It's kind of strange that he takes pride in avoiding free company meals calling them lotus eating. If you were really a practical person wouldn't you just eat the free meal and go back to work? Instead he avoids the free meal and would have to do some other option like making and packing lunch in the morning which takes time, going hungry until he gets home and possibly being hangry toward a coworker, or going outside the building to eat which takes longer and costs more. Instead he turns up his nose to free food so he can brag? How is that helping anyone...
I think his purpose, in his head at least, was to say "don't get comfortable here." That's why he means by "lotus" the entire time -- the perks and luxuries that make you comfortable and unwilling to leave what you've got.
I don't personally agree with his version of Ithaca, and certainly not his condescension towards others, but this part at least seemed self-consistent.
It cannot be to feed their starving employees. If that was the case they would just stop catering and pay their employees more. They're certainly not feeding homeless people in their office.
This food is not a necessity, most certainly not the snacks. These are creature comforts, pieces of corporate flair for recruiters to lure recruits. They're lotuses, to help you feel more comfortable in a place that is not innately comfortable.
Starting your own company is hard and you need industry experience first. Here, the work-life balance is good, the pay is good, the culture is good. What more could you ask for? Plus, have you tried the queijo?
- employees stay on site and so they take shorter lunch breaks
- they are likely to eat with other employees and talk shop
- it does help recruit and keep good employees. If the firm you are thinking of moving to doesn't provide lunch, that's one more friction point: new commute, possibly new schedule, now you have to figure out what you will do for lunch after you have grown accustomed to such an easy solution.
Note how that last point seems to resonate closely with the author's point since his Ithaca is apparently about leaving your job and starting a startup... or something? It's not clear what his Ithaca is.
His skipping lunch is an exercise in asceticism that I think he is hoping will serve some higher purpose later. But at the end of the day I think he's just not satisfied where he is and would rather work somewhere else. Other than "moving to San Francisco" he doesn't mention any job changes. So I think that's his problem. And if you're not happy somewhere, free lunch is not going to stop you from leaving.
I think he intends for you to think he’s a fool for turning down the meals. I think part of the point of the article is that some people think that by avoiding “vices” they are avoiding complacency, when really avoiding those everyday things is a way of telling yourself that you’re perusing a higher goal even though you’re not.
It helps I suppose because we are complex beings that function based on juxtapositions. Anytime a new convenience is added, it eventually stops being a convenience and starts to become a necessity. Free lunches now are just another thing to miss when/if he does launch his own company.
