Googleplex: A Second Home For Google Employees
Perks For Being A Google Employee (Prisoner)
In Silicon Valley, there is no corporate headquarters like the Googleplex. In fact, there’s probably no place like it in the entire world: a combination college campus, home away from home, and socialist commune that almost everyone has heard of but few can visit. Recently the normally secretive company allowed a Mercury News reporter and videographer to tag along on a stroll through the campus. Their tour guide wasn’t some Google newbie. It was Susan Wojcicki, whose title is vice president of ad services but who is perhaps better known as the woman whose garage was the original home for the company, and whose sister just married Google co-founder Sergey Brin.Everything about the Googleplex is designed to keep workers happy, with free services from haircuts to on-site medical care. And depending on your point of view, these legendary perks are either velvet handcuffs that promote workaholism, or examples of enlightened management for a company trying to retain people in a very competitive valley. There are just four buildings on the main campus, with overflow spilling into the rest of Mountain View. The first building is named “42” after the answer to the question, “What is the meaning to life, the universe, and everything?” It’s a joke from Douglas Adams’ sci-fi farce novel “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”There are parking attendants to manage the amount of visitors and enforce freeloaders trying to sneak in for free food in the cafeteria. Wojcicki walked us over to Charlie’s Cafe, (named after Google’s first chef, Charlie Ayers) the main cafeteria with gourmet food of all kinds. It’s a busy place at lunch, making it harder to hear her describe the reason that the food is free. There are stations for sandwiches, sushi, Mexican, Indian and other foods. Google employees are known for gaining weight in their first year, but a lot of the food is healthy, low-fat and organic. Even the ice cream is specially made with Google-branded plastic wrappers because it has been custom-made with no trans-fats. “We need to be able to work as much as we need to without going hungry,” Wojcicki said. “The business logic behind all of the services is to enable people to be more productive.” Google won’t disclose how much it spends on all the perks. The Google founders came from academia and they wanted a university setting. That means casual rules, lots of eager young thinkers, and benefits that keep employees loyal.
Shuttle buses arrive periodically to bring employees from San Francisco and other places, gratis. Besides free food, Google employees get a host of on-site benefits, some subsidized and some free, that keep them happy at work and able to work long hours. They can do their laundry, take showers, go to the gym, play volleyball, get massages, leave the kids with the free child care, and even visit doctors. The cost of keeping the doctors there, Wojcicki said, is offset by the prevention of costly medical problems. Pets are welcomed to work, free personal training is offered, what else could make you want to work longer hours? .
