Corporations scale back on perks
By Carolyn Said
March 2002

In the Bay Area, where consumers pride themselves on their well-educated palates, good coffee became de rigeur at offices during the tech boom. Some dot-coms famously splurged on $3,000 cappuccino machines as a recruitment lure.

"Gourmet coffee is a cheap, high-profile perk that will show not only the company's employees but their vendors and business partners that they're a professionally run company," said Valerie Frederickson, chief executive of Valerie Frederickson & Co., a Menlo Park consulting firm.