Creative Benefits

I know of several institutions that offer a small apartment to visiting faculty members as part of their recruitment package: rent-free living with a slightly reduced salary. Most faculty members jump at the opportunity because, in addition to saving on rent, they save on cable, Internet, and other utilities, as well as on gas. For last-minute hires, it’s a great help because it also saves candidates the trouble of having to make an additional trip to town to locate housing.

My campus has at least one such creative benefit: Our university advertises with our local AA minor-league baseball team and receives four box seats near the dugout. We post announcements for available tickets every couple of weeks in the summer on a first-come, first-serve basis. That provides faculty and staff members with a nice night out.

For those of you fortunate enough to have good benefits, what are some of the more unusual ones that you have received? Have any of you been offered something particularly creative that helped persuade you to take a job?