Google Perks Are Great, But They All Mean Business 289
megazoid81 writes "While there have been complaints of late, Google was recently named the best place to work according to the widely read annual Forbes survey, in its first appearance on the list. The plethora of perks at Google does make you wonder though what kind of hours the company expects its employees to keep. In the context of Google's perks, a Knowledge@Wharton article explains that there are two kinds of workers: segmentors and integrators. Segmentors want to maintain a strict separation between work and home while integrators don't mind mixing the two. The piece posits that segmentors might actually mind too many perks at their workplace and find their commitment eroding. Does Google have a disproportionate number of integrators in its workforce? What kind of worker are you — segmentor or integrator?"
Hate freaking buz words. (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't see why us peons would care at any rate. Managers have already made up their minds on this issue beforehand.
The thing about programming/design (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the segmentors that I have seen end up in marketing or man-management at the end, even if they might have started in core engineering because of a simple reason they do not enjoy the process.
This of course is my opinion and there are exceptions, but exceptions are rare.
Re:Too simple (Score:5, Interesting)
So I'd be a Seg/Int 60/40 split or some such
I specifically chose a house with a 30 minute commute to help with that split.
Re:Hey I know that guy (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, that's not the same at all. Segmenting your life so you don't take your work home with you, and don't drag your personal problems to the office is a very different thing from being aloof and disinterested in your co-workers (or maybe just socially awkward).
Consultants face the same life style decisions (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, transitioning from an 'integrator' to a 'separator' has been a good thing for me. People do need down time.
At the end of the day, I believe that productivity is about quality work time, not quantity.
Segmentor ....now (Score:5, Interesting)
During one calender year, I had worked over 200 unpaid hours. And, since they would have all been considered overtime hours and worth 1.5 regular hours, it totaled 300 hours' worth of lost wages. That's nearly two months worth of time!
So I quit that job after 10 years (I'm kinda a slow learner), and found a company that insists I work no more than 40 hours a week. If I am called on work more, I get to make it up later. So now I am a segmentor. Work is work, home is home, and never the twain shall meet.
I'm an integrator... (Score:3, Interesting)
I Would Like to Change (Score:3, Interesting)
Perks? (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a pause before he adds that he also enjoys the speaker series, the in-house doctor, the nutritionist, the dry cleaners and the massage service. He has not used the personal trainer, the swimming pool and the spa -- at least not yet, anyway. Nor has he commuted to and from the office on the high-tech, wi-fi equipped, bio-diesel shuttle bus that Google provides for employees, but that is only because he lives nearby and can drive without worrying about a long commute.
I'd be worried about the fact that Google has the spending habits and business plan of a late 90s dot-com. Isn't advertising something like 95% of their revenue?
Mixing work+home == "you're fired" (Score:2, Interesting)
For example, I've seen a co-worker (who was EXTREMELY talented) fired at a previous job I was at because he listened to heavy metal/goth, and during a major emergency on a Saturday night when servers melted (UPS failure), he ran into work in full club gear in order to get servers back up and running. Even though he got the servers up in an hour, he got fired a week later, not because of performance, but because his boss was a country music type of guy and didn't like anyone who didn't drive a pickup truck and attend rodeos in the first place, and him finding an underling who listened to something totally different caused him to dig up anything to fire the guy by. At the time, it wasn't a big deal, the guy just hopped to a different place and made more money, but these days with jobs being outsourced or handed to I-9 thralls, it may end up causing someone to have their next home for their family be a homeless shelter or park bench.
It seems easy to mix the two, but don't. You don't want co-workers who are potential enemies when it comes raise/promotion time to have knowledge on how to sabotage you.
Personally, I leave work and home totally separate. Even, my work car (a bland, boring vehicle that stays clean and personal-item free) is different from the car I use in other things. If asked about family or whatnot, I give a bland reply back. It sounds bad, but come raise/promotion time, issues that people can bring against me are only work-related... they can't dig up skeletons out of the rest of my daily existence to use.
Incorrect presumptions (Score:4, Interesting)
People should feel they can legitimately enjoy the perks then go home after doing an 8 hour day.
Whatever Google's real motivation is for offering free meals and transport, its pretty stupid to feel obliged to put in more hours because of them, especially if no-one has explicitly stated that they are provided in order to commit you to work more hours.
And if they ever do say that, then drive yourself and take sandwiches in.
Apart from anything else, the transport has wi-fi and if you're not driving yourself you can work on the bus. this is all extra time for Google worth more than the cost of the transport anyway. The value of the free food only amounts to maybe 15 minutes of pay at most, but you save more than that time by not going out to get food. So why should people still feel obliged to work extra time measured in hours?
My guess is Google's real motivation for offering those things is becase it differentiates the comapny and attracts hard-to-find developers to apply to work there in the first place. It has nothing to do with hours/week.
As a manager, if members of my team work continually work more than 40 hours/week when its not necessary for their workload, it gives me an indication that they're either not able to keep up or they're brown-nosers, either of which gives me reason and inclination to fire them.
Re:Keeping the flame alive (Score:2, Interesting)
When you get into your second or third month of 7 days a week 12+ hours a day with your boss asking you to see if you can 'stay late' to try to catch up on the project (wtf? later than 12 hours 7 days a week?). More employers are fine with this now than they were during the dotcom boom. Back then, they'd give you recreation time at the office. So what if you 'wasted' 2-3 hours a day if you were there >12 hours a day. You were happier, more productive and the work got done without the entire team quitting at the end of the project. When you were friends with all of your coworkers, you'd stay out of loyalty to them, not necessarily loyalty to the company. Either way, the company benefited.
Google is sucking up the high quality people who are tired of being treated as machinery. Productivity stays at a consistent level and you don't keep losing all of the high quality employees you hire.
Re:Non-issue (Score:2, Interesting)
Ironically, this is what many programmers in Silicon Valley are doing. They appear to be "working" in the sense you describe it (something you have to do to earn money that wouldn't do if you have money), but they are actually having fun, being fulfilled, and lucky them, they get paid for it. This is not unique to Google, it is silicon valley culture - this place attracts people who truly enjoy working in tech and making it their life.
I have noticed that tech workers in some other areas of the country have more of a "factory" mentality (eg 9 to 5, work is work, fun is fun), and I have also noticed that older workers sometimes lose the passion. In your case, I don't think it is either. Sounds like you are in the wrong profession and should try doing what you love, and eventually earn money for it. Read Barbara Sher if the little voice in your head scoffs at this and says this is not possible.
Re:Non-issue (Score:4, Interesting)
That workstation also holds all my music, my games, my movies, plays my DVDs, displays my photos, records my jam sessions, records my home videos, and handles all my communications with my friends and family.
My girlfriend works from home as a self-employed graphic designer/webmaster on a dualhead workstation in our living room, 5 feet away from me as I type this.
We work when we want, we rest when we want, we play when we want.
Separation is for wage slaves. If I was a slave, I'd want to forget it whenever I could too. But if you're running your own life, it's not going to happen.
Now the Googleplex... this reminds me of a cross between living on a military base and living in your parents basement.
Re:Non-issue (Score:2, Interesting)
It's not like the end of the day rolls around and I think "Gee, I'm so glad I don't have to work now!" But I still look forward to taking the time to do something else.
You're a slave when your work overcomes your personal life. For people like me, the easiest way to prevent that is to simply put the work in a box.
Shifting priorities - maybe it is growing older... (Score:3, Interesting)
I wanted to be a programmer since I was 9 years old, and after I was done school and working full time, work was my life. I'd often work from 7 am until 11 pm, and I would hang out with co-workers off hours too. Although my co-workers and I had diverse conversations, the subject easily slid into work related matters, so it seemed I never really escaped the topic of tech very often. We didn't have Google level perks, but I was having a great time, making pre-dot-com-crash cash and had almost no time to spend it.
The crash happened. I was now 30, work was my life, and "real life" was slipping by me. I had grown apart from "non-work friends", relationship with my family, and my love life suffered too. I felt like I was one dimensional, because work had taken up almost every moment of my waking life, the other interests I once had, were sitting on the shelf. I hadn't seen a live band, gone to the theatre, spent the afternoon in an art gallery, instead I was working or talking about work. Being out of work for a year gave me time to think. I remembered how much I enjoyed so many things other than IT - and took up hobbies, contacted old friends, and found a new boyfriend and by the time I found a full time job again I knew I did not want to work for any company who was offering too many perks because I knew from experience that if they give you too many perks they expect too many hours back from you.
I now separate. I show up for work at 9am and leave at 5pm. My current job does not expect constant overtime (maybe once or twice a year) and in an emergency I will check my email or VPN in - but that too is rare. My co-workers are in their 30's and 40's so they have lives too. I see them during work hours only and although I like them and enjoy working with them, they are co-workers, not friends.
I see my real friends after work and on weekends, and instead of talking about technology, we talk about independent film, politics, art, music, theatre and just about everything but computers. I don't talk about work to my friends except when I have had a busy day, I let them know it was hectic and I'd love to go out for a beer to forget it.
Despite less money and no perks, I enjoy my job just as much as my pre-dot-com-crash job, and I have a very interesting life outside of work. Both sides are fulfilling, and I now prefer both sides separate.
Re:Non-issue (Score:4, Interesting)
It's disgusting when people pretend a disease is a good thing just so that they can believe that everything in life has a purpose.
Re:The thing about programming/design (Score:3, Interesting)
Depends on what you mean by "need". Yes, an unbalanced life will eventually burn you out. But it burns out some folks sooner than others. The ones who can't handle it at all certainly don't become the coding addict type we're talking about.
Actually, I don't think that the perks they offer at Google are "designed" to do anything. Many other companies used to offer these kinds of perks (though never on such a lavish scale as Google), only to give them up when they couldn't justify the cost to their stockholders. But Google is structured so that management doesn't have to justify its expenditures to stockholders. So management, which was mostly in grad school until a few years ago, just invented the kind of workplace they wanted for themselves.
But basically, you're right, the keyboard addict lifestyle isn't good for you. If not in the short term, then certainly in the long term. Maybe Google itself is headed towards a collective burnout!