Google's "free food" is not free
Maybe Im just a calculating, cold, emotionless engineer but when it comes to pay packages Ive stopped caring about the fancy 'perks'.  I only try to gauge how much Ill get paid, how much Ill enjoy the work and learn, and how many hours Ill be putting in.<p>Ive seen perks too many times used against employees.  (The following rant is nothing towards Google - never worked there.)<p>- Free food and onsite amenities usually is a sign that they want you there for extra long hours and that you'll probably need to use that stuff.<p>- Unrestricted vacation days can mean you don't really get any vacation because its always crunch time.<p>- Fancy employee outings are not so thrilling to me - I like my coworkers but I already spend the majority of my waking hours with them.<p>I'm not trying to completely debase the value of these things - I'm just saying that in terms of negotiating salary I weight these types of perks at 0 or negative dollars.