

Nerf guns don't matter - mcrittenden
http://mikecr.it/ramblings/nerf-guns-dont-matter

======
hluska
I love the last few paragraphs of this article, unfortunately, I've managed
enough people to know the value of nerf guns/ping pong tables...

Ping pong/foosball/assorted games have a wonderful place in startups. Case in
point - welcoming new employees. New people tend towards shyness. Cutting
through this shyness should really be the first step in onboarding new people.
Guess what? One game of foosball/ping pong is better than three (usually
awkward) lunches with a supervisor/other coworkers...

Then, there is the struggle. Ben Horowitz wrote about the struggle from the
perspective of founders, but startup employees feel it just as acutely. Ever
been stuck at work, late into the evening, desparate to complete a project?
Ever go out with friends from university and discover that you make 25% less
than the rest of your group? Ever work for a company that has pivoted so many
times you can't remember what you originally signed on to build?

Good founders and an environment built upon respect and open communication can
go a long ways towards reducing the struggle. However, when you're in the
thick of it, a couple of games of ping pong can keep you moving forward (or
keep you from applying to any of the 35 other startups that would hire you)...

Finally, there's one other wonderful business reason for mixing work and fun.
Retaining your talent. Really good people (aka - the people you need in
startups) have all kinds of options. If they have fun where they are and work
with close friends, they are less likely to quit.

All in all,decent article. Unfortunately, it overlooks a huge number of
situations when ping pong actually becomes important.

------
breckinloggins
There's a bit of an either-or fallacy here, but overall I agree. I think
companies would do well to heed your advice and figure out what is and what is
not an appropriate perk.

Things that I, personally, would find appropriate:

\- Free cokes and possibly (if you're huge) free food. Just don't provide it
and then complain about how much it costs later. Worked at a place like that
once, it sent an extremely confusing message.

\- A culture that allows employees to bring in "cubicle toys" if they want.
But I might draw the line at projectile weapons (see below).

\- Gym memberships, company cars, and other more traditional perks are always
nice.

Stuff that I, personally, would find more inappropriate:

\- Projectile, melee, or any other types of weapons, Nerf or not. Don't get me
wrong, I'm not making a political statement here. These things are plenty fun.
The problem is that they, as the article points out, are a TRUE distraction
and they by necessity distract more than one person. The other issue is that
they can be awfully annoying to people who, for whatever reason, just aren't
in to that stuff. Then they have to feel somewhat ostracized for never being
the guy that wants to get into a lightsaber battle while his code is
compiling.

\- Foosball games, pool tables, in-office basketball courts, and the like. For
mainly the reasons you listed in your post.

But I think all this has to be decided on a company-by-company basis. These
will be choices that reflect the personality of the founders and, eventually,
upper level management. You may not completely agree with every point made in
the article, but you would do well, I think, to heed the general warning: work
is not play. That doesn't mean work can't be fun, it just means that these are
two separate activities with different cultural expectations and mostly
different social circles. Mixing the two can be very awkward.

~~~
andyfleming
Send 'em here: <http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/black-or-white>

------
lmm
The reality is we spend most of our waking lives at work. Other than those we
had before we started, most of our friends (and even romantic partners) will
be made there. Enforced work socializing is counterproductive, but enforced
non-socializing is even worse. A good workplace should accept that people are
social, that being able to play around for a few minutes in the middle of the
day makes you more rather than less productive. That a workplace offers nerf
guns does not prove that it will be a nice place to work, but it does at least
show you that it's not stuck in joyless "professionalism" that would guarantee
that it isn't one.

~~~
itmag
_The reality is we spend most of our waking lives at work._

Bloody hell, that sounds so depressing when you put it like that...

~~~
GuiA
Really? I sleep about 8 hours a day, and work 8-10 hours a day. That's 6-8
hours of being awake and not working, plus 2x16 hours of not working on the
weekend.

So worst case scenario, in a week, I spend 50 hours at work and 62 hours being
awake and not working. If your numbers are not in that ballpark, you probably
want to re-evaluate whether all the hours you spend at work are optimal :)

~~~
ricardobeat
But those hours "being awake" include eating, showering, doing house chores,
etc. In reality it's 10 hours work (including commute) vs 3-4 hrs non-work,
and ~10 on the weekend. So the usual number is 50:40 at best, not 50:62.

You don't even need to do the math, we've all been there: get up, go to work,
come back at 7-8pm, have dinner, 2hrs to do something then sleep.

------
kkbb
As an introvert, I appreciated the beer fridge when I first started because it
helped me get to know the other introverts (everyone). At the time none of my
IRL friends were in this sort of work environment so it was something to
"brag" about. Back home my family had these visions that my workplace was like
google or something and I'm sure they also bragged.

Four years later, I haven't had a beer at work in a long time. At the literal
end of the day, I want to go home, relax on the couch and hang with the wife.
Right now I'm looking around for a new job because I've realized the current
place's motivation for the beer machine is to use as a distraction for the
uncompetative salaries and lack of benefits. I geniunely like my co-workers,
but the company not so much.

As a side note, all my friends do military contracting type stuff work and get
paid substantially more. Four years later, perhaps the jokes on me.

------
bstewartnyc
When I see things like nerf guns, ping pong tables, free soda and snacks
mentioned early on in the job description I pretty much pass it up right away
because I assume that is all offered instead of competitive salary and equity,
and to attract younger developers. The things that really matter are office
layout (open floor plan vs private offices, etc), ability to telecommute,
salary, equity and opportunity to work with talented coworkers and fun and
interesting projects. I'll do work at work and then go home to play with my
kids.

------
jiggy2011
I really don't see the appeal of Nerf guns at work at all. I see recruitment
videos from some companies that show people sneaking around with nerf guns and
shooting other programmers in the back of the head when they aren't looking.

If someone was firing foam darts at me whilst I was in the middle of a
delicate debugging session, my kneejerk reaction would probably be to punch
them in the face.

All this stuff strikes me as kinda juvenile and doesn't really help if you
want to be taken seriously as a professional.

~~~
MartinCron
Not only is it juvenile and unprofessional, it's really... male. If you really
want to recruit talented people, how about just not being repellent to female
developers.

------
PhrosTT
I totally agree with OP.

My work sometimes has happy hours, and despite them being obviously optional I
feel pressured to go to at least half of them so that I'm not judged.

Sure you can say the events and outings are optional but what happens to
people who routinely don't go. They become less close with coworkers and this
could hurt them career wise.

I have no interest in eating lunch with my team every day. I see them for the
OTHER 7 hours a day. Why can't I get a break?

Workplaces really should be fun and social on the clock. But if I'm not on the
clock I'd rather be with my other friends.

Don't cram friendship down my throat like some freshmen dorm. I'll drink with
the people I want to. And avoid smalltalk with those I don't.

~~~
mhurron
Absolutely all of this. I don't want to work at a company that pretends it's a
family. I don't want them to make me be friends.

Work is a necessary evil in peoples lives. We all like to eat and have a place
to live and this takes money, hence work, but it is still an evil. It takes
the majority of your day and the majority of your life away from doing things
you want to do and people you want to do them with. I would much rather be at
a company that realizes this and doesn't try to force itself on you pretending
that it is some great thing that it is not.

~~~
herval
If you don't want to do your work nor like the people you work with, you
should really switch jobs...

That said, I agree that companies should not try to creep in weekends and
evenings. Having a life outside work is healthy and should be incentivized by
every company.

But really, work is NOT a "necessary evil" for me...

~~~
mhurron
> If you don't want to do your work nor like the people you work with, you
> should really switch jobs

Which is not what I said. Work is what you have to do to enable you to do what
yo want to do, but in that process it takes time (a lot of time) away from
being able to do what you want to do. No one likes every part of their job,
but you have to do those parts along with what you do like because it is part
of you job, it is the work you have to do. No job lets you do everything you
want to do in life. Co-workers are a random group of people that have been
brought together on some common goal (the job). If everyone conducts
themselves like adults you will probably be able to get along with them, but
you will not like every last one of them.

> work is NOT a "necessary evil" for me

Really? What happens if you don't go to work anymore? What happens if you wake
up and say, "You know what, I would like to spend the next month with my wife
traveling around [insert area of the world here]?" What happens if you wake up
and say "you know what, I don't really feel like working on X (your job) for a
bit, I want to try this neat new thing that has nothing to do with it?"

Welcome to the necessary evil. Work is what you have to do, it takes away from
all the other things you want to do.

~~~
herval
> What happens if you don't go to work anymore?

I freak out and have to urgently find another thing to work on. Like,
URGENTLY.

> What happens if you wake up and say, "You know what, I would like to spend
> the next month with my wife traveling around [insert area of the world
> here]?"

Work doesn't disallow that - I can simply work and travel at the same time, as
I've done for a couple of years already (with my wife - and dog)

ps.: I'm not a workaholic by a very, very far distance. I just LIKE what I do
and think it adds a lot of meaning to my existence (plus money of course) -
I'd say it's a "necessary good" ;-)

------
cobrausn
I worked at a place once where we were forced to work 12 hour days for about 5
months straight. As exempt employees, we were not paid more, and our pay was
already below industry standard.

In exchange, we got free soda, nerf guns, and they would buy you dinner. They
also had a beach party once... on a saturday. Also raffles for free swag.

Despite the fairly pleasant social atmosphere and talented co-workers who were
in the same boat as you, I left after 7 months. It didn't matter as much as
having time to spend with non-work friends and loved ones and a better
paycheck. Apparently most agreed - the turnover rate was over 200%.

~~~
GuiA
What do you mean exactly by turnover rate of 200%? That each year, the entire
workforce was fully renewed twice?

~~~
cobrausn
Correct. Assuming 100 employees at capacity, they went through over 200 new
employees a year, meaning the average employee stayed for around 6 months
before leaving.

As far as I could tell, there was a core 5 ~ 6 people who stayed on and had
been there since the beginning, and the rest were all on their way in or out.

------
ricardobeat

        It's not going to make you more productive, or make you 
        happier with the work you have to do, or the people you 
        have to work with.
    

In fact, it might help with all of these. Being able to tune out for a couple
minutes after some exhausting work can bring you back to a non-stressed state
and make it through the day happier; vs sitting at your desk, browsing or
making up an excuse to go outside, because you have nowhere to go.

And it definitely helps with team-building. You might find that that grumpy
annoying colleague is actually a very nice person, he just get's bogged down
by work or something.

------
jdavid
We kinda just went through this where I work.

I don't like the foosball and the nerf guns and all of the other distractions,
sure it's fun but it's hard to keep a train of thought sometimes.

Honestly I'd rather the company take us out for a picnic or have us all hang
out at the amusement park. I would rather mentally know that work is for work,
and play is for outside of work. Or for the group of us to go make something
physical with habitat for humanity.

At home, computers are not allowed in the bedroom for simular but different
reasons. Studies show that once a couple invites a TV or computer into the
bedroom, well parts of the relationship suffer.

At the end of the day I won't be building trust with my coworkers over
foosball, nurf guns or video games. But if we do something outside of work,
well that might be a different story.

In the end I think this is the result of young founders trying to keep the
work place like college. For some of us College is a chapter long closed on
life and we have other things that are more current in our lives.

One of my friends who owns a company has set it as a perk to do company wide
vacations three or four times a year. I think this is awesome. When I worked
at Unity, they would try to get every employee to Unite no mater where it was
in the world. There were plenty of times to bond over that experience and I
think it goes further to my point.

------
bonsaikitten
I think the levels of emotional intelligence matter. Some people have an
imbalance of IQ to EQ and they don't want anything to do with anyone, just
write good code. That's fair, but seeing others socialize and bond doesn't
register much like a marketing guy looking at a map reduce function and not
understanding.

Another thing that is difficult for lower EQ folks is the ability to see
things from another point of view. So, instead of seeing the value and point
of team building and interaction it's just a silly waste of time. It's a
spectrum, and unfortunately there is no golden ratio to the perfect fit. In
this bubble of ours Engineer vs. Sales or marketing is not a new story, but
looking at it from an IQ vs EQ perspective at least you can see where each
person is coming from.

The best thing for the lower EQ guys is let them be alone, stroke their ego
and communicate via IM. Explain to them that just like recursive functions,
things have a purpose and they aren't for everyone and people process the
world in different ways.

~~~
23david
How do you build teamwork with both low eq and high eq employees? Seems to me
that it's hard to have a team with people on both extremes since they'll
continuously argue about what is important.

------
JoeAltmaier
My older brother worked at SGI early days. He bragged about their culture -
video games in the halls, parties.

I told him "Culture isn't the free perks. Your culture is revealed when times
are hard, releases are near or late. What people do then, who flees and who
buckles down and works, that defines your culture."

~~~
MartinCron
Whatever you're doing, you should stop it and start writing speeches instead.

------
netfire
Although I agree that having things like ping-pong, nerf guns or free soda
available does not guarantee that there is a good company culture, I don't
think its means there is a bad one either.

Regardless of whether the work is interesting or if you are productive,
sometimes you just need to take a break. If during that break, you can have
fun with one of your co-workers, all the better (not to mention the benefits
of getting out of your chair to get some exercise).

As already mentioned before, some of the best friendships can come out of a
working environment. Having fun with co-workers and trying to get to know who
people are instead of just trying to understand what they know can lead to
better communication and collaboration, as well as a more enjoyable workplace.

------
columbo
>I'm seeing it more and more--job descriptions with perks about nerf guns and
happy hour, or new grads who joined a startup and are bragging about ping pong
tables and free coke. This is apparently something that people see as a fun
culture, a sign that this is a place you'd enjoy working at and has people
you'd enjoy working with.

Heh. It took me awhile to find these:

>Excellent opportunities with an exciting, fun 6 year old .com company!!!
Skills wanted: JAVA, Weblogic, EJB, Solaris, Oracle. Fun atmosphere- pool
table, ping pong table, foozball table, and cafeteria. @90-95K plus stock
options $$$$$$ Don't miss out!!! This is a hot one, sunny California, in
Culver City- very close to Santa Monica and Marina Del Rey!!! Beautiful
beaches, blue skies and the ocean! If someone could reply with the correct
spelling of foozball, we have a bet going in the office!

>Wednesday, September 27, 2000 19:05

Source: [http://www.coderanch.com/t/9714/Jobs-Offered/careers/JAVA-
De...](http://www.coderanch.com/t/9714/Jobs-Offered/careers/JAVA-
Developers#62820)

> Free meals when working late; unlimited cold beverages; vacation homes in
> Lake Tahoe; monthly beer bashes; complimentary use of a Porsche Boxster when
> designated as "Employee of the Month;" and, additionally, a chance to win a
> $3000 bonus plus the chance to drive a Porsche Boxster for two years with
> each participating referral booked in the Employee Referral Program.

> Friday, September 15, 2000 13:40

Source: [http://www.coderanch.com/t/9700/Jobs-Offered/careers/jobs-
ex...](http://www.coderanch.com/t/9700/Jobs-Offered/careers/jobs-extensity-
com#62803)

I agree that these things really don't matter. But to be honest, I'm a little
happy to see some of it coming back. The last 10 years has been hard to be a
programmer in my area; most of the jobs are large companies, most of the work
is boring, and the startups are few and far between.

~~~
MartinCron
_complimentary use of a Porsche Boxster when designated as "Employee of the
Month"_

Maybe it's just me, but that seems like a terrible idea. You get one person to
feel good about being employee of the month and _n_ -1 people feeling slighted
for being passed over. again.

------
Jacob4u2
Sometimes things like nerf guns are indicative of a culture at a company that
would be more fun and upbeat than working in a corporate cube farm. Now,
obviously, cube farms can just as easily buy nerf guns and I'm just picking
nerf guns because it's in the link-baity title. Free coke, social gatherings
and nerf guns might also just be indications that the company values you and
wants to provide whatever they can to make you happy. However juvenile you may
or may not find them, at least their trying.

------
jc4p
I work at a place with a lot of toys, pool tables, free coffee, and beer on
tap. When I read the title and the first half of the article I couldn't have
disagreed more. I love what I do and I love the environment I'm in. But after
finishing your post I realized that I agree with you 100%, nice added benefits
don't matter at all unless you work in a nurturing environment, and hey, if
that environment offers cool stuff, that's awesome. I love the team I work
with and our company culture, and that wouldn't change at all if we didn't
have pool tables or free beer.

I think advertising things like nerf guns and free soda in job interviews is
just an implicit way to make you think the company has a good culture, but
that's really not what you should be centering your view of the company
around, you should wait until you actually communicate with the people there
and figure out the company culture, then re-evaluate with the extra bonuses to
see if it's right for you.

My last job was at small office building with cubicles and sometimes free
breakfast, and you know what? I still loved the hell out of it because it was
an insanely open environment between employees and project managers, and it
was some of the most challenging and rewarding work I've done.

------
mietek
Yes! Keep your toys, your sodas and your junk food. Just give me an office
with a door, where I can actually focus on work and be productive.

------
RandallBrown
Nerf guns are more the result of an already fun company culture, than someone
trying to make it a fun culture.

If you build a company culture that makes people comfortable enough to play
and have fun with eachother at work, then you've succeeded.

------
johnnymonster
I'm not sure where the culture shifted to value things like saying you work at
a startup or have free beer/lunch VS getting a highly competitive salary and
normal working hours? I choose the latter every single time.

------
bduerst
I think the one question you should be asking is: Are your employees looking
forward to coming to work in the morning?

All these environment variables are background noise if they are not relevant
to your workers.

------
bradezone
Very intriguing post, Mike! I have to agree that placing too much priority on
these things can make a company seem cheesy. BUT I personally would rather
work at a place that is not "all business, all the time." People should enjoy
their jobs and their careers, and I think that's mostly what these companies
are trying to accomplish. Your post is a good reminder, however, about how to
prioritize work and play at the job site.

------
lincolnwebs
I maintain that the ability to be silly is the measure of office (or
community, or family) culture that matters most. It's indicative of being
relaxed, confident, and comfortable with yourself and your relationships with
others. That doesn't mean disruptive or constant silliness, but a little
goofing around once in a while goes a long way.

------
mikeg8
Some great comments here. I think the main frustration is that these "playful
distractions" are being advertised too heavily to the outside through job
listings or About Us pages. I'm not opposed to a fun work place if it develops
naturally over time and doesn't reduce the quality of work.

------
lewisflude
Nerf guns matter to me! (I type this while sipping on a free can of Diet Coke)

~~~
inafield
When HQ came into the office and firing off nerf arrows (no gun required) at
all of us and turned Dev and Support into a mini-nerf-warzone, it was one of
the best things that happened to us. Of course, it was a Friday and we lost
tons of productivity, but after all the hard work we'd been doing... we needed
it. Sure, a few people got hit hard in the head and some people took a couple
arrows to the mouth -- but it was WORTH IT.

:)

I still remember when the support manager was hired. I remember asking the
hiring manager if he'd asked her if she was ok with UFO's in the office. Her:
"UFO's?" (quizzical look) Me: "Yeah, uh" (ball nearly misses me) (in the
distance), "INCOMING!... Did I get [inafield]" She catches the ball, laughs.
Me: "No, you just about hit the new hire, she'll fit right in." [laughter]

------
trusko
With three kids I am excited to go home and spend time with my family anyway.
I am trying to stay focused on my work when I am in the office.

Overall I agree with Mike. Well written post.

------
mhluongo
Flamebait?

~~~
mcrittenden
Hmm, did I come across to strong? I definitely didn't mean for it to seem like
flamebait. :/

~~~
rwc
No, you didn't. It was thoughtful and even-keeled perspective, conveyed in a
tone that should be embraced here even if there is disagreement about the
actual points made.

~~~
mcrittenden
Thanks for that. I generally find it difficult to say that I believe something
without also saying that anyone who disagrees is stupid, so I appreciate the
feedback. The last thing I want to do is make anyone angry or come across as
trollish.

