Exactly. Perks are a method of control really, to make the employee dependent on the company for their lifestyle, knowing it will be hard to negotiate their salary up to an equivalent level at another company. Reminds me of one company some friends of mine worked for, fantastic perks (like the entire company being flown to NYC for a movie premiere) but the salaries were awful, none of them could have afforded that trip themselves.
My attitude is, look, I have friends, I have a life, I have things I want to do, I don't need the company to fill in these gaps. The only "rewards" I want are cash and time to spend it.
Um, does your cash lower your tax burden? You should look at your marginal tax rate. I'm personally pushing 40% marginally, which means that any "perks" that the company can offer me which don't show up on my final W-2 are worth almost twice as much as if I'd had to pay for them out of pocket. Once you reach a certain salary level, you're wasting money not negotiating down your salary for things you value more.
In your experience, is it actually as easy to get unpaid time off as you make it sound? Certainly, not being paid for not working is entirely possible, but it's much less desirable if you lose your job for it...
(My job allows you to "buy" extra time off, so it's not an issue for me; but I figured this was uncommon, especially in the States.)
If I make it sound as easy as taking paid vacation, then yes, but with a small sample size.
The much larger sample size I have for a related question: is it any easier to take vacation at a company which offers 3 weeks instead of 2 weeks annually? To this, I've found the answer is "no."
Both situations have a simple explanation, which is that, except for the smallest companies, the person(s) setting the PTO policy is not the same as the one approving absences. That is, my manager cares about my availability, whereas HR and/or Accounting cares about how much I get paid during such absences.
