Google: A Great Place to Work
August 31, 2008
If you want to refresh your memory about how wonderful Google is to employees, you will want to read the Red Orbit “Way of Life in the Google Complex” here. After a summer of transparency, the writer–possibly a Googler or a PR maven in disguise–reprises the wonders of Google. You get a reference to the lava lamp. You get a reminder about the grand piano. You get it all. The writer leaves out entertainment like Tony Bennett at lunch, but you can revel in remarks like this one:
Most of the walls and dividers are made of glass so that rather than becoming a labyrinth of cubicles the buildings remain open and light is easily filtered through.
Yes, metaphorical transparency. That’s a nice rhetorical touch. Plus, I think it’s super that the author knows that the GOOG spends $72 million a year on these and other amenities.
Now that that the summer of transparency is nearing its end, Google’s fall campaign seems to be back to its wild and crazy math club ethos.
What a relief for me. I was growing tired of technical explanations, Google management’s advice to other companies about innovation, and talks that run the Google game plan. I hope that lovable Googler Cyrus somebody who told me and then others that a Google patent application drawing in one of my lectures was a Photoshop fake keeps retelling that fib. The lousy patent illustration was crafted by a Google wizard, not me. But Googlers don’t know what their own employer puts in its patent documents. Who wants reality to intrude on Google’s presentation of its world.
Reality, when viewed through lava lamps, is often different from “regular” reality, at least for me. Google’s lawsuits, Gmail outages, and plans for outer space made the summer of 2008 interesting to me as I watched this most important company enter its 11th year in business. Red Orbit’s write up is a useful glimpse into the world that Google wants me to believe exists. Do Googlers sleep on those fluffy animals instead of going home? Let me know if you have some insights.
Stephen Arnold, August 31, 2008
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