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Java Businesses Intel

Intel Brings Back Workers' Free Coffee To Boost Morale (oregonlive.com) 92

Posted by BeauHD from the that'll-do-it dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Oregon Live: Intel told employees this week that it will bring back free coffee and tea at its work sites, one of many benefits the chipmaker eliminated last summer as it sought to slash $10 billion from its annual budget. "Although Intel still faces cost challenges, we understand that small comforts play a significant role in our daily routines," Intel wrote on its internal messaging forum, called Circuit. "We know this is a small step, but we hope it is a meaningful one in supporting our workplace culture." Intel declined comment. The company did not resume offering free fruit, another perk eliminated last summer. Employees say privately that morale has been devastated by Intel's poor financial performance and by cutbacks aimed at returning the business to profitability.

[...] Christy Pambianchi, Intel's chief people officer, told employees that Intel had been spending $100 million annually on free and discounted food and beverages and couldn't afford to keep doing that. "Until we get into a better financial health position, we need to be suspending those," Pambianchi said, according to an account of the meeting reviewed by The Oregonian/OregonLive. By Wednesday the company had reversed itself, committing to keep its employees caffeinated. In August, Intel announced plans to lay off over 16,000 employees, representing more than 15% of its global workforce. Its stock dropped to a 50-year low following the announcement. Starting November 8, Nvidia will replace the chipmaker on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Intel Brings Back Workers' Free Coffee To Boost Morale More | Reply

Intel Brings Back Workers' Free Coffee To Boost Morale

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  • Yawn (Score:5, Informative)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Friday November 08, 2024 @08:03AM (#64930191)
    You know what, I hate all the ping pong table / Foosball table / fitness crap that companies always offer because really if I'm not working I want to be out of the office. But I like coffee. I can drink coffee while I work. This is probably the one small thing that a company could do that actually would lift my morale.

    • Re:Yawn (Score:5, Informative)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Friday November 08, 2024 @08:21AM (#64930235)

      TBH I was shocked to learn just now they DIDNT have free coffee in the breakroom. WTF?!?! I don’t think that I have worked for a single company that did not offer free coffee in the 54 years. I have been alive.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by v1 ( 525388 )

        Coffee is pretty cheap, unless you've got a row of keurigs and tub of coffee pods or whatever they use.

        We've got a pot on the counter here but it rarely gets used. Most people here are more interested in energy drinks or caffeinated sodas. I personally keep my contigo topped with cold water from the nearly water cooler.

        We're a relatively small group, and people will randomly drop off a box of donuts or other snacks to share when they arrive in the morning. If coffee was more in demand someone would proba

        • Keurig pods are like $0.50 each. It's not going to break the budget to buy one of those for each employee each day. I'd bet Intel could afford several of those for each employee each day. Well, most companies, maybe not Intel.

          • At $0.5/each and considering 250 working days per year, providing two Keurig pods for each worker every day would cost Intel $32.750.000/year.

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by mccalli ( 323026 )
              or 0.002% of revenue, and that's assuming the lowest reported revenue figure and the highest possible coffee pod expense (I seriously doubt they'd be paying retail).

              I'd guess that more expensive initial machine + feeding beans rather than capsules would result in lower running costs too.

              • Re:Yawn (Score:4, Insightful)

                by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Friday November 08, 2024 @09:50AM (#64930479) Journal
                And that is exactly how you should look at such expenses. Maybe not % of revenue, but % of personnel costs. It's a small amount to keep people happy and productive. Only a penny pinching MBA would just look at the yearly outlay on coffee or sodas or triple ply toilet paper and go "Well, we can save some more money there because that is a lot".

                • I wholeheartedly agree with you guys. In a realistically scenario, nor the company would pay retail price on the beans, nor all employees would drink two coffee cups everyday. So it would probably cost a lot less.

                  This was just a quick math to remember that, while it's a relatively small amount to make Intel employees a bit happier, it is still a bunch of money for us, mere working mortals.

                • The benefit side of this expense is more than just "employee contentment". Workers taking stimulant drugs tend to work with more focus and energy. If it were legal I would be passing out adderall and modafinil to any employee who wanted some.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Joviex ( 976416 )

              At $0.5/each and considering 250 working days per year, providing two Keurig pods for each worker every day would cost Intel $32.750.000/year.

              Which doesnt seem to come remotely close to the 100 million the article quotes from Intel's own chief people officer......

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by e3m4n ( 947977 )

          In my area its pretty common to have those Braun coffee stations that tap into the water supply line. Im sure youve seen them. One side brews the coffee and there is a second element to keep a second pot warm. Very common in older breakfast restaurants. Businesses often get a subscription of supply delivered the way they get jugs of water for the cooler delivered. Of course with Amazon subscription deliveries you could probably go that route too. Seattles Best is a popular line of coffee to have in the off

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            You're giving me horrible reminders about how bad American coffee is (and hard it was to get a decent cup of tea when I lived in the US). The coffee machines at our office are also plumbed in to the water supply, but they're filled with coffee beans and grind and brew on demand. It might not be as good as the espresso/flat white/whatever from the artisan kiosk outside, but it's way better than that watered down crap that's been sitting on the heater too long in an American office.

        • Yeah, 100%, the Intel Suit who made the decision to axe all free food/snacks/drinks wasn't really thinking when he did that. I mean, sure, axe the food and snacks, axe all the drinks, but keep coffee and tea because that shit is dirt cheap! His claim of saving $100 million annually, well, coffee and tea would probably cost 1% to 5% of that figure.
          • It wouldn't be entirely surprising if the coffee got cancelled as part of the termination of a broader catering arrangement that was made back when spirits and margins where considerably higher; that's the sort of thing where the vendor rep is just going to keep smiling warmly and upselling you as long as you feel like a high roller; but unless there were outright running boutique coffee shops with dedicated staff and coffee with under-ten-minutes TTL guarantees it would be vastly more surprising if the $10

            • I'd suggest it was a deliberate temporary move to encourage employees to volunteer for layoff, by implying things were going to get worse so why not take the current deal...

          • Also there are certain costs that you treat as a form of pay, so should be looked at differently. For example, if you estimate a cup of coffee to be $1 (likely cheaper, but it using this for simplicity) and an employee works 365 days a year, then that cost is only $365 on top of an employee’s salary. If you are paying said employee $90 000 per year, then that is a tiny expense.

            If an employee need to go out for coffee, then the employee is now in personal cost zone and the business is losing work time,

        • I know some offices that make the filter coffee free and then any fancy drinks simply require you to go to the coffee shop downstairs. Although I enjoy my lattes, I am fine with such a setup.

        • Coffee is pretty cheap, unless you've got a row of keurigs and tub of coffee pods or whatever they use.

          We've got a pot on the counter here but it rarely gets used. Most people here are more interested in energy drinks or caffeinated sodas. I personally keep my contigo topped with cold water from the nearly water cooler.

          Then wouldn't it be even cheaper if only a few people are drinking it versus all the energy nerd stuff?
          Also, K-cups are super cheap, and also keep a long time -- so, even cheaper cheaper.
          This is the stupidest thing to actually remove. Kind of like saying people are peeing more in toilets, so we removed toilet paper, since it's unused.

      • Re:Yawn (Score:5, Insightful)

        by i kan reed ( 749298 ) on Friday November 08, 2024 @09:00AM (#64930325) Homepage Journal

        The thing is you take it away when your want to get rid of employees without paying severance.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Calydor ( 739835 )

        In my youth I worked at a small riding school. Even THEY had free coffee in the break room.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sique ( 173459 )
        I still have fond memories to our coffee dispenser back in the early 2000s displaying "SB-CAF 1.3" as its firmware version while booting up. (SB is the German abbreviation for Self Service: Selbstbedienung).

      • TBH I was shocked to learn just now they DIDNT have free coffee in the breakroom. WTF?!?! I don’t think that I have worked for a single company that did not offer free coffee in the 54 years. I have been alive.

        I'm shocked that they thought it was a cost savings.

        Coffee is a stimulant, the performance benefit you get from an energized employee will dwarf anything you spend on coffee, especially for the average salary Intel pays.

        If I'm going to recommend a cost savings it's fire the accountant who was so incompetent that they thought cutting coffee would improve the bottom line.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        TBH I was shocked to learn just now they DIDNT have free coffee in the breakroom. WTF?!?! I donâ(TM)t think that I have worked for a single company that did not offer free coffee in the 54 years. I have been alive.

        I know, that's highly unusual. I really can't think of any workplace (not necessarily and office) that didn't have some coffee for free. Usually it's sludge bottom of the barrel low end economy brand, but still. A coffeemaker, a bag of grounds and all that.

        Fancier workplaces offer fancier cof

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by e3m4n ( 947977 )

          Around my area those restaurant style coffee machines are popular. Water line so you dont have to fill it. A second space to keep a pot warm while brewing more. And a hot water spout to use for tea or even a cup of ramen or instant oatmeal.

    • I like coffee but I don't even go to coffee chains like starbucks or dutch bros because their coffee is crap. (I went to Dutch Bros once, I got a double latte and I literally could not taste coffee in it.) Free office coffee will almost certainly be as bad or worse.

      A vacuum-insulated klean kanteen pint coffee thermos was $30, which is a lot for one medium sized cup, but it brings me a portion of happiness every morning when I don't have to drink someone else's poorly prepared shit coffee.

      • That depends on who is in charge of it. If the person in charge is also drinking it, it should be decent. We had to provide our own drinks until our manager moved his office into the same building as we were in. Suddenly there was free coffee and tea. Still, I remember when we were having a voluntary effort to cut costs and one of the marketing groups announced that they were giving up their cup washing service to save money. We had to provide our own cups, and they had a washing service?

      • I went to Dutch Bros once, I got a double latte and I literally could not taste coffee in it.

        That's why people like Dutch Bros.

        Free office coffee will almost certainly be as bad or worse.

        The taste of corporate nightmare. All you can drink.

        • That's why people like Dutch Bros.

          I wish I had known sooner. From the smell I thought they would be like starfucks where they burn the shit out of the coffee but at least you can taste it.

          ofc I don't go there either, not since they got into bet with Nestle.

        • I went to Dutch Bros once, I got a double latte and I literally could not taste coffee in it.

          Double latte is literally (and I mean literally) double milk..

      • depends, there used to be a company (maybe there still is) in Boston, MA in the USA that did exactly that, delivery of coffee and maintenance and cleaning of the coffee machines and their coffee was actually Folgers, repackaged in a foil envelope with their brand name on it. But they bought it from Folgers. How do I know? My best friend was the son of the owner at that time.

      • I like coffee but I don't even go to coffee chains like starbucks or dutch bros because their coffee is crap. (I went to Dutch Bros once, I got a double latte and I literally could not taste coffee in it.) Free office coffee will almost certainly be as bad or worse.

        A vacuum-insulated klean kanteen pint coffee thermos was $30, which is a lot for one medium sized cup, but it brings me a portion of happiness every morning when I don't have to drink someone else's poorly prepared shit coffee.

        Agreed - I have no idea why Starbucks is so popular. Overpriced, brewed a tad too strong - I could take that if the swill didn't taste moldy and muddy. Terrible coffee.

        I think you are out west, so it might not be available in your area - but I'm a big fan of Lacas coffee. First time I had it was in New Jersey, then I was excited to find it at home in one of our Restaurants. Smoothness adjustable by brew strength, and flavorful without the weird mudtaste. They seem to have roast perfected. https://www.la [lacascoffee.com]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by nomadic ( 141991 )

          Starbucks is popular because they jam an insane amount of caffeine into their coffee, and sugar into most of their drinks. "Oh, it makes you happy? It has 50 grams of sugar and 500 mg of caffeine, of course it does."

      • Never heard of Dutch before, but a Latte isn't really the right drink to judge coffee by. Kerug's aren't great but if its well cleaned and maintained not awful. But if office coffee is from a pot... thats a bad sign and you should steer clear of it.
    • It's not so much that I like coffee, it's fine; but if the company is not willing to pay for such a small thing, then you know they don't care about workers at all. Coffee is cheap.
      • Don't fool yourself. No company cares about the employees. They either feel they make more money in the end with the employees having coffee or not. That is the only decider.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Sometimes lack of coffee can just be an oversight, sometimes bringing it in can be a sign that the place is floundering and you aren't getting a lost-of-living pay rise this year.

    • Re:Yawn (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pz ( 113803 ) on Friday November 08, 2024 @10:21AM (#64930579) Journal

      Speaking as an employer, good coffee is going to be 100% free for my staff, always, because (a) it is a stimulant and increases their productivity, and (b) having it freely available within the office means they aren't going out to get it and spending time elsewhere. And the same goes for me: if I can get my shot of high-test in 5 minutes by a quick walk to the breakroom rather than spending 15 or 20 minutes going to the closest coffee shop, then I'm more productive.

      It's management 101 to have good coffee at arm's length.

      • Yet i have not seen any company that provides coffee since the early 2000s. Including one of the biggest insurance and finance companies in the world.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by eth1 ( 94901 )

        Speaking as an employer, good coffee is going to be 100% free for my staff, always, because (a) it is a stimulant and increases their productivity, and (b) having it freely available within the office means they aren't going out to get it and spending time elsewhere. And the same goes for me: if I can get my shot of high-test in 5 minutes by a quick walk to the breakroom rather than spending 15 or 20 minutes going to the closest coffee shop, then I'm more productive.

        It's management 101 to have good coffee at arm's length.

        Coffee is basically a cheap, legal performance enhancing drug that most employees will take voluntarily... Anyone trying to save money by not providing it to them for free is an idiot.

      • Speaking as an employer, good coffee is going to be 100% free for my staff, always, because (a) it is a stimulant and increases their productivity, and (b) having it freely available within the office means they aren't going out to get it and spending time elsewhere. And the same goes for me: if I can get my shot of high-test in 5 minutes by a quick walk to the breakroom rather than spending 15 or 20 minutes going to the closest coffee shop, then I'm more productive.

        It's management 101 to have good coffee at arm's length.

        No kidding.

        That said, it's also good management not to raise a stink if your employees take 30 minutes to wander down to the coffee shop once or twice a day as a group. Those impromptu meetings are often extremely productive.

    • I mean, I'm in the opposite camp: If I'm working from an office and there isn't free coffee there needs to be one of three things or I won't work there:
      1) Breaks sufficiently long enough for me to obtain coffee from a mid tier chain or above.
      2) Equipment for me to make coffee without interference from other employees ( ie no mr coffee, kurig or Nescafé ok with a cleaning/maintenance contract )
      3) The allowance to bring in my own equipment to make coffee.

      In addition to those, you have to pay me signi

    • Vacuous Subject, but not that bad as a first post. I'd have preferred some kind of joke about cheap fixes. Or maybe something about sick employees suing Intel after drinking too much free coffee makes them sick? Or how about a joke about bugs created by engineers with coffee-induced jitters? Something about corporate interference with after-lunch naps?

      So much potential for Funny in this story. Now I shall click on the Funny tab while predicting great disappointment.

    • You know what, I hate all the ping pong table / Foosball table / fitness crap that companies always offer because really if I'm not working I want to be out of the office. But I like coffee. I can drink coffee while I work. This is probably the one small thing that a company could do that actually would lift my morale.

      Well said! I HATE HATE HATE seeing foosballs or game consoles onsite...those are just traps. I am never going to chill out and play video games at work...WTAF. If I have time to play games, I am going home. I don't want my boss seeing me on the company PlayStation at 5pm and then asking next week why my deliverable was delayed. I have never seen anyone use them in the last 15 years. The foosball tables also suck...when I am working, I don't want to hear your fucking pool or foosball game....you're lou

    • And if you play the games at work you look like the slacker whereas if you are carrying around coffee you look busy.

  • Careful with the luxuries, you may bankrupt the company!

  • Free Coffee Lake? (Score:5, Funny)

    by bjoast ( 1310293 ) on Friday November 08, 2024 @08:15AM (#64930215)
    Well, it's not the most recent CPU but a nice treat for their employees nonetheless.

  • Workplace culture (Score:5, Funny)

    by billybob2001 ( 234675 ) on Friday November 08, 2024 @08:33AM (#64930255)

    This morale boosting gesture might be too little too latte.

  • Over here you'd be laughed out of the room if you had your employees pay for coffee.

  • Wasted Work and Inefficiency. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Friday November 08, 2024 @08:54AM (#64930309)

    Forcing a worker who has already validated their WFH efficiency and capability back on congested roadways to drive that hour long commute to that free-coffee office, amounts to an entire 40-hour workweek wasted every month sitting behind a steering wheel.

    You want to save millions on coffee, save thousands of wasted work hours, AND not look like a raging hypocrite? Let people get their own fucking coffee. Working from home.

    • Even though many Intel workers can't work from home, I generally agree with you. Every employee who could work from home, should do it. That's probably the single best action the company may take in order to boost morale AND save costs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nomadic ( 141991 )

      I'm a big WFH proponent but I'm guessing some jobs you really need to be in the office a fair amount, and that includes chip design and manfuacture.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by xwin ( 848234 )
        You would be guessing wrong. I do not work in chip design but I do work with people who do chip design. They work with tools like matlab, and various design and simulation tools. Most if not all of the tools are running on some server somewhere. So yes, they can and do work remotely. When I was using emulation tools from Mentor to test my software, I did not even know where these are located. You just login into some remote unix and use the tool from the shell.
        The only people that must work in office are t
    • It is worse than that. Colleagues who used to work at Intel (mid 90s) reported that anyone arriving after 8 AM had to sign in, and would face consequences.
  • Coffee seems like a really weird one to have ever cut. Unless you are just getting screwed by the vendor or fairly badly mis-sizing for your requirements unexciting-but-not-fucking-terrible coffee is pretty cheap; tends to be modestly performance enhancing(or at least restorative to baseline, for the addicts out there); and benefits a great deal from being fresh(or at least not obviously warmed-over) which makes it more likely that having it in-house will discourage people from popping out to grab some duri

  • If the company provides drinks for employees then it can buy in bulk to receive volume discounts, as well as companies being exempt from sales taxes in most places.
    If the company does not provide drinks, the employees are not going to voluntarily commit suicide by dehydration so they are still going to drink, but they will be buying those drinks individually and paying sales tax on top.

    What used to cost the company $100 million will collectively cost the employees $200 million, and that will ultimately cost

  • Company is swirling down the toilet in a long painful death spiral.

    Management's solution is free coffee.

    That's why Intel will eventually be bought by AMD or their tech divvied up by an industry coalition so everyone can use their old patents.

    • I dont think Intels AMD64 license is transferable, as its based on cross-licensing.

      • Intel has a lot of patents even if that one is not available but I did have that in mind when I called out AMD specifically.

        AFAIK, AMD is the only company with a legal interest in any of their x86 patents but I'd be interested to hear if you know of others.

  • Remember when being interviewed and you hit that point where they ask if you have any questions - apparently you need to ask if there will be coffee.

    I think I've always taken having coffee and safe drinking water as a given - but apparently I may be wrong.

  • Cutting out the free coffee at any company is a sure sign that they are circling the drain. Coffee is really cheap and it's basically an expected thing at any company - taking it out is a sign of managerial shortsightedness and a desperate attempt to save not that much money to impress your shareholders. Is this what you really want to convey to everyone?

    It's also a legal way to boost productivity of employees. That may be harder to quantify but take away coffee from a regular drinker and see what happens a

  • Free coffee won't get me back into an office no matter how good it is.

    It could be the finest coffee in the world, served by horny, naked supermodels and there's still zero chance that it would tempt me back into an office. ZERO.

    Pay me $10K a day and I'd go back in, but otherwise, to make a long rant short, "No."

    Managers either just don't get it, or they get it and choose to ignore it. I'm not going back into an office, period, end of story.

    • Free coffee won't get me back into an office no matter how good it is.

      It could be the finest coffee in the world, served by horny, naked supermodels and there's still zero chance that it would tempt me back into an office. ZERO.

      Pay me $10K a day and I'd go back in, but otherwise, to make a long rant short, "No."

      Managers either just don't get it, or they get it and choose to ignore it. I'm not going back into an office, period, end of story.

      I'm curious - will you refuse to work at a jerb that requires you to work anywhere but home, even if looking at homelessness or bankruptcy? A lot of work - perhaps the majority of work in this world, requires going somewhere and doing something.

      And I have a job now that pays me quite well. I do half at home because I can and that works out well. The other half, there is no choice. I'm onsite. And that's fine by me - OTOH, some of us are better when humans are not in our vicinity.

      And I might be an outli

  • Hand waving nonsense (Score:3)

    by mr.dreadful ( 758768 ) on Friday November 08, 2024 @09:30AM (#64930413)
    A few minutes with a red pen and executive pay levels will go a lot farther

  • Or: vending machines (Score:3)

    by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Friday November 08, 2024 @09:38AM (#64930451) Journal

    I worked for a large American company both in the UK and the USA. At both sites, coffee wasn't provided -- in fact, all that was provided were vending machines -- the company actually made a profit from its employees' coffee habits.

  • It's not just coffee. They're selling INTEL COFFEE Schwag -- T-shirts, mugs, baseball caps , the whole nine yards.

    It's not just for their workers, mind. The C-levels can get INTEL coffee key fobs for their cars, so you know everybody's in it.

  • I don't mean to be a stereotype here, but as a British person this shocks me.

    Here, free tea and coffee isn't precisely required by law, but it's a basic expectation in every workplace. I've worked everywhere from minimum wage jobs to tech giants, office jobs, outdoor jobs, and it's absolutely universal. It's normal for managers to send someone or even drive themselves to purchase more if the office runs out. The average British worker would literally quit in disgust if there was no tea, or they were asked t

    • In the US it is not unusual for non-office work places to rely on vending machines for drinks and snacks in the break room. Usually because people are drinking soda or sports drinks, and not coffee so much.

      When I was younger all break rooms in the US served coffee. But management didn't want to put anyone in charge of filling the coffee pot and got tired of employees stealing the ground coffee. (this was an issue when I was at Home Depot)

      For an office environment, paying for coffee is very strange here. It'

  • How could a company as large and profitable as Intel not offer free coffee? That's unheard of in the USA. EVERYWHERE offers free coffee. Unless it's a nice tech company (which I assumed Intel was until now), it usually sucks, typically Keurig or some equivalent....but hey, most don't care. Usually most I talk to love the shitty coffee.

    Leaders, you're dumber than shit if you deny your employees stimulants. If I ran a company...and perhaps it's a good thing I don't, I'd give you free coffee, tea, caffe

  • Coffee is free at my work and pretty good. We have 20-30 Eversys Enima and Shotmaster machines on the campus. Most of them are in the mid-range $30K configuration.

  • This is one of those things that bean counters do without thinking about the whole picture.

    When I worked at nVidia, they would offer free food at 6pm. It was basically rice with some chicken slop on top of it... couldn't have cost more than $3 to make but the line of engineers waiting for it was staggering. So they basically got an hour of an engineer's time with $3... plus they were happy. Amazing returns on investment.

    Coffee? Caffeine is the life blood of engineers. Cutting that off is pure stupidity

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      This is one of those things that bean counters do without thinking about the whole picture.

      Indeed. You have to be deeply stupid to do "cost saving" like this. Free coffee is an absolutely minor cost factor, but a major morale factor. People you want to keep will quit jobs or be much less productive because of it getting cut. On the other hand, get that free coffee and people feel respected and have a far more positive attitude towards work the whole day.

  • But that would bring down profits .00001%

  • Free coffee is an absolute minor and irrelevant cost factor, but a major morale plus. You need to be deeply stupid to eliminate it.

    I remember a story of a female investor a decade back or so that just looked at the state of "women's supplies" in the female restrooms. If these were gone or unacceptably bad, she always decided to not invest because the company was in a very bad state. These supplies are an absolutely minor issue on the cost-side but pretty substantial on morals. But a company scraping the bot

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