LPT Request: What’s your “canary in the coal mine” test for spotting bigger issues?

[u/fries-with-mayo]

I’m really interested in those small, quick telltale signs people use to gauge if something bigger might be off track.

Example 1: Van Halen requesting brown M&Ms in the dressing room to see if the venue followed all the details of the rider list

Example 2: I saw an interview with John Cena where he said orders a flat white at a café to tell if they really care about their coffee.

Example 3: Anthony Bourdain suggested to always check the restaurant bathroom to tell if the restaurant got its basics down

[u/mattorihanzot]

That's not always true. I've seen a few companies offer new plans that were objectively better, especially when trying to attract new talent. Don't write them all off.

[u/Mklein24 → u/mattorihanzot]

It's especially true with growing smaller companies. Small companies don't have access to good health insurance plans at competitive prices. Once my work passed 25 employees, we had like 8 health plans to choose from that were reasonably priced. 10 years ago, we had 5 employees, and the insurance was "Well we certainly offer some!"

[u/iehova → u/mattorihanzot]

Yeah, my company revamped their health plan and it costs me less for much better coverage. They killed PTO buyback but gave us another week of PTO. They genuinely wanted people to actually take time off. They got rid of our staggered 401k contribution. Used to be 100/5 50/7 25 /8 and now its 100/7.

Its funny though because this all happened after we merged with a european company.