Hi, Sarah:)

This is an excellent post with some very useful points.

I enjoyed your observations about the differences between "perks" and organizational culture.

I remember one large organization I worked at for about seven years, collecting logo t-shirts every quarter and lining up an array of logo glassware and coffee mugs.   They were strong in terms of providing visual branding to make us all feel part of the team.

Where the ball was dropped was in the company policy manual, which revealed a culture of mistrust, over-control, and a deep paranoia about anything not created within the walls.

Interestingly enough, as they piled more t-shirts and coffee mugs on us, they were very consistently reinforcing that negative and restrictive company culture at the same time.

John