Maybe I'm just a calculating, cold, emotionless engineer but when it comes to pay packages I've stopped caring about the fancy 'perks'. I only try to gauge how much I'll get paid, how much I'll enjoy the work and learn, and how many hours I'll be putting in.

Well, that's normal and smart. You go to work for the work, not the diversions. I don't think I've ever played an XBox during working hours; if there's any possibility that I'll be more interested in XBox than in doing my job at 11:30 am, there are bigger issues, either with me or with the job.

What happens as you get older is that you learn to see through the bullshit. Things that matter: career development, interesting work, co-workers you'll learn from, fairness, recognition, company vision, and a functioning management environment. Things that don't: perks you can buy on the market for a couple hundred bucks.

Free food and onsite amenities usually is a sign that they want you there for extra long hours and that you'll probably need to use that stuff.

I can look at this one both ways. If the company will do my laundry for me, it saves me 30 minutes a week. I'll gladly spend an additional 30 minutes on work (which I generally enjoy) in exchange for not having to do 30 minutes of chores. That said, even better would be to have the perk in extra cash so I can buy my own housework services (which two adults with demanding careers will have to do anyway).

Unrestricted vacation days can mean you don't really get any vacation because its always crunch time.

There's a non-evil incentive for companies to switch to untracked vacation. It saves them money on vacation cash-in, and it also removes the economic incentive for employees not to take any vacation. A $100,000-per-year job with two weeks of paid vacation is actually equivalent to a $104,000 job without paid vacation and with penalties for taking more than 10 days off. The "two weeks' paid vacation" is actually a Hawaiian Shirt Day, a negative space establishing that "career" people won't take more time off than that (since unpaid leave is frowned upon).

Truly untracked vacation (meaning that if you take 6 weeks' worth of vacation but do 15% better work in the other 46, you're in good standing) is worth a 5-10% pay cut for me.

The best way to learn the value of money (immense when you don't have enough, but very low once you have enough of it) is to work on Wall Street for a few years and learn first-hand that millionaires (and "millionaire" means $1m/year, not $1m net worth) aren't any happier than the rest of us. I actually think it can be invaluable for some people to work in the vicinity of seriously rich people just to learn that lesson.

Fancy employee outings are not so thrilling to me - I like my coworkers but I already spend the majority of my waking hours with them.

I'm with you. I'm 28, married, and will probably be having kids in 4-6 years. Office Christmas parties don't appeal to me. I'd rather spend the time with my friends or family.

It's great to hang out with your co-workers after work. I've learned an incredible amount from after-work drinks and (now that I can't tolerate alcohol, for health reasons) discussions in classes and board-game nights. But it should be organic and elective. I don't like the "forced" kind-- the socially mandatory drinking that you see in finance, the wild office Christmas parties. I can see the appeal of that stuff at 22, but not at 28 (much less 35+).