But the discounts are like $30 on a $300 ticket to theatre and symphonies that I can’t afford and wouldn’t want to see either. I’m not sure why they bother."
Sometimes a company has the right perk, but it doesn't fit their employees' schedule. A user who worked at a restaurant said they were offered free yoga classes at 6 a.m. on Saturday mornings. "We would get home at 1 a.m. on Fridays, and then work until 1 a.m. on Saturdays too," they said, "No one went to the 6 a.m. Saturday class."
PTO policies were undoubtedly what workers had the biggest grievances about.
One of the discussion contributors shared his experience working in a safety company in Arizona. "In order to get your five PTO days," they wrote, "you had to work there a year with no callouts." It was difficult to earn the paid time off, but the near-impossible task was actually scheduling it.
"If you wanted to take a single day off, you had to schedule that day one month in advance," they wrote. "Two days was two months in advance, and so on. If you wanted to take a working week off, you guessed it, schedule it five months in advance."
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To make it worse, workers' paid time off was not set in stone. "Your PTO could be slashed at any time," they shared. "I saw people who would request three days off for family stuff and follow all the egregious rules to do it," only for the manager to cancel the PTO a week before claiming the business comes first.
An even bigger gripe, however, is a perk that many people think couldn't possibly have any drawbacks: unlimited PTO. Isn't that the dream? Never having to stress if your child is sick and you need to take a day off, or how about four-day work weeks for an entire month? Unfortunately, as one commenter pointed out, "There is a reason why those 'unlimited' PTOs were provided in the first place."
That reason is actually two-fold. Companies end up spending less because there is no paying out for someone who quits or resigns, and most companies that offer unlimited PTO also secretly have a hustle culture mentality that makes taking time off almost impossible, or at least looked down upon severely.
Additionally, CBS News reported on a study from HR company Namely that found workers with unlimited vacation days actually take less time off than those with limited days, by more than two days in most cases. There's a psychological phenomenon that seems to happen with people not wanting to look like they are taking advantage of the perk, and instead of using it responsibly, they end up barely using it at all.
The US doesn't require companies to offer paid time off.
Most people simply assume that vacation days are part and parcel when it comes to the basic employment package at a company, but that's definitely not the case. According to the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan policy institute, there is no federal law guaranteeing workers a single day off, and several are not even entitled to unpaid time off. Only Nevada, Maine, and Illinois have passed laws granting employees paid time off that can be used for any reason.
The overall picture is clear: You have to choose your job wisely! Look for companies that respect your hard work and reward you with real benefits you deserve. If a perk sounds too good to be true, it likely is. If a company offers barely any additional benefits, that's problematic too.
Examine the perks employers offer carefully. Free gym? Where is it located? Paid time off? How easy is it to schedule it? These are just some of the questions you should be asking yourself before jumping into any job. You have to advocate for yourself when you're negotiating with an employer. There's no way around it.
Matt Machado is a writer studying journalism at the University of Central Florida. He covers relationships, psychology, celebrities, pop culture, and human interest topics.
