Yes you read it right ..are you fed by your employer? It’s not are you fed up with your employer?…

Being fed or treated by employer depends from one culture to another. Most of the companies [public/private] I have worked with outside Kuwait, have fed their employees in different ways.In all the companies water has always been on the house [you bet]. The next stage would be tea/coffee. Now in some companies this was arranged by the employer, but in other cases we would sort of chip in and arrange for our own assortments of tea bags to milk sachets to sugar etc etc. Food was out of question unless it was a corporate party or the department would decide to mass bunk for lunch from our own pockets.

Anyways..in Kuwait the culture is a bit different, bit more generous. Water, tea, and coffee [including variations] is a must in nearly all companies. Some even have open house on juices to cold beverages. The tab is on the employer for all of this. When it comes to snacks, many companies do go to the extent of giving small packs of biscuits/cookies across. Employees get all this irrespective of the fact that there would be a visitor or not. Nearly all hospitals [especially public] I have been to in Kuwait offer full meals [breakfast, lunch, and dinner] to all the employees and usually its buffet. Oil companies in remote areas like Ahmadi and Khafji also have meals for employees some in buffet and some in parcel format. If parcel, it is delivered to your desk.

Then there are other types offices where people believe in converting their office desks into mini food stock warehouses. I have seen from instant noodles, to instant soups, to entire collection of cheese, butter, jam, spreads to jars of olives. Come lunch hour…and the desks are converted into office kitchen.

So the question that begs an answer is that, “would you like to be fed by your employer if you are not being fed now?” and would that help you in your work performance i.e. “would you give in extra performance if free meals was an incentive?”. And if you already being fed, what do you get fed??

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