A lot of those "perks" like free food, drinks, haircuts, childcare and such are also used by Google to keep employees on campus for longer hours. You don't have to leave at 5 in order to pickup your kid from childcare or get your dry cleaning or have a meal. It's sort of half-way from/towards telecommuting and working on site. All the bennies of being at home and being able to take care of your domestic needs and none of the working in a cubicle farm and only being allowed to leave for lunch and a morning and afternoon trip to the loo. It's a great model and more American companies should move in this direction.

Most of Google's employees are happy at the work place. But after you reach 34 the jewel in your palm (you are implanted after you accept their offer) turns red and when you reach 35 it goes black. Then you get pinked.

Seriously, they are ageist and will ask if you are able and willing to work long hours and long weeks.

Prettiest sweatshop EVAR.

A. Still a cubefarm. Yech.

B. What teto85 said.

What teto85 said in the first sentence, I mean. I don't see that as a positive.

Yeah, that must suck!

So, you guys hiring?

paulseta: Yay, let's infantilize the workforce and make work your friend and primary social hub!

Huzzah!

Yes, clearly the best way to go about running a business is to make your employees feel like utter shiatstains on society's ass who should be grateful to even have a company willing to give them some form of meaning in their pitiful and worthless existence.

Having actually been on a Google campus, I must say it still looked pretty sweet. Everyone seemed to be very focused on what they were doing. There were families around. No one seemed too stressed. It was actually a very pleasant place to be in, let alone work at. And that's not counting the free beer or the fact that I was at one of the red-headed stepchildren offices either.

And yes, it was still cubicle-based, but the cubicles weren't very cubicle-y. They were very open, like there was a "privacy" barrier you could pull across the upper part of your desk. But that and all other surfaces were mostly curved, there were very few "hard" angles in the whole facility. And most workspaces were arranged in a way that facilitated collaboration. Everyone had a whiteboard for each other to write on/share messages. Every flat surface/wall space was writable. It was obvious that employees had a good deal of say in how the space was organized/what went on walls, etc.

teto85: But after you reach 34 the jewel in your palm (you are implanted after you accept their offer) turns red and when you reach 35 it goes black. Then you get pinked.

Black? Black!? Have you seen their color schemes? This is clearly fiction :)

I noticed that the employees had pants on. what is the point of working if I cant work pantsless?
seriously, the best work at home perk is the dress code

Their video arcade lacks the Addams Family pinball

teto85: A lot of those "perks" like free food, drinks, haircuts, childcare and such are also used by Google to keep employees on campus for longer hours.


The Hollywood studios and other production cos that I've worked at all have this same philosophy. I've worked at and visited places where the kitchen was always loaded with free food, everybody's in t-shirts and jeans, the atmosphere is relaxing. If there wasn't free food in the kitchen, there was usually an onsite cafe with great food so you didn't burn 20 minutes driving to and from an outside lunch spot. You take what is otherwise a tense environment with crazy deadlines and big egos and you deflate it and make the office a pleasant place to hang out. There are a few of those locations that I long to work at again, even though I'm making double now what I was then.

It also exudes a bit of "swagger" for when outsiders, like clients and investors, come to visit. They're impressed just like this writer was impressed by Google.

My currenty company doesn't grasp this concept, and so it's no surprise that everyone packs up and runs for the door at 4:55 every day.

Quantum Apostrophe: teto85: Seriously, they are ageist and will ask if you are able and willing to work long hours and long weeks.

The human body is ageist. Sorry, but after 35 you're way past your peak in mental terms. I know I am.


Yeah, total bullshiat. I'm 33 and my once aimless creativity actually has direction now, guided by the extra decade of experience that I didn't have when I first got out of college. Shiat I'm creating now is actually resonating with people, it's selling, and it's 100x better than what I was doing in my 20's. I don't see how that's going to suddenly "peak" 18 months from now. Creatively, I'm on fire in a way I couldn't imagine when I was young and ignorant.

I also have access to creative resources that I could only dream of when I was younger.

There are many other examples that I'm sure others here will point out. Steve Jobs for the last decade of his life, for starters. Dude had so many ideas, he left behind 4 more years of creative direction to be carried out after he died.

Quantum Apostrophe: Some people's peaks are higher than other's, but I'll bet he was much better when he was younger. Sorry, youth >> oldth, every time. You can delude yourself into thinking otherwise, but if you're so sharp at 45, try going back to college.


Take a quick look at some of history's greatest artists - most did their best work in middle age:

James Cameron: 32 when he did Aliens, 37 when he did T2, 55 when he did Avatar.

Spielberg - 29 before he even made his first big film (Jaws), 35 when he did Raiders, 36 when he did E.T., 47 when he made his masterpiece (Schindler's List), 52 when he did Saving Private Ryan, and so on -- again, you're saying he was better when he directing episodes of Columbo in his 20's?

Hitchcock was in his 50's when he hit his creative prime. The list of filmmakers doing their best work in middle age is a mile long.

I dated an opera singer a few years ago -- they don't even start getting real gigs until they're in their 30's.

Picaso did his most famous painting - Guernica - when he was 56. By your standards, he peaked before he even developed Cubism. Michaelangelo was 37 when he finished the Sistine Chapel - two years past that 35-year-old creative peak you posted about earlier.

Joyce was 36 before he even started writing Ulysses (40 when it was finally published). But according to you, he was better when he was in his 20's and bouncing from school to school, drinking heavily, and getting rejected by every publisher he sent his work to. Which is, of course, what most of those young people you revere do at that age.

Vonnegut was 47 when Slaughterhouse-Five was published. Faulkner was 32 before his prime years even started with The Sound and the Fury. Catch-22 - Heller was 38. Steinbeck - 37 for The Grapes of Wrath, 50 for East of Eden. Orwell - 46 when he wrote 1984. William Golding was 46 when they published his first book, a little novel called Lord of the Flies. Truman Capote - 42 for In Cold Blood.

Again, on and on and on....

I'm moving onto other things now, but food for thought.

Calmamity: What teto85 said in the first sentence, I mean. I don't see that as a positive.

I think the first time I noticed them they were telling lies about reading Palin's book like the day it came out or even before it was released. Kind of odd that they are presenting it as a positive. I have a hard time picturing anyone but the Republicans supporting a return to the days of company towns... Ah well. I am not going to dedicate that much thought to it.