3 ms·

Switching jobs just for free food would indeed be a bad idea. Gourmet, incredibly delicious food every day is pretty significant. It really brightens your day.

by neilk 17y ago

Switching jobs just for free food would indeed be a bad idea. Gourmet, incredibly delicious food every day is pretty significant. It really brightens your day. Google's cafeterias, if they were not just for Googlers, would easily be among the best restaurants on the peninsula. The reality: it's way too easy to overindulge, and over time, it's less that they're giving you food and more like they're taking away your independence. As for your other point, it's good to have a variety in your career -- sometimes, be the smartest guy in the room, other times, the dumbest. At Google, sometimes you find youself in a group of brilliant but egoless developers who rapidly come to a consensus based on fact and experiment. And the other half of the time, you will be in a room of people who all think they are the smartest person there and spend all day picking apart the proposals of their colleagues.

evgen 17y ago
> Google's cafeterias, if they were not just for Googlers, would easily be among the best restaurants on the peninsula. You need to get out more. Having sampled the wares at Google I can assure you that a wider variety of better food is available within a 30 minute drive of the googleplex if you were actually hungry for a good meal (perhaps not for lunch, but definitely for dinner.) Jeez, you are a 5 minute drive from Chez TJ and you would dare to make a statement like that? :)
- neilk 17y ago
  You have a point, but I meant that mostly as condemnation of the rest of the peninsula, which is a cultural wasteland. I do get out more, but it's in SF. I've had pretty fancy meals here and there in the peninsula and South Bay but the experience was that we paid a lot for well-plated tiny morsels. Never been to this Chez TJ but from the website I suspect it's something like that. I used to live in Vancouver and there were far more options for interesting, delicious, satisfying food, and you didn't have to be a millionaire to afford it. It's always mystified me why the valley is so bland, given the amount of money available. I wonder if the valley literally attracts blandness. I've had Indian engineers recommend Amber India to me, which is sweetened de-spiced Indian cuisine, about as authentic as "American" Chinese food. Of course I've had way better meals that Google's cafeterias. But if you compare Google to the fare that's available to a person of reasonable means in downtown Mountain View for breakfast or lunch, Google does very well. Or at least they used to (I have not been there since 2006).
  - evgen 17y ago
    > It's always mystified me why the valley is so bland, given the amount of money available. I wonder if the valley literally attracts blandness. I've had Indian engineers recommend Amber India to me, which is sweetened de-spiced Indian cuisine, about as authentic as "American" Chinese food. Strange. I have had Amber recommended to me by people visiting from India, first and second-generation Indian-Americans, English ex-pats from London (whose home town has the best Indian restaurants in the world) and by just about every guidebook, rating service, and newspaper review that has covered them. The outlier here is you.
nostrademons 17y ago
"Google's cafeterias, if they were not just for Googlers, would easily be among the best restaurants on the peninsula." If you know a Googler - and most people in the Bay Area do - they can bring you in as a visitor. I've taken both my roommates to dinner, and am taking my sister and her boyfriend to lunch next week. Many of my non-Googler friends here have already had at least one meal at the Googleplex. I agree with the sibling poster though - it's really nothing special compared to some of the restaurants in the area. Yeah, for free food it's great, but if you're willing to pay for restaurant food, you can get way better.

by neilk 17y ago

evgen 17y ago

> Google's cafeterias, if they were not just for Googlers, would easily be among the best restaurants on the peninsula. You need to get out more. Having sampled the wares at Google I can assure you that a wider variety of better food is available within a 30 minute drive of the googleplex if you were actually hungry for a good meal (perhaps not for lunch, but definitely for dinner.) Jeez, you are a 5 minute drive from Chez TJ and you would dare to make a statement like that? :)

neilk 17y ago
You have a point, but I meant that mostly as condemnation of the rest of the peninsula, which is a cultural wasteland. I do get out more, but it's in SF. I've had pretty fancy meals here and there in the peninsula and South Bay but the experience was that we paid a lot for well-plated tiny morsels. Never been to this Chez TJ but from the website I suspect it's something like that. I used to live in Vancouver and there were far more options for interesting, delicious, satisfying food, and you didn't have to be a millionaire to afford it. It's always mystified me why the valley is so bland, given the amount of money available. I wonder if the valley literally attracts blandness. I've had Indian engineers recommend Amber India to me, which is sweetened de-spiced Indian cuisine, about as authentic as "American" Chinese food. Of course I've had way better meals that Google's cafeterias. But if you compare Google to the fare that's available to a person of reasonable means in downtown Mountain View for breakfast or lunch, Google does very well. Or at least they used to (I have not been there since 2006).
- evgen 17y ago
  > It's always mystified me why the valley is so bland, given the amount of money available. I wonder if the valley literally attracts blandness. I've had Indian engineers recommend Amber India to me, which is sweetened de-spiced Indian cuisine, about as authentic as "American" Chinese food. Strange. I have had Amber recommended to me by people visiting from India, first and second-generation Indian-Americans, English ex-pats from London (whose home town has the best Indian restaurants in the world) and by just about every guidebook, rating service, and newspaper review that has covered them. The outlier here is you.

nostrademons 17y ago

"Google's cafeterias, if they were not just for Googlers, would easily be among the best restaurants on the peninsula." If you know a Googler - and most people in the Bay Area do - they can bring you in as a visitor. I've taken both my roommates to dinner, and am taking my sister and her boyfriend to lunch next week. Many of my non-Googler friends here have already had at least one meal at the Googleplex. I agree with the sibling poster though - it's really nothing special compared to some of the restaurants in the area. Yeah, for free food it's great, but if you're willing to pay for restaurant food, you can get way better.