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I'm an Xoogler, and I have to say: Google does all kinds of stupid and annoying things which are horribly counter-productive. They way they gamified travel was

I'm an Xoogler, and I have to say: Google does all kinds of stupid and annoying things which are horribly counter-productive. They way they gamified travel was a HUGE waste of time. We had a travel system which required you to come in at the average price of past trips for a trip you're taking (or get VP approval). You could "bank" any $$ you saved if you came in below average. No matter what you did, you had to waste time. You either booked a trip in minutes and likely had to get VP approval for going over the cap, or you set up travel alerts and wound up wasting hours to days booking travel. Did they really intend for engineers making at least $250k in total comp to spend hours booking travel? I doubt it, but that's what happens. And don't even get me started on REWS ("real estate and workplace services") converting cubed workspaces to tables, while bragging about the open concept micro kitches, waterfalls, and eco walls in public building spaces. We got a regular REWS newsletter about new buildings, and the focus was on the nice public spaces, while never mentioning the spaces where we spent 90% of our time doing actual work. And those spaces kept getting worse and worse.

mleonhard 5y ago
In SFO-SPE (345 Spear St), REWS took away the walls and merged the little offices into one giant open-plan acoustic hellscape. Concrete walkways ensure that every person with wooden-soled shoes will disturb 50 engineers every time they walk to a meeting/cafe/microkitchen/restroom (clop-clop-clop-clop-clop). REWS made themselves a quiet walled office for themselves on the top floor. Google is a dysfunctional organization. The day I joined Google was the best day of my life. A few years later, the day I left Google was the new best day of my life. I have photos from both days, with big smiles. Google's dysfunction is Larry & Sergey's fault. They control the board. They refuse to put in a CEO who will fix the incentive structure to make Googlers focus on users.
- drewg123 5y ago
  Shortly after I left, they moved my team from Plymouth Rd (on the main campus) to a new building in Santa Clara. The old setup had high-walled cubes with 6 people per cube (which is objectively horrific, but good by Google standards). The new setup was a large room with nothing but tables and hard surfaces. Worse, the new location was off the main campus, away from every single other group we collaborated with (and away from all the good food, activities, etc). After the move, most of my group either left or retired.

mleonhard 5y ago

In SFO-SPE (345 Spear St), REWS took away the walls and merged the little offices into one giant open-plan acoustic hellscape. Concrete walkways ensure that every person with wooden-soled shoes will disturb 50 engineers every time they walk to a meeting/cafe/microkitchen/restroom (clop-clop-clop-clop-clop). REWS made themselves a quiet walled office for themselves on the top floor. Google is a dysfunctional organization. The day I joined Google was the best day of my life. A few years later, the day I left Google was the new best day of my life. I have photos from both days, with big smiles. Google's dysfunction is Larry & Sergey's fault. They control the board. They refuse to put in a CEO who will fix the incentive structure to make Googlers focus on users.

drewg123 5y ago
Shortly after I left, they moved my team from Plymouth Rd (on the main campus) to a new building in Santa Clara. The old setup had high-walled cubes with 6 people per cube (which is objectively horrific, but good by Google standards). The new setup was a large room with nothing but tables and hard surfaces. Worse, the new location was off the main campus, away from every single other group we collaborated with (and away from all the good food, activities, etc). After the move, most of my group either left or retired.