There is a secret cabal running cost-benefit analyses of every decision for some evil purpose: They're called MBA's and they're everywhere. Especially in larger companies.

There is at least a little bit of a dark side to seemingly frivolous perks like snacks, foosball tables, and beer on tap- by spending relative pennies for "luxuries", management is able to paper over diminished investment elsewhere, that employees could otherwise benefit from. Or to hide work cultures that aren't as great as they look upon their first visit. Shiny distractions.

> Shiny distractions.

Or, as I put it in a similar situation, very expensive snacks and foosball games

This. I work at a place that had no retirement plan, subpar health insurance, generally clueless HR and no support for career development besides "fake it til you make it".

Of course they have ping pong tables and video games and free snacks and drink fridges. The cost and logistics of putting in a couple ping-pong tables is way cheaper than giving everyone vision coverage, or matching retirement contributions.

Why do you need vision coverage?

"Lisa needs braces"

"Dental Plan!"

"Lisa needs braces"

"Dental Plan!"

Man that episode had a lot of great lines.

"[in a flashback when Mr. Burns was young]

Boy: You can't treat the working man this way. One day we'll form a union and get the fair and equittable treatment we deserve. Then we'll go too far, and get corrupt and shiftless and the Japanese will eat us alive!

Mr. Burns' Grandfather: The Japanese!? Those sandal-wearing goldfish tenders? Bosh! Flimshaw!

[Years Later]

Mr. Burns: If only we'd listened to that boy, instead of walling him up in the abandoned coke oven."

/s or...?

I don't know if they were being sarcastic, but I'm willing to argue for the position.

There are life altering medical conditions that can make you go blind, for that "vision coverage" as part of medical coverage makes sense. I'm excluding that from the below because by "vision coverage" most people mean "insurance for routine checkups and purchasing glasses".

For routine eye appointments and glasses - their is no high unexpected costs that need to be spread out over a large population. The costs are low and predictable. The majority of the population needs them. So the typical benefit of insurance doesn't exist - i.e. you aren't spreading large unexpected costs over a large number of people so they average out to a small consistent cost.

Meanwhile insuring these things just means that the people purchasing the product no longer have an incentive to keep the price down, and adds bureaucracy, both of which increase the cost without providing a better service.

So - why do you need vision coverage?

I'll acknowledge some counter arguments exist. Encouraging people to get frequent enough eye appointments, spreading the cost of bad eyesight to the minority of people who don't need eyeware, if government supported - subsidizing the basic need of eyeware for poor people, etc. You can make an argument in the other direction to, but I don't think either argument is obviously better, and in the end which side you agree with basically comes down to what your politics are like.

Software engineering and white collar work in general are very visual-heavy professions. It is absurd not to include health coverage as part of compensation when the job involves 40+ hours a week of staring at computer screens. It is also ridiculous that vision and dental insurance are bundled separately from "medical" coverage, but that is a different issue.

Why is it absurd?

I'm assuming your total compensation is the same either way. So it's not that you're not being compensated for staring at computer screens all days, it's just a question of whether your being compensated by being given dollars or being compensated by your eye doctor and glasses manufacturer being given dollars.

Upon rereading your post, your point makes more sense. But don't you at least get discounts on the exams and eyewear? I would assume there's some justification for why vision insurance exists beyond the serious conditions you mention, and thus be an additional benefit from employers of workers who experience ocular wear and tear all day.

You get fake discounts off egregiously inflated eye exam/eyewear prices

You can easily buy prescription glasses online for less than $20 a pair, and you can get an eye exam done for $50-$100

If you use your vision insurance to buy glasses in person, though, good luck getting them for less than $150. The price of the glasses magically inflates to whatever your insurance will cover.

If my vision insurance weren't bundled with my employment as a "free" benefit I'd definitely just use $80 out of my HSA to pay for an eye exam and then buy a sack of glasses online

Once I worked in a department that had a crappy coffee maker. We got a new boss. First thing he did was get a really good coffee maker installed.

That boss left, new boss showed up, coffee maker left and an even worse one than the original was installed. No espresso! In SF!

In my experience having at least a VP who actually cares about the perk will vastly improve it. But most won’t care and will do whatever the default is.

I make my own coffee at home and bring it in a thermos. Office coffee sucks almost by definition.

Throw out that crappy "perk" and pay me more money.

Throwing out the "perk" of providing free performance enhancing drugs to their employees means their average employee will become less effective, either because they won't be on performance enhancing drugs or because they will be spending time walking around to get performance enhancing drugs instead of working. So the average employee is making less money for the company, so they are payed less, not more.

In numbers it goes something like they can pay you and extra buck a day for not having the coffee machine, but they simultaneously have to cut your pay 10 bucks a day for the loss in productive work being done. Your 9 bucks a day and free coffee down in the exchange.