

Google's new culture: Perks are out. Being grateful you have a job is in - pakafka
http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091007/google-says-googles-perks-are-overrated-and-belt-tightening-is-underrated/

======
ulf
Some day people will look back and pinpoint that the day the free snacks were
taken away was the day that Google started to be just like every other
company...

~~~
steve19
This will bite them in the ass.

Wages are rarely a source of satisfaction in a job. Employees consider them
simply the fair exchange for their time.

The perks on the job and the company culture count for much more. I suspect
that is everyone was given a 5% paycut, but the perks kept, they would be
happier than they are now.

(I refer in general to all employees - not just the engineers)

~~~
arithmetic
Agree. "Just be happy that you're getting paid" is not an acceptable culture -
petty things like snacks and freebies count.

~~~
axod
As long as the perks are done well :)

eg "Wear a Hawaiian shirt to work day" != perk

~~~
white_eskimo
I don't know if you were making a direct reference to Salesforce.com's
"Employees have fun in the office, participating in foundation/volunteer
activities with their peers and wearing Hawaiian shirts on Aloha Fridays."
(<http://www.salesforce.com/company/careers/culture/>)

I consider the whole Hawaiian shirt thing to be a "gateway" perk. If the
company promotes wearing fun attire, then you can be sure to expect other more
exciting perks. I don't know of any Silicon Valley software companies that
advertise Hawaiian shirts as their one and only perk...

I also think Salesforce.com's volunteering perk is very enjoyable and
worthwhile. You essentially get paid to do a workday of community service each
month. Didn't sound very exciting or interesting at first, but it turned out
to be extremely rewarding. I'd love to see more software companies adopting
similar programs and following suit.

~~~
gonzopancho
I think it was an Office Space reference.

~~~
axod
It was. I didn't know anywhere actually did it :/

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JCThoughtscream
Article's rather disingenuous. Google's perks list is still Extensive -
trimming services out of fiscal concern isn't the same thing as switching to a
minimalistic "be glad we give you anything at all" approach.

And how much of it's just PR from Schmidt to avoid looking like they're out of
touch with the current economic situation?

~~~
cdibona
We did rework the micro-kitchens, but there's still some solidly awesome junk
food there. (pocky!)

~~~
JCThoughtscream
And there you have it. Given that Pocky is decidedly overpriced and overhyped,
the fact that Google's serving it is proof that they're still perk-happy!

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plinkplonk
"we decided to, for example, we significantly cut down all the snacks that had
been available. [laughter]"

Sounds more like a joke to me. Are google perks like the gourmet food really
being cut? (I heard about the child care changes. It sounded like a reasonable
change to me but not being a Googler I wouldn't know and the details are
hazy).

The head line seems sensationalistic and gives the impression that the folks
at the top have made a actual decision to move more towards a "grey
corporation".

I had also assumed(wrongly?) that the layoffs got rid of some dubious people
who were hired. I personally know some not so great people who somehow got
hired.

Do any quotes or facts bear this out? The linked article _seemed_ hyperbolic
and twisting some quotes out of proportion. I sthere any difference "on the
ground"? People don't get free food now? Sounds insane!

~~~
blinks
Well, I'm still getting free food up here in Google Kirkland, and it's great.
The article seemed pretty odd to me, too.

~~~
plinkplonk
Yes so _what_ perks are being cut exactly? The article is vague about that.

~~~
nostrademons
Tea time has gone the way of the dinosaur. (Well, technically not, since the
dinosaur is still standing out in the courtyard, but tea time is just gone,
but you know what I mean.)

Also, Charlie's Cafe now serves hamburgers and fries. Rumor has it that when
Charlie was here, he banned the use of ketchup as a disincentive to the
serving of foods that require it. Googlers are better than that!

~~~
cdibona
No, Charlie actually wasn't into French Fries. They were quite rare. Even now,
Fries are kind of a treat.

------
tptacek
After this, re-read:

[http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/09/good-agile-bad-
agile...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/09/good-agile-bad-
agile_27.html)

Start at the text "(cue happy rat)".

~~~
NathanKP
People are going to look back on those as the good days. Thanks for sharing
that link.

------
_fool
interestingly, google's offered pay rates for system administrators when
they've tried to recruit me have been industry standard--for Austin, TX. but
the jobs were in silicon valley. maybe other roles have higher pay scales, but
i turned them down because i didn't think they were paying well, and i am only
used to salaries from state jobs, which have tended to be very nearly median
for the industry.

last time they tried to recruit me was 3-4 years ago. perhaps they've changed.
but it held true for at least 4 years before that as well.

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igorlev
Maybe perks don't really scale so well.

It's surprising that he said the pay is very good, I was the impression people
took paycuts for the google priviledge.

~~~
tigerthink
<http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Salaries-E9079.htm>

Looks pretty good to me.

------
ShabbyDoo
The risk of instituting a new perk isn't the cost over the first N months --
it's the impact on morale, PR, etc. if you ever decide to take it away.
Restaurants have "special pricing promotions" to set the expectation that the
"lower price" perk won't be around forever (and to motivate people by through
the creation of temporal scarcity). During the perk period, the restaurant
gets more people in the door by offering a better deal. Google's perk cycle is
opposite that of a restaurant. During good times, they have to make working
there really attractive. But, right now, they don't have to give away so much,
so they can scale back. The problem is that the expectation was explicitly set
high (think about the IPO owner's manual).

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ajju
Definitely a bit of sensationalism going on with that headline even though it
uses some of the words Schmidt did.

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robk
My favorite shark-jump moment was when someone in HR sent out a blast email
announcing a new HR initiative for a "wear pajamas to work day" highlighting
Google culture. When HR has to manufacture culture and call it a perk, things
are on their way downhill...

~~~
albemuth
On a previous company they had "wear slippers day" and a couple of times the
HR staff went around the office <b>selling</b> snacks...

~~~
stcredzero
A previous software company I worked for had its offices in what used to be
nun's quarters. The rooms were small for living space, but very nice for an
office, I hear. Apparently, the founder/CEO let the nuns come around once a
year and talk to the employees about issues like their "salvation."

------
arithmetic
I'm surprised people thought the perks would last. Every company goes through
that phase, where employees are showered with perks (of bizarre variety -
everything from free laundry to day care for kids to free pop soda). The
company either grows to the point where many of the perks are no longer
sustainable (employees grow older, have kids -> company spends a LOT more on
day care etc.), and/or hits an economic recession where belts need to be
tightened. These things don't last. The stuff that lasts are the quality of
the people, the culture of the employees (and hence the company) and the
products that they ship.

~~~
Sthorpe
I disagree. I think the perks would have continued if it wasn't for the down
encon.

~~~
WalkingDead
Parent said that economy will go down at some point no matter what. Which is
why perks don't last. That's only one of the many reasons.

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mildweed
They had better not get rid of that 20% of your time on a pet project perk.
That is an inherent strategic advantage.

~~~
falsestprophet
A lot of Googlers report 20% time is a bit of myth, because many engineers end
up struggling more than 100% time to deliver their principle project.

~~~
plinkplonk
"A lot of Googler reports 20% time is a bit of myth,"

I thought it could be accumulated and taken at at a stretch.

~~~
stcredzero
I used to do that at my _old_ company! And it was definitely an _old_ company!

~~~
CamperBob
Hewlett-Packard?

~~~
stcredzero
That level of old, but not HP. It was actually the first company to exist off
of 100% _software_ sales/licensing revenue. (Not hardware sales, with
accompanying software, like IBM in those days.)

~~~
blasdel
SPSS?

------
beilabs
This is probably a much more balanced article about the current state of
Google.

[http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091007/live-from-new-
york-...](http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20091007/live-from-new-york-google-
cofounder-sergey-brin-meets-the-press/)

To be honest, the child-care cuts were on the cards for over a year. Having
less of a choice when it comes to food is only natural, I can only imagine the
amount of wasted food that was produced every day...

------
wglb
The headline is quite unfair to the article's content and to what schmidt and
Sergey actually say.

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dimas
Google provide better perks then most of the companies out there. Have to
admit that all perks they provide make you feel more like being a start up by
offering you chose of projects, freedom of actions and creative expression and
corresponding intensives. It might be a perfect place for the once who love
start up culture and want to create new things without corporate pressure but
are willing to sacrifice true perks of starting one for stability and relative
luck of risk. I still would go for perks of own start up that Google can not
provide me.

------
wildjim
[http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/18/why-google-employees-
qu...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/18/why-google-employees-quit/)

It's basically very accurate.

------
mpk
Perks are a really bad way of measuring the workplace.

Me, I wake up on Monday morning and think 'cool, there's work to do!' - and
most of my coworkers feel the same way.

For me, that's the measure of a good job.

------
brown9-2
The worker bees must be thrilled to hear this

 _The tightening that [CFO] Patrick [Pichette] in particular did, who I think
is the current Google hero_

~~~
mvgoogler
The free snacks, drinks, food are most definitely NOT gone. Have there been
some cut-backs? Sure. So now the perks are merely incredible instead of
ridiculous-verging-on-embarassingly-good.

So yeah, the micro-kitchens now have ~75 types of snacks instead of 100+ and
we are now limited to 40-ish types of free drinks in the cooler instead of
twice that. And now we drink filtered water instead of Smart-Water. Life is
hard ;-)

Also there are still fresh-made sandwiches, sushi and salads delivered to the
kitchen every day and I can still walk to one of the dozen-plus cafes and get
three hot meals, prepared fresh each day by talented chefs.

Oh - the article neglected to mention the fact that Patrick's cost-cutting
measured resulted in the annual bonus being paid out at over 100% this year,
instead of the much lower amount that we were on target for before he showed
up. So yeah - I would say a lot of people would consider Patrick to be a bit
of a hero.

~~~
nikolayv
Would have to strongly disagree on the snacks. In 47, our snacks disappear
very quickly, and there's definitely not 75 different types. There's maybe 10.
Tech Stops have disappeared, they run out of bikes for interns, don't even get
me started on how crowded the gyms have become, it's definitely worse than
before. Perhaps I'm bitter because I got no annual bonus as an intern :)

------
Sthorpe
I don't see the attraction to working for Google. Unless they buy my company.
o.O

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ahoyhere
Umm... nobody talking about the social contract aspect of this?

Salary is soon forgotten, once it's regular, if you're not focused on it all
the time.

But when a company provides so many perks, people feel like it's out of a
social contract. Company X is my friend, Company X gives me free stuff, gives
me time to work on my own things, takes me on vacations. I don't just work
here for a salary -- look at this, they really treat us right. They care. They
know that we are addicted to Pocky / need childcare / are too into working to
drive out of Mtn View and find a burger.

Take them away and it's like your friend just revealed that they were only
into you for your money. Or to find a way to get to your sister.

People feel betrayed.

Betrayal is a nasty, nasty feeling that leads people to do backlashy things.

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jawngee
Totally didn't see that coming _cough_ bubble one _cough_

------
alexgartrell
The perks were meant to keep people in, to keep them working. I think it's a
good thing that they're cutting this crap out.

That said, having worked as an intern at a place where they decided to get rid
of free soda makes me positive that I won't do that again, though. IMHO, it's
a "screw you" to developers.

