That's the problem with these corporate benefits.

There's always a string attached.

☑ Kevin at July 18, 2016 11:38 PM

But seriously, folk...

My employer put in a room full of exercise gear. I'd rather have had the money. Compensation is compensation.

There's no such thing as free.

I honestly thought the sole reason women carry purses and men don't was all that shit in there was to disguise its primary job as tampon container.

I hope they don't start offering underwear or other intimate goods. Do you really want to use the employer provided unmentionables?

Yes, good one Kevin. And I agree Crid. Just give me the money. These benefits come out of my pay one way or another.

Our corporate headquarters has a neatly stacked pyramid of tampons in every women's room. Plus hand cream and hairspray. I never see any of it touched, but we also have very few women. (I'm not going to lie: I love being a woman in tech because it means I get the restrooms all to myself.)

I figured they're there for emergency purposes and maybe it's like offering free coffee: It removes one reason for an employee to have to leave work.

Wait, Amy, why did you need toilet paper with you in France?

Well, a company might certainly choose to do that, as a morale thing. But there isn't any right to free tampons any more than there is a right to free snacks. I work on a military base and we don't have any of that stuff; it's military-Spartan. They have a gym. It's $120/year for us contractors.

Honestly, I'm getting the impression that some women (mostly younger women) expect all of the crap that they want should be free, because women. I guess it's a particular variant of snowflakism, like the living-in-mom's-basement guys we discussed yesterday.

I'm with Crid. Instead of an employee gym ('cause I wanna spend another hour in close proximity to my smelly coworkers) or a ping pong table in the lobby, just give me the money.

The company I used to work for sent out an e-mail detailing our compensation. It broke down the compensation between direct and indirect. Indirect included benefits, company gym membership (priced at commercial gym rates but only available during work hours), employee discounts, employee legal services (never used), employee assistance programs (again, never used), third party discount program to stores at which I never shop, etc. I'd rather have had most of that in cash.

Wait, Amy, why did you need toilet paper with you in France?
______________________________________

One possible reason: In the words of the late, great Austrian director Billy Wilder: "France is where the money falls apart and you can't tear the toilet paper."

I think Americans are just getting too used to freebies in general. It's eroding our work ethic. Not that there's anything wrong with SEARCHING for freebies on Craigslist or elsewhere (check out the French documentary "The Gleaners and I"), but DEMANDING them is another matter.

In the meantime, I very much recommend "The Keeper" instead. It pays for itself in about a year and all a woman needs in addition is maybe three pantyliners per month - or toilet paper, if necessary. Not to mention it's much better for the environment AND the plumbing; it lasts for 20 years or more.

Before I had goats, I traveled a lot for work. I always carried a roll of Charmin with me, because you never know when the toilet paper (especially in England) is going to end up being little bitty squares of brown paper.

Um, brand and size of tampon or pad is a pretty personal thing. There's a reason the assortment takes up an entire aisle. I prefer to bring supplies I've found work for me.

When employers break out the value of indirect compensation into line items, they report a higher value than what they actually paid per employee--so it's a way to convince people they're being better compensated than they are. The true cost is much less.

So maybe I'm seeing seeing $1,000 in "perks" per year, but they wouldn't have a spare $1,000 to give me if they got rid of them.

My former employer offered yoga classes for a while--in a former warehouse space in our office building. Yeah, I want to stay past 6 pm, not to do work, but to see all my co-workers in workout gear with their legs splayed.

The only time I would use on-site "supplies," whether free or from a vending machine, would be in an "emergency." Those are few and far between.

I can't imagine relying on the office stash to get me by.

I don't really care that companies inflate the value of benefits IP. I'd still take the cash. As Conan said, discounts to stores I don't go to, gyms I don't want to use, on and on. If I've no use for the benefits they are wasted money. Even $100 for each $1,000 they claim to spend would be a net gain to me.

Remind me again why I'm supposed to "respect women"? It's getting tougher to do all the time.

What woman wants to use industrial grade menstral supplies? My daughter's friend got surprised by her first cycle during the school day in the 7th grade. She said they handed her something with the same thickness as a small matress. After that, the word was out among all of her friends, " Be prepared!". I think that is how all of us learned. Its an important life lesson and it doesn't just apply to tampons; or girls.

I assume everyone has witnessed the outrage over tampons being taxed. Also this:

http://www.freethetampons.org/

The whole 'free tampons' thing seems to be motivated by a psychological need for someone else to pay for your tampons, more so than the practical need for free tampons.

Whenever I read about this 'issue' it seems tied up in the desire for society to 'validate' all women's bodies and accept menstruation as natural and all sorts of other feelings about menstruation. It's not that women don't have access to tampons. In truth, few women would want to use some generic tampon they found in the bathroom.

The whole 'free tampons' thing seems to be motivated by a psychological need for someone else to pay for your tampons, more so than the practical need for free tampons.

Nora is totally my new favorite commenter.

So, if women get "free" tampons - how is that NOT sexist against men? Why aren't they giving something similar to men for "free"?

You can bet that if they gave something "free" that only men would use some woman would sue and win claiming "sexism."

the only physical thing guys need on a regular basis is orgasms.

So if companies are going to give women free tampons to aid them in their biological needs, they should also give guys free hand jobs

From the link in Insufficient Poison's comment:

"86% of U.S. women report that they've started their period unexpectedly in public without the supplies they need."

It would be interesting to know how many of those had it happen more than once. And then see if there's a correlation with feminist ideology.

lenona: "I think Americans are just getting too used to freebies in general... Not that there's anything wrong with SEARCHING for freebies on Craigslist or elsewhere... but DEMANDING them is another matter."

Mooching used to be an annoying behavior of some people, but now it's evolved into a culture with a political ideology and lifestyle.

"It would be interesting to know how many of those had it happen more than once."

I'd like to know too, since in my experience it's rare. If your cycles are unpredictable, you carry a few with you at all times. OB are shrink-wrapped down to the size of bullets.

"If your cycles are unpredictable, you carry a few with you at all times. OB are shrink-wrapped down to the size of bullets."

She said "bullets"! Oh noes!

It's Sandra Fluke's birth control all over again. Anything supplied to employees included in the price of the product. The customers are ultimately paying for those benefits. So, Cauterucci is essentially demanding that other people pay for female employees' hygiene products.

In addition, the cost-benefit analysis linked in her article factored in nothing for employee theft, assuming only an average usage versus a price per unit. It also gave no quantified benefit (perhaps in estimated increased productivity or reduced turnover; nor did it make any other attempt to quantify the benefit to the employer).

If you think there won't be theft, track your office's office supply cache sometime, especially around back-to-school. That's one reason your office toilet paper dispenser now uses those giant rolls instead of individual rolls that could easily fit home toilet paper holders.

I've noticed a tendency when activists try to post cost-benefit analyses, they tend to downplay the costs and gloss over the benefits with mostly "higher morale" and other anecdotal benefits given as enough to justify any and all activist-demanded expenditures. Having done analysis work for the past 20+ years, that's some mighty sloppy analysis work there, Lou.

And those little costs add up. An airline found out it could save millions by eliminating the lettuce leaf served under its tuna salad. That was back when airlines actually served food and not snack boxes to the sheep in economy.

One company I worked at the toilet paper and paper towels were under lock and key and you needed a manager to get some. For comparison $3k accelerometers were sitting on a shelf in the middle of the room. Roughly $50k worth of them most of the time.

Aren't accelerometers bound to attract potential terrorists? (According to one popular novel, anyway.)

No one is saying all workplaces need to supply free tampons, but if you're going to provide nonessential perks for free, why not start with basic hygiene items? Tampons are a heck of a lot cheaper boxes than beer, wine, and energy drinks; they're more of a necessity, and they're less like to be stolen/abused. The company's whole purpose in providing these perks isn't to coddle employees, it's to minimize the time they spend of the office. Providing tampons keeps employees from leaving on rite-aid runs in the same way that supplying coffee keeps employees from going on Starbucks runs. For all these reasons I seriously doubt that a company handing out free beer and red bull made a deliberate decision not to have tampons on hand as well--much more likely that it's just an oversight.

You also won't find any tampons or pads in the restroom. You will find free snacks, soda, beer, monthly catered lunches, and a ping-pong table.

That's one of hell of a well stocked toilet. I'll take the beer, but I'm not so sure about the lunches.