Dans Hamptons

“Pack up your dirty laundry. I’ll have it washed and dried while I’m at work. Oh, and what would you like for dinner tonight? The company chef is preparing both chicken and veal. Call and let me know what you want.”

So might go an early morning conversation in your home if Internet search giant Google were your employer. Google has just been chosen the best company to work for in the United States. Fortune magazine did the choosing after evaluating about 450 companies.

Google, it seems, offers amenities such as laundry, dry cleaning, massages, gourmet meals and free on-site physicians. Then, too, there’s the pool and spa. Wow!

Now I work in Mattituck and it’s true there’s a bench out back in the parking lot. But I eat at my desk while I work and so does everyone else. I bring leftovers from home. A silver food truck drives up once a day – but it isn’t gourmet and I have to pay.

Are there any jobs on the North Fork offering extras, big or little, that would put them on Fortune’s list and give the Google guys some competition?

For starters, I’ll mention a Southold company I worked for a few years back. Every Wednesday, they treated about 15 of us to lunch. In came pizza from Cheesy Charlie’s or Pagano’s or big hero sandwiches from a local deli. Delicious. You will notice I did not mention the name of my employer. That company closed its doors a year or so ago. I certainly hope it wasn’t anything I ate.

And eating is definitely one of the perks provided by this next job. That is, if you like popcorn, lots of it, in huge cardboard containers. To be washed down with soda. Orange, grape, you pick the flavor. If that’s not enough, you can take the popcorn and soda into a theater, sit down and watch the show, and not pay a dime. After work, of course.

Sound good? It really is, according to Shane Alexander, a junior at Mattituck High School. Shane has a part-time job at Mattituck Movie Theater where the “staff is like family,” he said. Indeed, several of Shane’s family members work with him at the theater, including two cousins, both students at MHS. I enjoyed meeting these bright youngsters but I left the theater a little bit concerned. Are they eating their vegetables?

Though I’ve no worry at all about Southold’s Nicole Smith, ATC (Certified Athletic Trainer) who’s been working at ELIH Physical Therapy and Fitness on North Road in Southold for almost eight years. Not only does Nicole eat her vegetables, she works out every evening after she’s helped others all day long, five days a week. She’s in super shape, full of energy, and grateful for her job’s extra.

Nicole, by the way, commented on the North Forkers she works with each day. They’re teens to those who’ve seen 90, some recovering from an injury, others just wishing to stay fit. Greetings are exchanged, a story is told, friendships develop. That’s a plus on any job.

Here’s another plus I found as I drove the North Fork in my muddy mid-winter car thinking, “I gotta get this thing washed.” I pulled into Riverhead Car Wash, just east of the traffic circle on Route 58. First time I’d ever been there so I’d never met George Reyer, a contented employee for quite a few years. Anyway, George said the car wash has a dozen employees and they all “like to keep people happy with a nice clean car.” And on a customer’s birthday, the car wash is free!

But what about George? Any perks for him? Oh, yeah. It’s a wash for his own car – whenever. So if you’d like to meet George, just head to Main Road wherever you live. You’ll spot him. He’s driving the cleanest car on the North Fork.

Well, what do you think? That our North Fork perks don’t quite equal what the Google guys offer? You’re probably right. But to get the Google goodies, you’d have to leave the North Fork and move to California. Who in his right mind would do that?

So turn off your alarm clock, put on your shoes, drink your coffee, start your car. Then put your lips together and just whistle. “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go.”