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87 Comments
- philovivero, on 10/12/2007, -2/+64No doubt. Google takes care of all the boring parts of your life, so that you can devote more time to helping them take over the world, all the while giving you insanely lucrative stock options.
I know a Google employee. Bought a house... in the San Francisco bay area, no less... BOUGHT A HOUSE using their Google stock options.
That's 30 years of ***** work for anyone else.
Boy. It must suck to have to work at Google. Being treated like a kid. Getting a $500,000 house paid off in four years. Bouncing around on a colourful ball. - whereisian, on 10/12/2007, -1/+48Whimsical environments encourage creativity. If I could offload my daily chores to free up more brain space for interesting things, I would. Work is better if it's fun.
Sounds like the author got turned down for a job, crying like a jealous kid who didn't get invited to a birthday party. Or maybe he doesn't like fun. Has a chip on his shoulder either way. - amandaw33, on 10/12/2007, -2/+36Read some of the comments people made below the post. I agree with many of them.. the article seems sensationalized... and I bet most (many?) people that work there are happy to be there... otherwise they could just leave
- Sirocco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+32For the right salary, you can put me in a diaper and breastfeed me.
But I get to pick the breast. - sockpuppets, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27There is a very large yacht that sits outside of my town home here, not far from Google central. Its name is "I Got Lucky" and it's painted in suspiciously familiar colorful lettering.
Yeah, it must be nice. - goatswii, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27This is superior to my company's policy of treating us like mouthbreathing *****
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16spy, no one's debating that google does all these things to pamper their employees -- they're debating the article's conclusion. The guy's basically saying that a companying taking care of its employees some how weakens them, and insults them.
So, what, if my company pays me minimum wage and doesn't offer them any benefits, I should thank them for doing me such a huge favor?
This article reads like some bitter suit trying to demonize a company for actually treating its employees well. - geoplaster, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18I am officially putting myself up for adoption, Google colored pacifier and all.
- Humptydank, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16Yeah I mean think of it, if every employer did that then everyone would be happy, and then where would we be?
- Caps, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19Buried as inaccurate. The author is obviously jealous of the Google employees.. He's probably a remnant from the dot com crash..
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13No, no, you see, your company is, uh... helping you build character. If you worked in an environment you enjoyed, and they actually offered you benefits, you'd never want to leave!
Wouldn't that be terrible? How would you ever get anything done if you didn't hate your job!? - Iconwolf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Yeah, and a bet a lot of those people spend a lot more time at the office than people who do their "9 to 5" and then beat tracks as fast as their little feet can carry them.
- shadus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Jesh, I dunno, letting someone enjoy life while working... wow, I mean, why would a company want to do that when they can use you up like a slave and toss you in a dumpster after 20 years so they don't have to pay a retirement.
Google treats its employees well and does things for the employees that THEY want. If thats a bad thing, sorry, I'll trade a google employee any day... and I've worked a normal 8-6 for 11 years already (been working part time or better for 15ish)... I've done my laundry since I was 9. I can cook and sew better than most women (4 years of home econ yay.) However if the company I'm working for wants to cover some of the more mundane tasks of daily life for me and my job is enjoyable... I'll bust my balls to help them with whatever they need. Most people are the exact same way. Google does these things because it yields better results for them, it wouldn't work for every industry, every company... but a lot of companies could take a page or two from googles handbook and watch their work force perform considerably better.
The one job I had while I was in college was a full time sysadmin job at an ISP. I loved that job, they did several *small* things that just made it fun to work there. We were on call but we could also leave early if we got caught up with what needed done. We had "free-food-fridays" where the management would buy everyone dinner at a local restraunt of our choice, they had holiday gift give aways... tv's, game consoles, computers, pda's... it was great, it made you WANT to goto work. A lot of companies could benefit from small things like this and... most of them are tax write offs anyways. And the improvement to moral is massive. - hackajar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12So wait, aren't childeren the most creative? Wouldn't you want to foster this?
- kaelyiesta, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11So what? You are childish if you enjoy getting free decent dinners while coding instead of wasting an hour going out to eat? Since when has efficiency and convenience become childish?
- numba1xclusive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10why cant all jobs be this cool?!!
- Narrator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Google understands Ricardo's principle of Comparative Advantage.
A Google employee may be better at washing their laundry than the maid who does it at google but Google would prefer that person spend an hour working at their computer than an hour doing their laundry as its cheaper to pay a maid for two hours of her work than to forgo an hour of programmer time.
The stupid CEO who treats his employees like crap is a mercantilist because he thinks that money should never be payed to people who aren't directly producing things for others outside the organization to buy. - TehOompa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10If we get treated like that, then I will celebrate when Google takes over the world.
- hbweb500, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Wow, what a derogatory view of what should be considered a good thing.
It seems that since Google has really gained prominence in the last few years, it has received a lot of unwarranted and paranoid criticism. Google isn't perfect, but it sure is one of the best companies and employers on the web. - HanSolo69, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9you are wrong. once you enter the Googleplex there is no leaving the Googleplex, except as the shattered and hollow shell of your former self.
- digitalunltd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I think success is going to Aaron Swartz head. He seems depressed and angry at the world.
- freezervv, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Apparently the author:
- Rejects free food
- Prefers to do his own laundry
- Hates bouncy balls
- Didn't enjoy college
- Prefers a boring, "mature" life to a fun, "infantile" one
... enh, I might disagree on a few points. - swiftekho, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Anyone who's been online for more than 10 minutes knows that Google does this because their founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, both got that treatment while they rented out the garage of Susan Wojcicki (sp?)
They are just treating their employees the same way they were treated when the company started. It's actually a great way to improve productivity as well. A person doesn't have to worry about, going out and getting food or doing their laundry, they can think up the next big idea.
Another thing about the hiring the kids straight out of college, it's actually genius seeing as it can create a sense of loyalty to the company. - gmprunner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Is the star-treatment really worth helping this company take over the world, resulting in a dictatorship in which Google controls everyone and everything?
Probably. - jruckman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8"Sounds like the author got turned down for a job, crying like a jealous kid who didn't get invited to a birthday party."
Aaron Swartz just sold his company Reddit to Conde Nast for probably a trillion dollars. I think he could throw his own birthday party. - ksadya, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Digg for "I dunno if I'm sarcastic or just frustrated right now at work"
- bluemist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6"Give them free food, do their laundry, let them sit on bouncy brightly-colored balls."
I am in Japan. I cook my own tasteless food, do my laundry (horrible at winter), and sit at a dirty office desk "13" hours a day at work (no kidding). I'm not the best programmer but I can brainstorm and make a nice Web 2.0b idea. Tell me, am I Google material?
I dunno if I'm sarcastic or just frustrated right now at work. - foolfromhell, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6The site is down. Google used their uber powers to shut it down!
Oh wait... the Digg effect. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5You didn't mention having a phd, so no google for you!
- WaterDragon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Digg, once a great news site, has been ruined by overpopulation...much like everything else in the world.
Effectively, it is not a way of circulating stories, but -- it has become a way of just shutting down servers, obscuring stories from view.
I know...I can try duggmirror....but...isn't there a way that the digg program itself can be tweaked so that maybe some of the traffic it sends to web pages can just be automatically diverted to mirror sites?
Yes...I'm talking about eliminating the much-loved digg effect.
There...I said it.
Either that or else, present digg, not as a news site, but as a server-killer!
;-) - domomike, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I have visited the Google campus twice and I can report that this is very inaccurate. The employees there just want to have some fun during their breaks off of hard work. The employees are neither super young nor immature, I'm sure they've already grown up on their own.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@TheSiz: The bad part about working at Google? the 20 hour days 7 days a week.
The good part? You're a millionaire.
The bad part? You only have 4 hours a day to spend your money. So it all goes towards your $5000 a month mortgage on a house you never get to see. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5There will be an enronish google crash too.
- RogueAI, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Sounds like some folks are suffering a bad case of Adult Onset Super-Cereal Disease (AOSCD).
- appetite, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Look, there's relatively few barriers of entry to starting your own internet company. Google hires the best engineers so that other companies don't get those engineers. But it doesn't have to just pay more than the next big software company, it has to keep and distract those engineers from going out and creating the next company that Google has to compete with. This may be similar to other industries, but it's intensified in the internet where you can make a billion dollar company in your spare time in evenings and weekends.
Google employees enjoy the luxuries of Google so they don't think about going out and making the billions that they could.
But someone else will do it, I'm sure. - loki440, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Free (delicious) food, laundry service, even free shuttles...
oh the horror. Let's get the Labor Department to investigate this Gulag! - PantherX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Everyone that I know who works at Google is genuinely happy to be there, and most would be very upset if they ever had to go to another company and deal with the crap that most of us put up with every day.
They all know how good they have it and none of them have forgotten that. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2How many illegals are working in the laundry room, cafeteria, janitorial services... for $3.50 an hour at google?
- rowanjl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well, if the money's causing him that much pain, I'll gladly take it out of his hands...
I'll nominate him for the Sad Git award... - cynicist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"Either that or else, present digg, not as a news site, but as a server-killer!"
It wouldn't be if internet service providers would give us the bandwidth they promised
:( - plosfas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Dude, they have a ball pit?
- TheSiz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Although the article is somewhat of a sensationalized ranting, I refuse to believe that Google is as great as they want to portray that they are. Every company has its bad points. Every company has arrays of teams that do the work that no one else wants to. I think it is ignorant to believe that Google is much different.
Maybe the tone of this article was a bit overbearing but I think it is a good place to start to think about Google and how it operates.
On a less serious note, wouldn't it be awesome if Google had a room with ten tons of Legos for employees to play with? Damn, I miss my Legos. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That reminds me. I want to start a business......
but have no ideas.
Damn. - sunchild, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1No, frankly, it isn't good business. There are an awful lot of people who spend an awful lot of time and energy keeping technology "professionals" from shooting themselves in the foot (in a business sense) on a daily basis. The amount of hand-holding it requires to keep IT projects from becoming a miasma of finger-pointing and whining and open-mouthed shoulder-shrugging is obscene. The fact that the ideal job for many of these people involves being pampered and left alone in a company with no apparent business strategy other than web searching and ad banners (hello, 1998!) is telling.
On the other hand, I mentioned a few technology professionals who have built teams around themselves filled with people who are truly capable *and* creative.
You don't have to take my word for it, though. You'll see what happens when the developing world liposuctions all the fat off Silicon Valley. - unsolicited, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Employment is for those who want to 'survive' in life.
Entrepreneurship is for those who want to 'succeed' in life. - bababush, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yay for economics. well said.
- ksadya, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i don't remember saying this... but I still agree...
I must lay off the sippy cup. - erietta, on 04/15/2008, -0/+1wow how bitter. creative work places = creative employees.
- rezophonic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have long been of the opinion that growing up involves only two things: learning there's more than just yourself, and learning that you weren't all that great to begin with. Maturity has nothing to do with wearing ties, giving up daydreaming and doodling, or putting away the Legos (or perhaps, more relevantly, staying out of the ball pit).
When I first went to middle school everyone around me started worrying about things like clothes and pop music. Granted, hormones were involved, but there was also the imposed idea of a false sense of maturity. I, however, never saw the appeal of style or bad music, and, even now, continued with the belief that ninjas were the epitome of awesome, and in spite of that I feel that in seeking self improvement and doing my best to help others I've achieved a level of maturity too many people will remain unfamiliar with even until death.
So if playing in ball pits and having other people do your laundry are signs of weakness, or being 'infantilized,' then there is no man more infantile than I. But if maturity is about real values and not unfounded sociological folkways, then I shall continue striving for maturity. -
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