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Can I Get My Oil Changed Too?

Of course, silly. Silicon Valley offers everything from dry cleaning to tooth cleaning to attract employees and keep them on their "campuses" By Cecily Barnes CISCO SYSTEMS' OFFICE COMPLEX runs down San Jose's Tasman Street for almost a mile, with buildings A, B, C, D--all the way through O--flanking both sides of the avenue. The place is so expansive that bicycles are provided so employees can get from one building to the next. Cisco PR spokeswoman Stacy O'Hara says it's not uncommon to see a pile of bikes laying in the hallways. Facilities manager Bob Thurman laughs and says, "You see these engineers pedaling around with these big baskets on the front." O'Hara and Thurman meet me in front of Building J, virtually indistinguishable from buildings A through O except for the metal plated J sign out front. After I introduce myself, they introduce themselves to one another. It's a big place. We begin our tour in the cafeteria. Lunch isn't quite ready yet, but the espresso and pastry bar has been in full swing since 7am. "You should come here in the morning. They fresh-bake all these pastries, and the smell ..." Thurman drops off, but the look on his face finishes the sentence. Chefs in white aprons and hats stand behind three gleaming service bars, ladling out Indian chickpeas, made-to-order pasta dishes and hot pizzas from the brick oven. Burgers, chicken, French fries, soup, chili and sandwich fixings are also available. We drop out a side exit and come upon a supermarket-sized glass-doored refrigerator, stocked with every kind of soda, mineral water and nonalcoholic beverage imaginable--free to all employees. "I'm still enamored by the free drinks," O'Hara confides. We walk by McWhorter, the on-site store which mimics those found in fancy hotel lobbies. Here, employees can pick up a Cisco T-shirt, a bottle of Pepto Bismol, a box of tampons or a back-support pillow. Thurman swipes his pass card and a door clicks open, leading to a labyrinth of whitewashed hallways with carpeted stairways and framed still-life paintings. On the building's second level, through the access-restricted door, a maze of cubicles fills out an entire floor. Off to the side is the beloved break room, identical to the ones on every floor of every building throughout the Cisco village. Inside, plastic-wrapped dry-cleaning orders, labeled with white paper tickets, drape a chrome clothing rack, waiting to be picked up by employees who had dropped off their soiled clothes earlier in the day. Each break room is equipped with the big glass fridge--stocked to the gills. We leave Building J and head for L to visit TimeOut, Cisco's fitness facility. In addition to cardio equipment, free weights and aerobics classes, TimeOut offers massage, personal training, nutritional services, cholesterol screening, blood drives and classes in yoga, tai chi, self-defense and more. And in the locker room, an athlete's-foot pump stands armed to spray anti-fungal solution between the toes of exercised employees' feet. We head back to Building J, past the basketball courts and a parking lot filled with cars waiting for oil changes and car washes. The Working Life WHEN LYNN MCCARTY drives to Cisco Systems each morning for work, she is filled with anticipation. She looks forward to getting to the place where she spends most of her life so she can see her boyfriend Lou, her best friend Marilyn and her running partner Sharon. "It's not a chore for me to go to work," McCarty says. "I get to work at, like, 7am, run around the levee and shower at their facilities. Then I usually grab a latte and a muffin from the coffee bar." Sometimes McCarty will take a lunchtime aerobics class or stay after work for yoga. She often meets Lou for lunch at the cafeteria or makes a side-trip to "leave him a little cookie on his desk." McCarty says Cisco has become a big part of her life. "Cisco is like a little city of its own," she says. "It's huge." McCarty's lifestyle is not unique. Up and down the new Silicon Valley, companies are one-upping each other in a race to offer more lavish employee benefits. A swivel computer chair, gelatin wrist rest and bottomless coffeepot--considered envied perks elsewhere--wouldn't even be noticed here, where generous 401k plans, colossal salaries and hefty stock options are old news. Now, high-tech companies have come up with a new way to woo potential employees and cement existing ones in place. Workers no longer go to work just to work. At Netscape and Cisco, a mobile dental truck putts onto the grounds every month to clean and whiten the teeth of employees who've made appointments via email. At Cisco, jewelry fairs often come to "town." At Sun Microsystems, a full-blown sit-down restaurant--with waiters, dessert menus, cloth napkins and Italian sodas--has taken root in-house. Netscape offers free nightly dinners to employees who work late, a break room complete with Foosball, shuffleboard and video games, and a concierge service that can track down tickets to concerts, gifts or anything else a busy software builder might need. Similar timesavers and community activities have been brought aboard other corporate villages around Silicon Valley. At Hewlett-Packard, the gym, cafeteria and ATM machine are walking distance from any of the site's vast cubicle spreads. From the cafeteria's outdoor patio, employees can watch their co-workers play pick-up basketball, throw horseshoes in a sand pit or run the company's par course. Fliers that line the carpeted cubicle walls throughout the building announce training courses, speakers, meetings and social events. At Sun, workers can shoot pool or play ping pong during breaks--essentially whenever they feel like it. At Netscape, workers say it's not unusual for someone to run around with a Nerf gun and play-shoot co-workers. Cisco's Bob Thurman says his company provides all these perks to make its employees' lives easier. "It's these little things that can consume you," Thurman says, "everything from simply going to the ATM machine to getting to the dentist." He admits that it's in Cisco's interest to offer all this booty because happy employees benefit the company with a higher rate of productivity. But, he asks, what's wrong with setting up a situation where everybody wins? [ SF Metropolitan | MetroActive Central | Archives ]