(This guest post originally appeared on Gawker.com.)
Workers at Goldman Sachs' buildings across New York and New Jersey are grumbling about a conspiracy. A conspiracy by the company to squeeze profit even from its own staff.
According to a mole, Goldman apparently stocks the cheapest, worst generic coffee imaginable in its staff kitchens - despite protests from the caffeine-deficient. "It's beyond horrible," explained our source. "You work a lot of hours so you have to go down to the cafeteria and spend money on Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts." There is talk within the ranks that this is a ploy to boost cafeteria takings, as any imprecations to improve the standard of free coffee fall on deaf ears.
This could, of course, be a complete accident. Or Lloyd Blankfein himself might be overseeing a monetizing of employee caffeine addiction. In either case — if even your own employees are accusing you of being a petty, money-sucking greedmachine, it might be time to change something.
UPDATE (9.30am): From h_bee in the comments: "This is the same firm that (at least at one point) refused to buy colored file folders, only plain manila. "We don't do color."
If you have any tales of petty cheapness by Goldman Sachs send them here, or to me below.
