In "Elsewhere, USA" a non-fiction book about changes in American society in the last 50 years, writer Dalton Conley talks about his visit to Google headquarters. This excerpt from an article in Smithsonian Magazine from an interview with Conley captures the flavor of the place:
"What did your field trip to the Google headquarters teach you?
They were really ahead of the curve in terms of making their work environment very homey. They provide everything a 1950s housewife would have provided. Do your laundry. Give you a massage. Great food for free. At first glance it seems like a very expensive strategy, but I think it’s brilliant. People don’t want to go home. There’s a volleyball court and board games around. It feels like a college campus. And Google gets more out of each worker.
You mentioned the urinals at Google.
In English or Irish pubs they pin the sports pages over men’s urinals so you can read while relieving yourself. At Google they put up coding advice. It felt a little 1984."
A New York Times July 5, 2008 front page story describes how Google doubled the cost of on site day care at their headquarters:
"Parents who had been paying $1,425 a month for infant care would see their costs rise to nearly $2,500 -- well above the market rate. For parents with toddlers and preschoolers, who were charged less, the price increases were equally eye-popping. Under the new plan, parents with two kids in Google day care would most likely see their annual day care bill grow to more than $57,000 from around $33,000."
"Google co-founder Sergey Brin said he had no sympathy for the parents, and that he was tired of ''Googlers'' who felt entitled to perks like ''bottled water and M&Ms,'' according to several people in the meeting. (A Google spokesman denies that Mr. Brin made that comment.) On Monday, Google began the first phase of its new day care plan, letting go of the outside day care firm it had been using."
Google is a company, out to make money. They would like to replace libraries with fee based access to information. We would do well to spend some of our time learning about ways to search for information that do not leave us completely dependent on one monopolistic search engine.
No comments:
Post a Comment