> I'm saying bringing up eating habits at all -- even just the slightest bit -- to say that the suggested benefits-based compensation they are offering is not actually something you are able to extract value from -- merely that causes lots of problems with lots of HR/recruiting/hiring folks.

I'm saying you are wrong. The reality is that recruiters and HR do not care about you. They don't care if you eat the free lunch. They don't care if you're a "team player". They don't really care if you're qualified except to the extent that it will reflect on them. They're just doing their jobs. The idea that most recruiters will be offended because you don't want the free lunch is kind of ridiculous given that the recruiter will never see you again after you sign the offer letter. To the extent that a recruiter asks why you don't want the free lunch, it's either personal curiosity or more likely an attempt to find a way to make you consider it a valuable perk.

If you're being argumentative and demanding an extra $5k/year because you aren't going to eat the free lunch, I'm pretty sure you're the one causing the problems. If you want a higher salary, tell them you want a higher salary. If you don't care about the free lunch, tell them so, so that they stop trying to pitch it as a valuable perk. But don't argue that you deserve a higher salary specifically because you aren't going to eat the lunch.

> And when companies tell you they will accommodate your diet -- and you make plans based on that promise -- then when they fail to keep up their end of the bargain, you do need to talk to them about it, and it usually does bother them that you won't just be quiet and accept worse treatment, much the same way it bothers them if you won't just let someone else's questionable jokes slide and you instead feel it's proper to raise a formal complaint or something.

You need to decide what you care about. Do you want the company to accommodate your diet or not? If you don't want them to, then stop asking them to, and don't make plans assuming that they will. You don't "need to talk to them about it" if it's something you don't actually care about. And if you really do care, then you should be prepared that it will likely make your manager uncomfortable because you're delivering criticism and while people should welcome constructive criticism, a lot of them are really bad at accepting it.

I don't know what kind of "questionable jokes" you're referring to here. Joking needs to be pretty inappropriate before a formal complaint is justified. Not, "I'm slightly uncomfortable and annoyed", but "This is sexually inappropriate or truly harassing".

> This again is such a bizarre kind of reply and just doesn't seem connected to what I'm saying.

It is a direct reply to your repeated comments about "manager types". I really don't think it was hard to connect "'Manager types' are just people." to "Manager types definitely do systematically have a dehumanizing agenda".

> It's not really true that most managers were doing the same job as me a few years ago. I've never been managed by a person who was ever a software engineer. I've only been managed by people who started out doing other things and eventually came to managing software engineers through other routes.

So you have only worked places where the first-level managers had no engineering knowledge. Bleh. If you're working at small companies with no more than, say, 5 software engineers, I could see how this might make sense, though I can't personally imagine being happy in a job like that. If you're working at medium or large companies that have a significant number of software engineers and they are not putting engineers in as at least first-level managers, then it's almost certainly managed poorly. I would expect software engineers to be managed by people who understand engineering, just as I'd expect nurses to be managed by people who understand healthcare, or lawyers to be managed by people who understand law.

Regardless, your idea that "manager types" are a thing just hurts you. You're creating this false split between managers and non-managers. You would be better off learning to empathize with your manager rather than assuming your manager is by definition a sociopath. Most people don't start their careers as managers, and there's no magical "amoral, dehumanizing" switch that turns on when someone adds "manager" to your title.

> There's also zero pretending going on. Moral Mazes is a sociological research book based on years of collected data. These are not my opinions. It's simply an established fact about the way status hierarchies work within bureaucracy. There's no disagreeing with it. Whether "manager types" are 'good people' outside of work is just not relevant. What's relevant is the way they perform the social construction of value within the context of management hierarchy -- and this has been well-studied and it's well understood that this does lead to dehumanizing behavior, even from well-meaning people. Management and HR exist to protect the company, even if it means acting in dehumanizing ways to subordinates (and it often does).

Somehow you've made the leap from bureaucrats being bureaucratic and managers acting to protect the company to managers considering it a problem that you don't want to eat a free lunch. How do you not see that this is nonsense?

Yes, managers protect the company. Yes, sometimes bureaucracies create actions that do not appear logical. Yes, managers may sometimes engage in behavior that their subordinates don't like. No, this doesn't mean that every manager will consider it a problem if you're a vegan. Most will not care, for the same reason they won't care if you drive a Honda or if you like to wear Gingham shirts.

> The only pretending I'm seeing is that you're pretending your responses are somehow connected to what I'm saying.

Yawn.